1. was a dark room so thick with human, filled with bodies rotting, twisting, grotesque, not dead but sweating out the humanity in the middle of the summer

2. is a figure departing, opening the front door, cruel heat trap that should be open but for the sake of propriety, left closed

3. is the hand on the wallet filled with money stolen from grandmother’s purse, a bill so large that it’s measured in time; carrying two months in his decaying wallet

4. is the neon glow of the arcade, cold and stark in this city, a huge heat sink for all of the northern shore

5. is the man, black raincoat and plaid shirt tucked into jeans – pay attention – weird hair blown by the wind to reveal a huge wound, long “healed” but untreated, forming a huge purple gash – poverty’s terrible kiss

6. is walking with him in the midday heat, away from the “mall” down surrounding streets that are somehow so different as to be another city completely, doorways black and green, no lights, no metal, all yesterday’s plastic and wood

7. is their hangout, a club settling into it’s foundations where the young men play pool and darts and cards and the smokers outside approach the fence to greet grandma’s boy, showing their deformations like badges of honor:

a. no arm, wound poorly cauterized
b. no left eye, no patch
c. various hard, red patches on face, maybe burns
d. upper and lower clip cleaved, saliva drips from slurred speech
e. etc.

8. is the wallet, revealed, showing too much of the aforementioned bill, which is immediately snatched

9. is the entreaty, repeated:
a. give me back my money

10.is the response:
b. if you come back here at night, i’ll give it to you

11.is the moral:
c. why wouldn’t you? if you haven’t done anything wrong, nothing bad will happen to you

12. again:
c. why wouldn’t you? if you haven’t done anything wrong, nothing bad will happen to you

13. again:
c. why wouldn’t you? if you haven’t done anything wrong, nothing bad will happen to you

14. the chorus (from over the fence):
d. come back and i’ll fuck you, pussy

15.is the departure, figure twisting through unfamiliar streets, finding dead ends and escapes in equal measure

16.etc.