The tattoo shops were closed on Broadway along with Mexican restaurants and liquor stores as well. It was past midnight and the working girls were out; catering to clients needs in church parking lots, side streets, behind dumpsters, and in abandoned houses. Cop cars cruised by and an occasional ambulance would wail,but, it was just another Monday night.

And the bars let drunks out into the streets. All of ’em trying to weave home by foot to rented rooms, efficiency apartments, tents under bridges, while some would just walk aimlessly ’til the sun would greet the new day. Others camped out in front waiting in the cold for the bar to open a few hours later; the need for drinks, communion, is what they always seek.

This night. How it plays tricks. Thinking you see something that isn’t. Some kind of peace in the quiet neighborhood where streetlights glow and dogs bark down alleys. And Jesus appears in the form of a black man asking for a buck when fifty cents is all you have left to your name. It’ll do my son…it’ll do…

Another Monday night. Morning will come soon.