While walking from my monthly obeisance of paying the bills ( a responsibility that my aunt pawns off to me when she doesn't feel up to being on the road -which is invariably all the time -__-), I spotted (well, was spotted by really...no, lie! I was accosted seems more fitting) Kevin, my childhood barber while walking by one of the more popular local restaurants in Half Way Tree. He had on a very...well downright bizarre expression as he greeted and spoke to me in a rushed tone that was nothing like his usual self.
"Yow how yuh do boss?" He ignores the concept of personal space as he walks right.up.into.my.face.
"Mi good, long time no see, Aunty Donna didn't tell me you moved shops." Which was true, I hadn't seen Kevin for nigh three years.
"Yea man, deh a Arcade now, did a lie low fi a likkle, all spen' some time inna jail still." This I could've observed. men who are incarcerated for any spell have a somewhat "tainted air" to them (in my experience). and he exuded it in his disconcerting stare and toothy smile - or what would've been toothy, had his teeth not been a yellowing deteriorating mass that I've come to associate with protracted drug use...My heart broke at the memory of his common law wife and son. "Eh," he hands me a card, "Keep di link. Aright? Lata boss." and like that he is gone, walking just as briskly away...and I notice...His gait has changed- which is expected, men who go to prison a rarely maintain a confident stride; his hair is less sleek-groomed, yes, but not "neat"...his clothes hang on him as if he has lost a large amount of weight, which I surmise he has... our exchange lasted in all roughly one minute, yet it shakes me still hours after seeing him...its on these days that I can see credence to the expression:
"...Life is hard...and then you die..."
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