critical mass

choices

broken fence

high of 74

one down, nineteen to go

I've been gone for weeks. I didn't know what to expect but I needed to walk the streets again and taste the sticky southern air. I go to the store and ask for the cheapest cigarettes they have. The clerk smiles and hands me a box of Pall Malls. She's sweet, smiling contently and gracefully handles the register like this is her dream job on the best day of her life. Her voice is gospel harmony unfiltered and tinged by saintly ruby lips.

My inspiration still hasn't returned and I'm more content to observe rather than take pictures. Children decked in paper hats and peppered in donut glaze frolic in the window of Krispy Kreme. New graffiti blazes a trail across the old apartments behind Marcos'. Scattered buffalo wing bones blanket parts of the sidewalk. The final resting place for chickens is the asphalt graveyards of Atlanta.

The shifties are surprisingly reserved. They eye me but say nothing. One passes me and gives me a nod. His left eye is dark and swollen shut. I don't recognize anyone.

A woman asks a man thirty feet away for money but doesn't acknowledge me as I walk by. Most of her belongings are bundled together in lumpy mounds on the bench while other occupy the nearby trash bin. A battered and open umbrella dangles upsidedown like a bat from her forearm.

When I left it was mild and cool. The sun breaks and I'm sweating before I reach the second hill. The streets are active but nothing looks good enough for a photo. The abandoned bank is beginning to succumb to nature. Its derelict lawn festers with thistles and foxtails. A set of pillows forms a mattress in the old drive through lane.

For the first time I realize there are no whores out and before I think about that, one walks out and asks me for a dollar. I tell her what I tell everyone and she fidgets with her capri pants. Her upper front teeth are missing and she takes a screwdriver from her leg pocket and readjusts it before looking at my face. I offer her a cigarette and she accepts, carefully eyeing a cop who drives by in first gear. She thanks me, calling me sweetie before craning her neck and bobbing up the street.

The car wash is slow and most of the employees cram together on a bench near the barrier wall, smoking and talking. I take a look behind me and the whore is out of sight. I should stop using that term. Women and men on this street don't make ends meet with just one job. You do what you can to survive.

A few hundred yards later, the sun disappears and clouds fill the sky. Before it does, some young people dash down the street, bags in hand. I watch them rush from store front to store front, laughing and yelling. Some sort of scavenger hunt. I consider following them but before I can, they dash past in a fury of smiles and energy. I watch them go and eye the darkness that now chokes the skyline. It's not hot enough to be humid and for the first time since I returned, the air becomes cool. I stop and let it welcome me home.