I smoked some more cigarettes, paced up and down the halls. I played over the Schubert sonata in my head, felt my fingers twitch at the difficult passages. I stood at the front door, where the cool air carried the scent of autumn: dry leaves mixed with the perfume of the last roses. Beyond the wall a bus whined by. I couldn’t see it. As the sky began to pale in the hour before dawn I stood on the porch with the young cop who’d drawn garden duty. He was tall, with heavy-rimmed glasses, and so buck-toothed that he seemed to be grinning even when he wasn’t. I asked him about the Cobras. “Bad,” he said. “The worst.” “What are they into? Drugs? Guns?” “Some, probably.” He took his glasses off, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Shit, I gotta get contacts. You wear contacts?” “No. Tell me about the Cobras.” “Never thought about contacts till yesterday. Basketball game, some asshole jammed me. Almost broke my nose.” He resettled his glasses gingerly. “Mostly what they do is protection.”
What do You think about CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin)?
