I pulled the transit card out of my pocket.
Ol’ Wiseman had slipped it to me when he gripped my hand right before he croaked. I’d flipped it down into the gutter when the street sweepers loaded me up in the squad car. First stop after getting sprung was down a manhole and a slimy crawl under the street. I was lucky that it hadn’t rained for once. The card was still there.
I could’ve tried to hawk it, but you gotta know the right type of scumbag for that sort of deal. With all the heat on my back, I probably would have ended up getting my elbows checked again. I’d had enough of cooling my heels in the slammer.
So I kept it. I figured it would come in handy one day when I might have to get the hell outta Dodge. One day, when I had the answers that I needed. The memories that had melted away like fog in the morning.
But at that particular time all I had was my wits and my game face. I strode into the nearest apartment complex like I knew where I was going. The name of the joint was The Luzzatti. Wiseman had history with the owner, said he was on the square. I figured if I was gonna start anywhere, might as well start there. Because it’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts.
And eventually every mug catches a lucky break. That’s the thing about life. You weather the rough storms and eventually the seas get calm and the clouds break, if only for a little while.
A Wiseman once told me that.
About the Author
Bard Constantine decided to write seriously when approaching his 30th birthday, and has been doing so ever since. He often spends his time taking himself too seriously and expounding on frivolous subjects like movies and his favorite novels. When not procrastinating about writing, he’s usually pounding on a keyboard in a dank basement with a single flickering light bulb. Rumors of his sanity have been furiously denied.