Morning coffee. A piece of toast. Sun comes in through shades. Outside, people are talking in the alley. Some foreign language. He can’t make it out. The old man places his ear against the window. Looks out into the alley where black men were standing in a circle. Red eyes. They don’t look healthy. He lights a cigarette.

What are they? he asked himself. Some kind of African?Maybe it’s Creole from Haiti. Some kind of boat people washed up on our shores. The pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. That’s different, he laughs.

Maybe it’s the neighborhood. The whole place has gotten bad. Used to be all white. People had jobs. Kept up with their yards. Didn’t ask for handouts, the old man took a drag off his cigarette and drank some coffee.

Why do they come here? he thought. What do they want from us? Some kind of salvation? he kept looking out the window. Why’d they choose Summerville? Of all the places in the U.S. they choose our little town. Now we got the Portuguese, Purto Ricans, Mexicans, Hatians, the D.R.’s, your plain old American nigger and everything else, he mumbled.

The men continued talking in the alley. The old man sat in his easy chair and listened to talk radio. He smiled as they spoke about what was on his mind.

We need a border wall all around this country, the old man said to the radio, sitting in the corner. They’re disrupting our Christain values, he claimed to no one. Wanting special rights, he got up and opened his blinds. All Irish and Italians it used to be, he laughed. Never much cared for the dagos. Never played a fair game, he said. Anyway. I’ll be dead soon. I’ll be dead. And, I can already see what this country is going to be. Well, if nobody else cares, neither do I, he lit another smoke.

Sean Hannity rambled on.