Apartment 10B

saw him day before yesterday buying groceries

said the price of living

was killing him

so we took the long way

along the Potomac

ice cream melting

milk sweating

in clingy plastic bags

dangling like fish

in my clammy hands

*

he sank his loose front teeth into a tangerine

spit out the seeds

lit a smoke

he said he never learned to tell a good joke

never once kissed a girl

he’d be willing to die for

*

started humming some old fool love song, clapping

his wide black hands out of time, sort of smiling

*

claimed he wanted to be a priest once

a long time ago, but every divinity had turned him down

*

eventually he stopped believing

*

happened this morning in his apartment

“Alone,” 13A was saying. “Heart failure or his kidneys. Maybe a stroke. Won’t know without an autopsy, and with him being so old and not having nobody—”

“Whatever,” I chirped

closing my front door

reflecting on the emptiness of my wallet

and the perpetual shallowness of my pathetic attempts

to be a good neighbor

when I had the chance

*

slipped down to the Potomac

with the morning paper

his last cigarettes

and that tangerine he’d given me

that I wasn’t planning on eating

*

peeled back the rind

lit a smoke

practiced a few one-liners

over and over

and over

until I got it right

***

Copyright © 07/04/2014 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.