w i n t e r
I licked the corner of my mouth. My lower lip was already becoming tender and I'd just picked myself up off the sidewalk. It was 8:52PM. I tenderly blotted my mouth on my leather jacket. I wasn't far from Tate, a cold beer and a washroom. I've cleaned up in the washroom of Friar's plenty of times. Shit, how many times? How many times have I pulled that old cloth towel from the rack and said, "Thanks Sue."
Too many.
I always get into trouble. I won't give. Ever. It would be a lot easier to give sometimes, but to be honest I rather like having Sue bag some ice for me and toss it over the counter. Sometimes if it's slow, like tonight, we'll go outback for a smoke. That's what I really like. Sitting there with a bag of ice under my chin, a smoke dangling from my mouth and mumbling through the fresh split in my lip. I like her sitting there next to me, knees together, looking out into sky and playing with her hair.
Hell, sometimes I'd like to hit myself for that.
Tonight her daughter is there. She must be 3 or 4, fire engine red hair and blue eyes. Every time I see Sue's daughter she's wearing overalls. And two different shoes, blue and green. Damn little shoes, usually trailing one lace if not both.
I clean up, grab a flip-top out of the cooler and head for the back alley. I slide the metal bar to the right and push open the door. The air feels good and I sit, shaking a Camel out of the hardpack. I hear little footsteps behind me and a second later a small tug on my ear.
"What is it Red?" I always call Sue's daughter Red.
"Ice cream is better than boys."
"Now who taught you that?" I could picture Sue smiling and that was the best of it all, her smile. Even if I couldn't really see it I could imagine it being there. Sometimes it is all that pulls me through. Sometimes that's all there is.
"Ice cream is better than boys," she almost spits it at me this time.
"You know Red, tonight, I couldn't agree with you more." But she's already gone.
It takes so little to bring me down from the rush. So much goes on right around here. Tricks being played out down by Twiggy's. Pushing vials out behind the Weatherspoon. Needles in the alley behind Aitch's. The homeless in Spring Garden Park. And it's more than the drugs and the homeless, hell, they're the ugly to the frame holding all this shit together. In-between you've got the folks nobody even notices at all. The college kids, the punks, the goths, the scared looking couples leaving Aycock Auditorium after some overpriced theater production. Sometimes from the way this street looks you'd think it was actually a city. And it takes so little to close all that off. One little girl. Hmmm.
One little girl.
goodnight 12.09.98