He walked ‘cross town…past the old Rialto movie theater on a sidewalk littered with candy wrappers…condom packages…cigarette butts…broken bottles…went by old antique stores with various items in the windows…dressers…desks…wooden tables…ancient typewriters…a painted picture of an old man praying over a loaf of bread…he always liked that one…

Cars passed on Calhoun…a lot of beaters…old automobiles with cracked mirrors…rust along bottoms…missing mufflers…stereos turned up loud with a booming bass…pick-up trucks with tailgates missin’…busted tail-lights with exposed bulbs…a license plate sayin’ DIXIE-1 on it…a blonde haired girl stickin’ her head out the window catchin’ a breeze…

The day labor place was just a few blocks down the street…men and women lined-up to get their pay after a long day at factories…collectin’ garbage…emptyin’ recyclables…tearin’ down cardboard boxes…strippin’ hot tiles off of roofs…sweepin’ floors…a day’s pay for a day’s work…

And he kept on walkin’ down Calhoun…used to be a whore house over there where he lost his virginity to some big black broad…she smacked gum the whole time…said she was honored to be his first…a hundred dollar bill left on a night stand…now the house was a day care place…things change…

A sadness came up inside of him as he continued steppin’ down the street…this was his town…the place he grew up in…he’d left it years ago to go out and wander ’round America…didn’t have to…America was always right here…