Clark informed me as we stood on the sidewalk talking and smoking like we do every morning.
“We are all out on the street because of fucking women. Do you know what I mean? Do you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked to stop him from asking again.
“You’re out here becausee of your wife, right? She won’t let you smoke in the house, am I right?”
He was and he didn’t need me to tell him because I’d been bitching about it ever since we’d first met.
“Willoughby’s out here cause his wife left him and he’s got no one else to talk to, right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “Willoughbys not down here.”
“Well if he was… when he was… when he will be, it’s because of a woman… his ex.”
“Who’d you fuck to end up down here?” I asked, actually curious.
“Fuck? Fuck you. Who said anything about fucking you sick fuck?.”
“You said, ‘we’re all out on the street because of fucking women’,” I reminded him.
“Figure of fucking speech,” He said and he was quiet for a minute and smoked. “I’m talking about my dead mother. I mean that’s sick. I’m down here because my mother’s dead and she never let me smoke in the house in the end… the cancer… It became a habit.”
“Smoking?”
“Smoking outside,” he said “I’m here out of respect for the dead and you…?” and he made a nauseous face and I could see his eyes working in his head.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were going to open up about your personal relationships.”
“I don’t have any personal relationships. I got you and Willoughby.”
“Willoughby’s not here.”
Clark looked up at Willoughby’s window and said, “So what’s wrong with Willoughby?”
