:: i like my roof. ::

:: Thursday, February 24, 2005 ::

Hudson Williams-Eynon

“Every fucking day, man.” Outside the bar, the subject of our conversation stands in the doorway of the bar, hunched over a bit as he lights his cigarette. He straightens, but doesn’t lean against the wall.

It’s twelve noon, and I’m standing with my friend Max on his stoop, smoking. “Every fucking day I swear to God he goes into that damn bar.” I pop an Advil into my mouth, take a sip of my coffee and drag on my cigarette. This is the only cure I know for a hangover, though I’ve heard that a bit of what you were drinking the night before works too. “Maybe that’s why he’s always there,” I say. “Maybe he just comes in for a little drink to help him with his headache, and he just can’t find the way out until he’s all the way slammed again.”

Max laughs, and spits. Across the street, the man spits too, and looks up and down the block. He doesn’t seem to recognize anyone he sees, but he still steps back a bit, rubbing the back of his neck, all his weight on one leg at a time.

Once I asked him for a cigarette, when my pack was empty. He asked me how old I was, and told me I was too young. I slapped the cigarette out of his hand, and said he sure as hell wasn’t setting any kind of example anyway, drinking at this time of day. He looked back into the bar, and then at the ground, and stuck his hands into the pockets of his varsity-style FDNY jacket. I looked at the ground too, at his cigarette lying where it’d fallen. I picked it up and gave it back to him. “Sorry.”

“Guess you’re right,” he said, and gave me a cigarette before he went back into the bar. I looked at the cigarette, and then ran all the way to my stoop before I lit it.

“It’s so true though,” Max says. “I do see that dude across the street every day.”

:: 2:49 AM [+] ::
...