Two dirty men pass a joint on a busy street corner. I’d recognize that sweet smell anywhere. Even over the rank odor of urine and shit and rotting teeth and rotting cities. I quit when I couldn’t find the words to match my thoughts. I’d think cat and write dog. Genocide became happy birthday. It was very confusing.

But here they are in the middle of the day, soldiers fighting the drug war. Winning the drug war. A police car stops for a red light. They don’t even see it. They pass the joint back and forth, forth and back like they’re sitting on a ratty couch in their own living room.

I’m waiting for a bus. It’s already ten minutes late. A woman is waiting too. Or a girl. Woman or girl? She looks like a girl. A student at the university just up the road. Dark sunglasses cover half her face. One hand holds a phone to her ear, the other waves and swirls and floats as she talks. Short shorts with the college’s name emblazoned across her ass. Flip flops. White t-shirt. Blue back pack bulging on her back.

I keep headphones on my ears while out in public. They’re not connected to anything. The silver plug shoved into my front pocket. I hope to keep people from stopping me, from asking me for change, for a cigarette, for directions, my phone number. But they’re not very effective. People here are persistent. I guess they have to be.

The light turns green. Cars and bikes and people surge away. Still no bus.

One guy is standing. He has short black hair and a stubbly beard. The other, coughing gray smoke out his toothless mouth, is in a wheelchair. His hair is long and dirty blond. And not in the sexy way. Not blond tinged with brunette, something to keep you wondering. But blond with layers and layers of dirt caked to it. His beard is black and matted and rests his chest. He passes the joint. Starts talking loudly about how his brother doesn’t approve of his life style. Doesn’t approve of his long hair or beard or of him pushing himself along in a wheelchair. His friend nods knowingly, sucks at the joint like a drowning man sucking on a straw.

“That’s it,” he wheezes.

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, they do,” he rolls the roach between his fingers.

“Damn. You got anymore?”

“No.”

“Fuck,” wheelchair says. “Guess we gotta get to work.” He moves his head around slowly. Gazes at the bus stop through bloodshot eyes. The girl is closer to him. “You got any change?”

“Hold on,” the girl says into her phone. “What?”

“Change? Do you have any change? I’m awfully hungry.”

She smiles indulgently. “Sorry.”

“But you’re waiting for a bus,” he pleads. “I know you got some change.”

She shrugs her shoulders, looks out over the street. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing, some bum. Soon. Well, whenever this bus shows up….”

“How about you, man? You got any change?”

I look away.

He pushes his feet along the concrete, wheels up to me, taps me on the arm. “Change?” he asks.

I look down at him and reach into my bag. My hand caresses a cold Colt .45. A beautiful weapon. Polished silver. Wooden grips with angry swooping eagles carved into them. The Marines gave it to my father when he retired. The Marines don’t do anything half-assed. No gold-plated watches for those guys.

The man smacks his gums hopefully. One dollar and he can wheel himself across the street, get a cheeseburger. Five and he can get another joint, maybe a cheap can of beer. “Just a quarter or two?”

My dad loved this gun. It hung over the fireplace when I was a kid. In an oak box frame with two gold globe and anchors flanking it. An inscription thanked him for his twenty years of honorable service to corps, country, God. The old man would stare at it for hours, slowly drinking whiskey while mom slowly moved out. “That thing makes a hell of a noise,” he would tell me. “And a big fucking hole,” he’d wink. It came into my possession after he used it to put a big fucking hole in his head. “Fuck you all. Give the gun to my boy.” My dad’s last will and testament. He never was much for sentimentality.

“No,” I hold my bag open. He looks into it. My knuckles are white and knotty around the grip, the hammer cocked, my finger dances over the trigger. “I don’t.”

The bus pulls up, opens its door. I climb aboard.