They sit on a leather couch with holes in it, burn marks from cigarettes. The television is a small black and white with rabbit ears pointed up towards the ceiling. Orange and white Christmas lights blink on an old plastic tree in the corner. It is August.

The Andy Griffith Show is on. This is the one where Jack Nicholson is being framed for a crime. Andy knows he’s innocent.

Sheriff Taylor is a very wise man, he says. He’s a fair man. One who stands with the law. Beers were popped open. The old man offered her one. The young lady took a drink and placed it on the hardwood floor in front of them. He held his. Felt the coldness of the can in his hand and wiped his forehead with the condensation.

I’m glad you could come over, the fat man says. Nobody ever comes anymore. Not my kids. Or my cousins. Nobody. I don’t even know who my next-door neighbor is. He laughed. But I’m glad you stopped by.

My pleasure, she told him. The chubby brunette lit a smoke as well. Jack Nicholson behind bars. Behind bars. Ain’t that something. 

Yeah. This must’ve been way before Easy Rider.

Easy what?

Easy Rider, he said. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Nicholson, who plays George Hanson, ride motorcycles across the United States. The old man took another swig of beer. Fonda’s character is called Captain America. Can’t tell you how it ends. Heartbreaking.  The end of the American dream.

That so?

Yeah. He walked over to the TV and turned the sound down. Looked at the clock. Well. I guess it’s about that time. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out four twenty dollar bills. Here, he tells her. Take it.

You don’t want me to do anything?

Oh, honey. You’ve done enough.

OK. Call me again sometime. My number’s in the book.

The old man nodded and opened the door for her. He turned up the television set. It was The Twilight Zone. Jack Klugman was a trumpet player who pawned his horn. He sat and watched. Drank his beer. And thought about her.

Crickets chirping. A frog splashes from lily pad to lily pad. Wild dogs run in packs. Howling. Barking. A bear growls.

The shack is run down. Boards missing. A rusted roof with holes in it. A wet dewy ground of yellow grass is the floor. A folding chair in the corner.

He sits outside in the rain, watching the light show in the sky. Lightning in streaks. Yellow and white. Kind of blue in midnight’s sky. He waits for a calm.

Sticks and logs on fire. Bologna on a stick. A sleeve of Ritz crackers. Some old potatoes with eyes. He peels the skin with a pocket knife. Boils them over a flame. Takes count in his head just how much food he has left. He’s fine for a week. 

Dollar bills in a metal lock box. A thousand bucks. He gave his fortune to the ex-wife; looks at her picture now and then.

A tall blonde with blue eyes. She always wore red lipstick. Rouge on her cheeks. Eye liner. She was sweet and nice. She earned it.

That was years ago when he was a city dweller. Back when he cheated people out of money through stocks and bonds. The highest bidder wins.

Now he does nothing but reads the books he brought out to the woods. The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Holy Bible (King James). Each book with a hero. A traveler. Men in search of truth. So many questions.

The lightning has stopped. No rumbles of thunder. He crawls into his shack and closes his eyes. He is at peace.

He knocked on the door wearing a suit bought at Goodwill. Wrinkled.  Faded brown with pinstripes. A pair of wingtips with holes in the bottom. Worn-out soles. No one answered.

As he walked down Broadway, he noticed trash on the sidewalks. Burnt foil, glass pipes, Zig-Zag wrappers, a half chewed chocolate bar, brown newspapers, crushed beer cans, all of it making a trail of no precise pattern. Just city debris. Waiting for no one. Fossils that had been there for years.

Cats crossed in front of him as he took a seat on the curb; knees up to his chest. The old man took out a pack of Newports and selected one. There were three left. No change in his pocket, just loose lint and a book of matches three quarters used. The wind blew out most of them.

The saggy man used to have a Zippo given to him from a friend he stood up for at a wedding. It was copper, and it shined. He cried when the groom gave it to him on the steps of the court house. The best man knew he wouldn’t see him again. He knew his rowdy days were over. Wives do that to you.

These days, he flew solo. In and out of seedy bars. Buttered toast at a three a.m. diner. Sanka stirred in a cup. It’s lonely at the top, he whispered, laughed.

So. She wasn’t home, he said to himself. Or, with some other guy, shook his head. What do you want with her anyway? Just cost me money, I don’t have. He got up and began walking again. Jumping over cracks. Singing in a low voice. September Song.

A tiny spider crawls across the bathroom floor. Dogs bark from far away. Torn blankets covered the boy.

He sat in the rocking chair, flipping through channels. News programs, midnight movies, old television shows, and a cooking program flash across the screen. The fat man sips coffee and chews on miniature candy bars in a glass dish beside him. He looks over at the wrapped body; he ain’t moving.

A cigarette burns in the ashtray. The big man rolls another. He is skilled at this. In the homeless shelters, he used to sell packs of them for a few bucks. That was back in Denver when he was traveling across the country in a rusted Chevy pickup. Long hair blowing in the breeze with the windows down. Radio tuned to different stations as he hopped from one town to another. Talk radio, oldies, and country music kept him awake along with the smells of alfalfa fields, cow shit, and diesel exhaust. He was a long way from Albuquerque.

But now, a body lies there with a couple of bullet holes in it. Johnny walked over and kicked the dead hustler. Not moving, are you? He says. Stay right there. Don’t go anywhere. He laughs and grabs a gas can from under the kitchen sink. Johnny skips around the stiff and pours gasoline all over the blankets. That should do it.

A match is lit and thrown. Another and another are tossed down and begin to ignite. He watches for a bit. Says goodbye. And walks out the door.

As Johnny pulls out of the driveway, he watches as the whole house catches fire. He stops for a minute from down the dirt road and nods his head.

Doing the Lord’s work, he whispers. Doing the Lord’s work.

