Finding a good place to sleep was always a difficult task on the streets. Most of the folks who lived out there were good people who’d obviously come by some misfortune in their lives. They weren’t vile and devious, but hard living had roughened their edges a bit. If there was a good spot to bed down, then everyone wanted it. But, then again, no one wanted to be crowded. Hence old people and drunks were always the first to get either chased or carried away.
Blair Vaughn was lucky to have Horace Long around to look after him when he wasn’t able to do it himself. A big, black man with a kind and gentle spirit, Horace wouldn’t hurt anybody unless provoked, and he had a way of making troubles seem light-years away.
Blair wasn’t old enough to have served in Vietnam, and he was glad he never had the pleasure. But every man seemed to have a morbid curiosity about death and dying, so Blair relished those moments when Horace told of his exploits while on a tour of duty in some remote part of Southeast Asia.
It was awesome to picture him as a younger man, a grunt in the trenches, sucking up dirt and gun smoke. Blair could see Horace with an M-16 thrown over his shoulder, spare bullets strapped to his chest, and grenades dangling from a belt tied around his waist. With an old stogy clenched tight between those coffee and tobacco-stained teeth, and muscles bulging from under an army-issued tee shirt, it was easy to imagine those Vietnamese scrambling for cover. Horace got a belly wound while over there, but that didn’t stop him. He just kept fighting until he managed to secure a Silver Star to go along with his purple heart, justified rewards for his stellar acts of heroism.
An honorable discharge sealed the deal, but there had been no honor in the bigoted, unkind reception he got when he came back home. All the glory in the world never brought the man the respect he deserved, and that was a shame for him as well as for all of those people who greeted his return by calling him nigger.
Horace was a funny man, a stand-up comic of sorts, and he had the ability to liven up any conversation. It was always a pleasure to see his battle-scarred, jubilant face. If a man whose past hardships totaled as many as Horace’s did could still find something in life to laugh about, then the rest of the folks in the world had no excuse at all. And Blair could certainly use a laugh tonight.
The events, which seemed to have transpired that day, sent Blair’s mind into a tailspin. Even while well-dosed by the cheap wine Horace had given him, Blair still found it hard to sleep. After Horace had comforted him with a few offhanded quips about the governor and the state of the economy as he saw it, they both settled down to get some sack time on their favorite corner just off Wily Street.
As he watched the rhythmic dripping coming from a rusty, old pipe, the same which had lulled him to sleep so many times in the past, Blair managed to settle into a restless slumber. The sound of the water spattering against the pavement took him back to the sound of blood smacking against the walls of the alley where he believed Cynthia had been murdered.