There is no black or white here, just shades of murky washed-out grey and stained monkey-s
hit brown, like the colours are running down a dirty canvas that got wet. There's ice in the air, and ice in people's hearts. Nameless, hopeless drunks stagger through back alleys; they don't sing. These are not your average, happy and oblivious drunks. These are people who know they must find their next drink or they will die. They weave in and out of the narrow city streets, often bumping into another lost soul as it navigates its precarious and perilous way along the rain-lashed badly-lit cobbles. Off in the distance, sirens sound. Shadowy figures meet in lanes where massive tenement buildings loom over them, seeming to be looking for an excuse to fall and crush them. Small plastic packets change hands, as does cash. Coat collars are turned up, hats tipped forward over eyes as each participant in the deal leaves by a different route. Where are the cops, you say, when all this is going on? Hell, these
are the cops! Nothing as rare on this streets as an honest law enforcement official.
The moon frowns down on the streets, like a disapproving parent as headlights cut through the murky night and the screech of tyres and the squeal of brakes split the darkness that enfolds the city like a shroud. Somewhere, a woman screams. Nobody takes notice: just another sound to ignore in the cacophony of the night. Maybe she's in trouble. Who cares? Not worth getting your face carved up for. A gang of Puerto Ricans swagger along the sidewalk, forcing those in their path to clear the way as their teeth shine almost as bright as their knives in the gloom, illuminated for a moment by a sign on a nearby storefront:
GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! It announces, though the women inside who bump and grind on the stage for a pittance could no longer be called any such thing. One of the erstwhile patrons of said establishment totters out of the dimly-lit basement into the grasp of the night. Once the air hits him like a fist he doubles over in the doorway and spews the contents of his last paycheck all over the floor, then staggers almost blindly away.
Somewhere, from a point untraceable, the lonely sound of a single saxophone. Taxis hurry to and fro like yellow beetles, crawling along the freeway while late-night truckers lean out of their cabs in search of a motel for the night, or some sexy hitch-hiker they can pick up, or preferably both. Some barker crows about his wares on a streetcorner, eulogising about his product while flicking spent cigarette butts onto the wet pavement. Further down the street, the unsteady sound of a piano being played by a drunk floats briefly out of an open doorway, duetting with the saxophonist, also pulling out into the night the sounds of laughter and conversation, then the wind blows the door shut again as the patron leaves the establishment and the brief accompaniment the sax player had is gone, and he is back to being a solitary musician.
A shot ring out, a whip crack in the dark. A man falls over but nobody approaches him apart from a priest, who kneels down beside the stricken guy. The blessing done, the priests takes the dead man's watch, wallet and shoes and vanishes into the night. A piece of paper floats out of the corpse's pocket, fluttering like a bird in the downtown breeze. Before it joins the rest of the trash skittering along the gutter we can see the word
“Bluebird” circled in red ink. It's a racing form, and on the newstand behind the dead guy the back page of the local rag proclaims, in mute mocking irony
BLUEBIRD COMES IN AT 100-1! The blood pooling around the body seems to form itself into a question mark, then elongates as it leaks off down into the drain. A dancer comes out of the club, steps fastidiously over the corpse without looking down, and hails a cab.
Tom Waits --- Small Change