“Your medicine, huh?” I glance at the horribly rolled joint I got from the repurposed Altoids tin I swiped from his pocket while he snoozed in my bed.
“Yes,” he says, pulling himself up on the ledge beside me, swinging around so his feet are dangling over the edge. He’s dressed now, from head-to-toe, like he took a nice little nap so he’s ready to go. “It’s medicinal.”
I take another hit of it, holding the smoke for a second as I offer the joint to him. Or, well, relinquish it, I guess. Not really mine to offer.
Letting out the smoke, I playfully ask, “So what’s your ailment, huh? Glaucoma?”
Wordlessly, he takes it from me. “Close.”
Close.
My stomach drops when I see he’s staring at me peculiarly. He motions toward his injured eye. Shit. He’s being serious?
“I, uh… I didn’t realize…”
“You didn’t realize my eye was all fucked up?” he asks, taking a hit, letting the smoke filter right back out as he says, “Kind of hard to miss, Scarlet.”
“No, I mean, I know it’s messed up. I’m not blind, I can see, but I just didn’t realize...” I trail off as he curves an eyebrow, continuing to stare at me. I’m not blind. I can see. Did I seriously just say that shit? “Wow, I should probably stop talking.”
“Might be a good idea,” he says, taking another hit before holding the joint my way, like he’s actually offering it to me. I take it from him, watching as he exhales slowly. He doesn’t look offended, at least. “I used to be able to see shadows, make out shapes, but that kept getting worse, went away completely about a year ago. Total darkness now. I’ll probably lose the eye eventually. Hell, I’m surprised it’s survived this long. It’s been dying one hell of a painful death for about twenty years now. Guess it’s as stubborn as the rest of me.”
“I didn’t realize...”
“Yeah, I got that,” he says. “Got it the two other times you said it. Don’t go walking on eggshells around me over some perceived disability you’re thinking I’ve got now. Don’t pity me. I’ve learned how to compensate for what I’m missing. You don’t need depth perception or pinpoint aim to throw a fucking grenade.”
“I don’t pity you,” I say, because I don’t... I don’t pity him at all. I more so pity the people who cross his path, who incite his wrath, like I seem to be doing at the moment. Getting on his nerves. “So it hurts? Your eye? What does it feel like?”
I’m asking a lot of damn questions. That’s what the look he gives me says. But I’m as high as a skyscraper, so high I’m almost convinced I can fly. His medicinal is the good shit, and yeah, maybe it’s medicine to him, but it’s also highly illegal, I know, because there’s no way something that potent is government taxed.
“You trying to figure out my weaknesses?”
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Big words for a woman who would rather bare her pussy than bare a piece of her soul,” he counters, his gaze trailing down my body. I’m still wearing what I put on last night, feeling filthy, the smell of sex still all over me. “Your pussy’s nice, you know… beautiful… but I wouldn’t exactly call it a secret, not when it’s something a lot of people already know.”
I cringe at his words, shoving the joint back at him, done with it.
He takes it, smoking the rest in silence, holding it in his lungs for long moments before exhaling slowly in my direction, his gaze still on me. I stare off into the distance, at the horizon, watching the orange hue surrounding Brooklyn fade to the typical dismal gray as the day goes on.
“I watch the sunrise every morning,” I mumble. “I’ve never told anyone that before. I come up here and I sit and I watch as it rises over Brooklyn. The apartment is shitty, and the building smells like piss, but the view from up here is the best I’ve found, so I stay... I stay and I watch the sunrise. I look forward to it, every morning. Another day dawning, another chance for things to finally go right. It’s the only time I feel hope anymore, the only time I feel alive. It’s my favorite time of day.”
Lorenzo stubs what’s left of the joint out on the ledge, smashing the remnants into the concrete. “I see sunrise every day, too.”
I look at him with surprise. “You do?”
He nods. “Except when I see it, you know, all I think is ‘here comes another day of bullshit surrounded by all these idiots.’ Doesn’t really leave me feeling hopeful.”
I laugh at that, although I can tell he’s not joking. “That’s about how I feel come sunset—another night in the trenches, trying to survive to see another sunrise. So far, I’ve got a pretty good record. A couple close calls, but I’m still undefeated, so that’s gotta count for something.”
“Why do you do it?”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“Anything,” he says. “Literally anything else has to be better than what you’re doing.”
“Do you know what it’s like to try to get a job in this city? A legitimate job? I’m guessing you don’t or you wouldn’t be asking me that.”
“On the contrary, Scarlet, I know exactly what it’s like.”
I roll my eyes, because yeah, right.
“I’ve got a brother,” he says. “Good kid, tries to live on the straight and narrow. He doesn’t have the heart for the business I’m in, wants nothing to do with it. I watched him bust his ass trying to find work with just a high school diploma.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t even have one of those,” I say. “So I do what I have to do, I use what I have, and maybe that makes me a crappy person, whatever… maybe I’m ruined now, maybe I’m worthless…”
“I don’t think you’re any of that,” he says. “I think you’re worth a hell of a lot more than you realize. You want to take your clothes off for money? Do it. But there are better places out there, better ways to do it. You don’t sell something for twenty bucks that’s worth thousands. You’re only fucking yourself.”
“Nobody else will take a chance on me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I shake my head at his flippant tone. “Have you forgotten about last night? People would have to be crazy to hire me. George was the only one with the guts to risk it, and God knows that’s out of the question now. There’s no way he’ll want anything to do with me. I’m on my own.” I run my hands down my face in frustration, closing my eyes. This sucks. “Selling pussy on city street corners… I’m sure that’ll look great on my resume.”
“You could come work for me.”
“Yeah, right.” I scoff at that. “No thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t particularly like you.”
“And, what, you like bending over and getting fucked for a few bucks? Money that you clearly don’t get to keep, judging by what I’ve seen about your life.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like? Enlighten me.”
“Have you ever had to do something you didn’t particularly want to do, but you did it because it was in your best interest just to go along with it?”
“No.”
I roll my eyes. Again. “It must be nice, being you, being a man in a man’s world. Trying being a woman sometime.”
“I wish I could,” he says. “I’d have a pussy to play with all day long, wouldn’t have to comb the city looking for a woman with low standards and loose morals, since that woman would be me.”
He laughs, but I don’t find him funny. Not at all. He hasn’t the faintest idea what it’s like being a woman, especially one in my predicament. I try not to let his flippant reaction get to me, but it stirs up a hurt I sometimes have a hard time hiding.
“Oh, woe-is-fucking-me. Just the fact that you can make a joke about that tells me all I need to know about you and your privilege.”