The rumbling whirr of a single street-sweeper grew ever more loudly. Twin light beams shone unsteadily through the steam of the moistened avenue’s blacktop.

Amber-colored flashes reflected off the windows of a closed, corner clothing-store. There, standing before the sweating glass was a solitary silhouette of a man all but obscured by the scratched plastic panels of a dilapidated phone booth.

“Hey, Penny. How are ya, sweetheart?”

“Jack, where are you? What’s going on?”

Her sultry, synthesized voice flowed from the handset on his blistered ear and into his calloused heart. She pried him for his location with her admiration. She told him she loved him; he felt it an underrated fact. But tonight, her voice said she needed to talk to him. He knew he needed her too; or at least he needed her car.

“First Avenue and Main!” He barked quickly as the street cleaning truck passed. “Sweetheart, I gotta go!”

The receiver he left dangling; his mind hanging on a question:

Who sweep streets right after the rain?