The Twilight of the Bums by Raymond Federman, George Chambers

ANGELS
    One snowy day the bums went out rabbit hunting with their friends. A fresh fall of snow on the already snowy icy ground being perfect for tracking the little hoppers, wild game makes a delicious winter stew.
    Having, at their age, seen quite enough of hunting and killing, but still feeling sociable, the bums went happily along, but soon fell so far behind the main hunting party as to lose sight of the pertinacious hunters, their only evidence being the tracks the bums followed, tracks quickly disappearing in the fresh fall.
    From time to time they could hear far ahead the blast of shotguns, but these reports were muffled by the distance and the snowfall. The two old men trudged on silently, each absorbed in his own reflections, disturbed only by the blasts of the 12 gauges.
    Bum one quietly asked the other: Do you suppose we are in any jeopardy? The main party might circle back and in this low visibility mistake us for hares?
    The other considered this, then responded by taking off one glove and creating the image of a rabbit with his fingers, of the sort one made shadow figures on a wall, way back in childhood.

    Then they trudged on, the snow now at a full, deliberate, serious fall, and a wind beginning to herd the snow into drifts. Suddenly a blast sounded, too close for comfort, and one of the bums dropped to the snow -- I am shot shot , he shouted.
    Prostrate on his back, in the attitude of death, the one who fell extended his arms sideways in the snow and began to plow it back and forth. With his legs he did likewise.
    Are you dying? asked the other, kneeling by his side.
    Not yet, was the reply.
    What are you doing then?
    I am making angels. Go ahead, you too.
    The other bum followed suit. He dropped on his back and began to plow the snow back and forth, his arms stiff, his legs stiff, to make a deep secure impression on the snowpack.
    This is the sight the hunting party came upon shortly thereafter, their bloodied kill dripping from the baggy game pockets of their shooting jackets.
    What a fine rabbit stew to eat that night around the fresh fire in the hunting lodge, and what great stories to tell about the brave hunters, about the game missed, and the game found, and about the two old guys making angels in the snow.
    The two angels … no, the two old bums -- what are we thinking about -- seated side by side, at the head of the table befitting their status, made the first toast, as was their right and privilege: May this day remind us forever of that which passes. May it remind us, as long as it needs to, of angels, and rabbits .

ON THE RIVER BANK (2)
    One day the two old friends were sitting on a river bank lost in thought in the muddy flow. Friend One was thinking about the water rushing so playfully before him. Plötzlich he turned to Friend Two and said: Isn’t it interesting how one can dip a pail in the river just anywhere and it will always come up full of the same water and yet each time the nature of the water is different according to the circumstance of the moment?
    Two gazed at his old Kumpel , considered him up and down minutely, as a tailor measures one for a suit, then plötzlich , with no warning, he tossed One in the river, clothes and all, shoes and all, and started shouting obscure slogans by a Marxist philosopher. Whereupon, plötzlich , Two grabbed One’s ankle and flipped him into the drink, shouting antisemitic curses he learned in school as part of his cultural heritage.

ANOTHER DOZEN OF OUR BUMS’ REFLECTIONS ON FRIENDSHIP
    1.     Friendship knows no gender.
    2.     One can go fucking with a friend, but friends do not fuck.
    3.     One cannot fuck a friend, but one can fuck around with a friend.
    4.     Marriages are established on the basis of similarities, friendships on the basis of differences.
    5.     Love dies; friendship begins.
    6.     On sait jamais, say the French,