What Ramon Told Me

Ramon told me it was a scar from a knife fight

he was in. The other guy had the knife, he didn’t.

That’s life on the streets, he told me. Say some-

thing nasty or have something the other guy don’t,

and likely the best you can hope for is a scar on the

face like this. I had a bottle of Thunderbird and he

wanted me to hand it over. All I says to him was

there’s only one swig left, and what’s mine is mine.

Go get your own. That’s when he pulls out the

blade an swipes me across the face. Son-of-a-bitch!

I yelled at him. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and

he runs off. Now, I wasn’t homeless like Ramon,

but I had a story of my own. Got this scar on the

back of my hand when I was thirteen. My brother

threw a sharp section of a stove pipe at me. No

reason, no bottle of wine involved, he was just

being mean. Ain’t that the shits, Ramon said to me.

A brother doin’ that for no reason. That guy wantin’

my bottle didn’t know me from Adam. Your brother,

you say. Sounds like them two biblical Cain and Abel

brothers to me. Seems a hell of a lot worse when the

Good Book gets involved. You ask me, it’s a lot safer

livin’ out on the streets. Leastwise you can figure on

trustin’ no one.

                              -30-

Chris Hanch 4-15-2020