hb.i

He pulled the cigarette he’d bummed from Keith away from his ear where he’d
been carrying it and parted his lips. The cigarette took its natural place in
his mouth as though it had always been there and would always be. He imagined
he could still smell that crisp tobacco scent that rose off cigarettes when
they were fresh and unlit, but his sense of smell was long weakened by smoking
and pollution and age, so it was more a memory of scent than the scent itself.
He breathed the wisp of memory deeply, nonetheless, and watched the mouth of
the alleyway while he rooted around in his pockets for a match.

He watched a car turn into the alley from the street. He had no idea
what kind of car it was. He knew nothing about cars. It looked nice, though, and
the driver looked like a suit from one of the skyscrapers that started two
avenues down and three streets over. He watched it approach him and regretted
that he’d taken a piss before coming out here. The suit was going to stop.

He lit his cigarette with one of the matches in his match book, actually
did smell the flare of sulphur as the match caught, took a deep drag to initiate
his smoke break, and watched the suit press a button that lowered the driver’s
side window.

“Do you know how to get to the Ingleton Med Center?”
the suit asked.

He blew out a stream of smoke and shook his head, “No.”
There was no need to speak.

“I’ve got these directions and they said to turn left
at 3rd,” the suit continued. “But now I’m lost and ….”

He dropped the head shake and threw the suit a shrug.

“You have no idea?”

He took another drag of his cigarette in answer, a
long drag, a deep one that filled his lungs with soothing nicotine and tar,
then he simply closed his eyes and held them closed through his exhale and
after his exhale.

“What a prick,” he heard the suit mutter quietly, then
he heard the mechanical window humming its way closed, then he heard the car
drive away down the alley. He kept his eyes closed and listened to the alleyway
while he smoked. Buildings exhaling their toxic breath like his lungs exhaling
second hand smoke. The buzzing streets at either end of the alleyway. A skitter
of rats under garbage bins and in foundation cracks. The shifting of decay in
everything.

He found peace in all that inevitable movement of the
city.

He took the last drag,
opened his eyes, flicked his butt onto the gravel strewn alley asphalt, turned
on his heels and went back into the restaurant to relieve Keith.