On Davis Row

by N.R. Walker

He put a cigarette between his lips and I was transfixed. Smoking was a filthy habit, but I’d never wanted to be a cigarette so much in my life.

“Why would I be mad at you?” he whispered. “Maryanne, the lady who runs the drugs and alcohol meetings, assumed I’d got in a fight. I keep tellin’ her I don’t take drugs or really even drink, but I can see she don’t believe me. She thinks I’m good for nothing. I can see it in the way she looks at me. Same with the people on the bus. They see my beat-up face and assume I’m some troublemaker. But I don’t do nothin’ wrong. I try, every day, to be a good person. To help out and take care of Pops, ya know? I don’t ask for nothin’. I don’t have anything and I don’t blame the world for that. I don’t think nobody owes me a goddamn thing. I’m just trying to get through each fucking day.”