Fifteen

If there is to be a seedy underbelly of Yellow Springs, it might as well be Keith’s Alley.

Beside the truncated cinderblock of my west wall lies a strip of asphalt that services the employee and delivery entrances of a downtown not yet destroyed by the grinding forces of modernity: a street unacknowledged by global positioning systems, Google, and Poor Will’s Almanac.

On any given day the complacent reek of diesel exhaust blows up from the festering tailpipes of passing trucks -- delivering the fruit of America's wholesome breadbasket to the shops below.  Also, the tear of skateboard wheels against loosely grained blacktop and the blatantly staged lines of pornicators in their search for authentic titillation against the many murals that adorn the walls of my own (private) suburban canyon. 

This very evening I saw a pack of boys assault, seemingly, one of their own.  They beat him to the ground and kicked him furiously.  Fifteen seconds of his life were beaten out of him there on highway 68.  Count them with me if you will. 

The boys then dispersed, like the fairy dust painted on my face by a child who will never know hunger.  I cleaned my house in anticipation of a high class-broad.  I loaded my pistol.  I mopped the floor with a towel.

This then is the substance of my days.