The tip flickered orange in the hulking dark, one small spot of smoldering warmth in the damp cold of a waterfront night. Finn had given up cigarettes decades ago, but the old longing stole over him like it always did. One more smoke for old time’s sake, what could it hurt? He wanted the comfort of a lit cigarette held loosely between his index and middle fingers. The taste as the smoke rolled across his tongue. Wanted to feel the kind of heat that would fill his lungs over and over again until it killed him. Eventually. The creep would give Finn a cigarette if he asked. Creeps would give him anything if they thought Finn would let them live. To his left, a wharf rat the size of an alley cat scuttled along the base of the plant’s rust-stained concrete wall. The rat disappeared beneath a drift of trash, and insistent squeaks erupted from the garbage. Finn could barely hear the rat’s babies over the passing thrum of a heavy bass beat. A car sped past the front of the processing plant, fleeing a neighborhood no one should be driving through at this time of night.
