I knew him, so I opened the door and he put his foot in the way like a salesman then kept shouting this loopy story about his woman stealing 19 hundred dollars from him "the Pipe" caused it, "and now I'm homeless." I kept saying, I have to work tomorrow, and he looped his story out again through a scraggly beard, holding a burning cigarette in the wind but still bringing a stale tobacco smell. Finally he got around to asking for bus fare, I poured my quarters into his hand, and he was gone. That's life in low income USA. Hope it's better where I'm going next, or I'll go somewhere else. And somewhere else. And somewhere else

Kay Ebeling

10 mins · 

*****