Cracks in sidewalks. Uneven concrete. Weeds growing in between. A broken bottle of Wild Turkey. Cigarette butts smoked down to filters. Walking home at night to a rented room above a Polish bar; last-minute shopping before closing time.

It’s four in the morning, and the place is filled with United States postal workers, laborers, off duty cops, hard working criminals, hookers with Eastern European accents right off the boat, and old men who have seen it all. Big noses and ruddy faces. Purple lines on weathered hands. The bartender yells out, last call, in broken English. Moans across the room. Bobby Darren is cut off mid note as the jukebox is turned off. The front door is opened, and gray smoke pours outside. Six packs of Black Label sold to stragglers leaving to camp out in alleys, on sidewalks, between buildings, upstairs in bedbug rooms. Like an assembly line, they plop cash down, liquor is sold, and they walk out into early morning darkness.

The bar is given a sweep. Broken beer bottles are thrown out into dumpsters. Dollar bills picked up off the beaten wooden floor. Swivel seats lined up. The neon lights turned off.

They’ll be open in three hours. The seven o’clock crew will start their day. More of the same. Construction workers, guys on social security income, homeless men who slept in shelters on a mat sprayed with Lysol, whores still waiting for one last trick before sleeping away the day in cheap hotels, back seats of rusted out cars, pimps apartments, behind bushes in the park, bus stops along Division Street. The jukebox is turned back on, and Bobby Darren is back up to speed.

And some guy takes a swing at another. The owner named Zimski breaks it up. Drink up my friends, he tells them. Drink up. Darkness turns light. A cop car cruises by. An ambulance is chased. All in a day’s work. On Division.