It was a short, plastic candy cane. He left that and a pullover in the back of my mother’s truck when I dropped him off in front of the grocery store after the last time I bought crack. Arizona crack, which is kind of a lot like South Carolina crack, which is not so much like good ol’ Brooklyn crack. The new(ish) Lil’ Kim song comes to mind and I float a little in nostalgic tangent… homesick for jail… but glad to have broken out… and, like an escaped convict, haunted by the feeling of time running out, paranoid about getting caught again, sensing a drive to keep on the run, be careful, be meticulous…

What I meant to say was that the Christmas deco, together with the nightshirt of a native on the streets, is still stashed in the bushes along the fence behind my mother’s house. I saw them as Buddy and I ended our morning walk.

And black crap is still coming up out of my alveoli into the sink.

Residues of a former life.