Slack jaw, middle of a suicide, in that part of town, poor man's place to die, to be found, gun by the side, clenched in his hand, bottle of Jack nearby.
Where were the medics?
Nobody wanted to come to this part of town, if only he had died on the west side, the rich man's section of middle town USA, where each place had a pool to drown.
I was sitting on the sidewalk, watching the world go bye.
Or maybe by.
There was a bag in my hand, paint fume, huffing my cares away, killing my brain one cell at a time.
We had guns; or access to them, it was easier to get gun than it was food stamps.
Mary Anne stood outside the bus depot, selling her soul one hour at a time, later on, she'd stop by and see me.
"Can I have a puff?" she'd ask as I passed the bag to her.
We'd do harder drugs if we could get our hands on them, sitting there till midnight, one o clock, passing the time staring into the sky, watching the stars flash across the sky.
I had a place; an abandoned building over on Fifth street, where, if we could stand, we'd make our way to, crash hard onto the shit stained mattress on the floor.
We'd awake before noon to restart the whole process.
Back to the street grind, to find ourselves, to lose our soul, one brain cell at a time.
Sometimes a reporter from the local news would make his or her way "Down to the street" to see how the other half lived, those forgotten people, the street people; insane, driving away, ready to die on a call, whatever.
One showed up one day; Cindee, she was new, trying to make her face the answer to whatever.
"How long have you been on the street?" she asked me.
"Forever!!" I said, nodding, taking a huff off of my bag.
My mind was still there.
Jack, the local insane poet, laughed.
"We were fucking born here!!" he said, patting the ground, "Our mother, the fucking Goddess of Huff!! Like a hit? For a good lead into your story?'
She smiled and politely declined and moved on, to more saner grounds.
"Bitch didn't even ask me what my turn ons were!!" Mary pouted.
We all laughed.
We were like tears in the rain, washed away, never to be seen, if we were even there, washed away from existence.
But here we still laid, a shade of our former self, lost in our ways, but still here.
