The smoke sat in his mouth unlit because it was too windy to light the stupid thing.
It was almost too windy to walk at all,especially through the damn construction at the end of the street, sewer pipes and new curbs and sidewalks and the saints and sinners knew what the hell else.
Arlen had a bout of diarrhea that kept him from letting the rum wash away the shakes at Harrow’s at his planned, daily entrance.
He didn’t keep any rum in the house now because Doctor Fawaz told him that booze was off limits forever, and not drinking at home was the best he could do.
Without rum and Diets and shuffleboard at Harrows, he might as well die anyway.
They had laid fresh cement on the north sidewalk, that was progress, but it meant Arlen would have to walk slightly farther out of his way to get to Harrow’s.
Two girls cut down Waffan toward him.
The wind had blown the flimsy caution tape from the plywood spikes surrounding the fresh cement.
The girls walked toward it.
They were Middle Eastern, Arlen knew that from a distance, the rule rather than the exception in this neighborhood. They were old enough to know better than to walk in wet cement, at least he thought. He wondered if they understood English.
They walked as if they didn’t notice the cement.
Arlen was huddled into his old Local 235 hoodie, shaky.
He knew the crew, now gone for the day, had worked hard laying that cement.
He looked at the girls again.
Something struck him, and he shuddered, more than just the shakes.
One of the girls was beautiful, onyx hair so thick the wind slapped it rather than blew it, eyes like floating almonds.
Her left arm hung loosely, motionless at her side, and her left leg looked to be a passenger, lifting awkwardly and coming down more so.
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