Day CCLXXIV

Battered and Beaten

     “Yo man, why donya clean up afta ya facking dawg, man.”

     “Mind ya bidness mofo!”

     “It be my bidness moda.”

      “Howzat?

     “Oi don’t like stepping on det shit…do you?”

     “So watch wa ya walks!” He cackled, and kept walking.

     When the kid approached him, Francis picked up a large, empty, glass bottle from the gutter, and smashed it on the sidewalk.

     “Kerassssssssh!”

     The glass went flying everywhere, and Francis stood there smiling, and holding the jagged neck of the bottle.

    “Det how it is, uh?” The kid stared at him.

    “Well ya want some, come an git it mofo!”

     Francis must have been high, because that kid hung out at that corner with a bunch of other kids. There must have been five or six of them who grew up on that block, and didn’t bother anybody. As a matter of fact, they helped the elderly, and kept junkies out. They stuck together like corn beef and cabbage; pasta and meatballs; rice and beans, they didn’t bother anybody. Nobody messed with them either. At that time the block was starting to get mixed with a lot of new Hispanic immigrants, and blacks who were there first.

    When his buds saw Francis approaching their pal with a broken bottle, they didn’t ask any questions. They jumped on his ass, and beat him like a pimp beats a hoe who comes home empty handed. Then they left him there in a heap on the side walk, battered and bleeding, his Aam licking his wounds.