I want to know about the lives of the people who are out at night. I want to know what they're doing and thinking on their front stoops, on the corner, driving by.
There's just something about night people.
Maybe I am hoping I can be inducted into a secret society, the organized order of the world after dark.
I want to sit inside an Edward Hopper painting and converse with the others.
I sat in the Corner Cafe watching people crawling in and out of shadows, all up Cathedral Street. The world at night has the gears slowed down. Its a film in slow motion.
As I finished my iced mocha, I realized how cold and dark it was out. I nervously opened my knife in my pocket and headed back down the street.
"You gimme somethin?," I heard a voice call. I kept looking down and moving forward.
"You gimme somethin?,"
Maybe he thinks I'm a prostitute, I thought to myself. I turned in his direction, and he asked again.
I then realized that he had been asking me, "You need somethin?"
I shook my head no.
The coast was clear. A-OK. I followed three out-of-towners up the block as far as I could.
I made my way past the laundry service, where the constant hum of the dryer sounds like a train.
I folded my knofe shut and locked my door behind me.
I wonder if he had some good shit.