He hadn’t called for days…one or two places…a bar or a jail cell…this was not uncommon…he’d flare up every three months or so…get paid from some job and go out and spend it all on shots and beer…looked for the cheapest deal in town…

This had been goin’ on for the longest of time…ever since I known him…just this lust to find trouble…drinkin’…fightin’…gettin’ into arguments with whoever come along…he had this anger streak in him…and you never knew when it was gonna pop up…but it did…it did…

The man had fists made from the jawbone of an ass…strong hands from workin’ construction…bustin’ up concrete all day with a jackhammer or a sledge…they were big and red…calluses on em…burn marks in between fingers where he let cigarette butts burn down to his thick skin…he always wanted every little bit…

And he used those hands for fightin’…always fightin’…thought he knew everything…didn’t like to be proven wrong…particularly by blacks…was always callin’ em by derogatory names…way he was raised…just like most workin’ class whites in St. Louis…a divided city…just like Chicago…or Boston…Cleveland…the list goes on in America…a segregated country…

I’ll betcha he’s sittin’ in a jail cell or a grave…somebody’d might’ve had enough of him…could’ve…

He hadn’t called for days…