I listen to jazz from a transistor radio. Boil my water for instant coffee on a hot plate. My refrigerator is small and holds my beer and bread, peanut butter, a bottle of vodka, and an orange or two. There’s a small sink below a medicine cabinet with a mirror on it. Every day, I look in that mirror and watch closely as wrinkles form, skin becomes leather, and hair turns gray. Where did he go?

Years ago, I walked all over Manhattan. Going into bars, jazz clubs, diners at four in the morning. I looked immaculate. 

Slick the black hair back. Put on a sports coat. A pair of suede shoes. Pants that fit just right. A cigarette dangling from my lips; thinking I was Mickey Rourke or Brando. The pope of Greenwich Village indeed.

Women came and went. Leaving me behind for some salesman. Maybe a dentist. Someone with a future. A home in Connecticut. A brownstone on the Westside. They sought higher opportunities.

And here I am. Still in the city. Still hungry, but with a gut. The legs are weak. Voice is scratchy. People change. 

Coltrane plays on the radio.

No clear water. A rusted flow. Faucet squeaks. A dim light bulb swings back and forth over the sink. She left a long time ago.

Didn’t tell him where she was going. Just took off one night in the blue Dodge; had a dent in the right quarter panel. Never had enough money to get it fixed. He just left it.

He washes dishes with a bar of hand soap in the bathtub. Set them in a rack on the linoleum floor. Bits of food, old Spam, and remnants of TV dinners still clung to the plates.

Crickets chirp outside of his front window among the tall bushes and weeds. Shut up, he yells. Had about enough, he says with his eyes closed, in and out of a dream. A dream about her. How they used to be in love. Or so he thought. Maybe she never loved me. Just took advantage of me, he laughs. Looked around the trailer. Used me for all that I have.

In this dream, they’re walking down a dirt road. Holding hands. Talking. She wanted to be somebody. An actress, a model, someone famous.  He just wanted to be with her. Was perfectly happy working at the car wash. The tips weren’t bad. Every night, he brought her home flowers. She just kissed him on the cheek and laughed. Told him he was a fool. He’d nod his head and say, yeah. For you.

And, she left. No note.  No letter. Just a picture of them leaning against the toaster. He wondered about her. Probably went to Calfornia. Los Angeles, he thought. I’ll  see her again someday. On TV or a billboard. I’ll see her.

Window open. Ceiling fan turns slowly. The cat crawls out of bed with him.

It’s two in the morning. He sits in darkness. The toilet runs.

On 24th Street, it is quiet. Some noise from 8th and 9th. Taxis. City bus. Drunks walking home. The cat purrs.

He sits at the folding card table in a metal chair, taking it all in. He takes a sip of yesterday’s coffee from a mug, which reads, I ❤️  NYC. The heavy man stirs with his finger and licks it. The cat takes a sip, too.

There’s jazz on the radio coming from New Jersey. Ramsey Lewis plays The In Crowd. He sings the words in a soft voice. I’m in with the in crowd….I’m in with the in crowd….the cat meows.

He smiles. The cat jumps on his shoulder and rubs against his gray hair. They are both happy.

I listen to no one, he said. Only Bill Evans playing piano. People just get in the way, he told her. All they want is to hear themselves.  Talk about this. Yell about that. It’s a nuisance.

That’s bleak, she told him. Sad, really. But, I do like Bill Evans.

Yes. The Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian playing drums. That’s all I need.

Really?

Yeah. I walked out of a psychiatrist session one time when the doctor said Paul Chambers was better than LaFaro. 

You’re kidding me.

No. I never went back, he paused. And it was then. Truly then that I realized how much I hated people.

That’s crazy, she laughed.

Have you met me? He laughed.

They kissed and called it a night.

Nothing is fresh. It’s all old. Stale. Crumbles in hand. This bread has mold on it. Green turning black. An old piece of sourdough. 

He opens the door to his trailer and looks at the birds flying around. Tearing off pieces, he throws the bread in the air like they were Frisbees. Old smelly bread on the ground. Hiding in the tall grass. Weeds. Birds swoop down and carry pieces with them. Flying high with chunks of mold in their beaks. He watches.

Closing his door, he notices a pair of binoculars on the bookshelf next to Tropic of Cancer. He picks up the object and examines it. Adjusting the lenses, he focuses on the sky from his front window. The birds are gone. He zooms in. Bread is gone, too. The feast is over.

The old man laughs. Looks around the place for other food or debris to throw out to the winged creatures; hoping they come back.

A pizza box sits in the corner. He opens it and discovers crust. Stale crust. There are several pieces. He walks back out to the front porch and makes bird calls like he did when he used to hunt with his son. Throwing out the pizza crust, he thinks of him. His only kid. He pauses. Fucked that up too, he says. Could never get anything right. He drops the binoculars.  The birds return.

He wished his son would.

You’re looking the wrong way, he said. Look that way. Over there, he pointed down the street. See her? The blonde in the skirt. Walking towards us. He took his friend’s head with both hands on the cheeks. Do you recognize her?

It’s dark, Pete said. Too dark. How can you make her out? How can you see? He sipped on his soda through a straw. No idea who she is.

Come on now, Tom said to him. Look again.

She was getting closer. This tall leggy blonde was getting closer. She stood under a streetlight.  Lit a cigarette.  Standing there, she looked like a statue.

OK, Pete told him. She does look familiar.

She should.

Why’s that?

That’s your ex-wife. 

No.

Yes, Tom said. Yes.

Pete looked harder. Strained his eyes. She looks so different. She used to be fat and brunette. What happened?

She left you. That’s what happened. Always does. They change overnight as soon as the papers are signed. 

I guess so. I guess so.

She looked at the two men and crossed the street at a rapid pace. She waved and blew a kiss.

All was forgiven.