They Thought I Was Dead

but I'd been watching all along, from the shadows, my eyes hidden by the grey fedora I liked to wear after watching black and white movies (grandiose, I know). As I watched I wore a brown cotton trench coat and a pair of old hiking boots and I did not hesitate to stride through the deepest puddles in the middle of the darkest streets. I drank whiskey from a rusty flask and spoke in a deep, throaty voice when I offered cigarettes to pretty dames who often wanted me to share a taxi with them back home to whatever sadness lay in their bed, as chilled as any vodka you cared to mention. They called me Flash. Why? Maybe it was the way headlights reflected off my gray eyes as I scratched the stubble on my chin and asked them where they'd been the night before, who they'd been with and if he carried a gun or something rougher. Of course they would not give me an answer that wasn't of the coy variety, some cheeky, flirty response that, tell you the truth, turned me on more than it annoyed me and even as I saw them safely to their cab and shut them inside said cab I could feel their fingernails clawing down my back shredding my flesh like ribbon on the way to something better, something holier than I or any man deserved and when the cab pulled away without me I would step back into the deep gasoline puddles and look up at the sky and maybe, if it was a good night, I'd see some stars poking through the rooftop of this dirty god damned town and my last cigarette would light on the first try.