Point Blank

Blank worked his foot inside the shoe as some Chink looked in the alley and said nothing. Shuffled past.

Blank tucked his shirt in. He tightened his tie.

The guy was laying flat on his back, his eyes open. He seemed to be coming around. Then he rolled over and threw up.

Blank didn't see any blood in the man's vomit, but he didn't bend down for a better view either. He felt sorry for the son-of-a-bitch. Maybe too much so. Blank had a full day planned for tomorrow. He was going to see his kid in the morning. He was going to take a shower and shave tonight--but, he couldn't just leave the guy in his white boxers. Blank believed in karma. He decided to dress the poor bastard.

He put his old jeans on him as best he could, then slipped his some-what new tennis shoes onto the man's lifeless blue-veined feet. He left the laces untied. He slipped his Stones tee-shirt with the big red tongue over the man's head and struggled getting the arms through. Then he lifted the man's dead-weight the way he'd learned in Nam and carried him closer to the sidewalk. He set him down just as the light behind him changed.

Two men and a woman stopped-dead in the mouth of the alley. They were dressed much like Blank was dressed. He joined them on the sidewalk and they all looked down at the man who was on his knees now, struggling to get up.

“He's drunk,” one man said.

"Maybe he needs a doctor," the woman added.

"He needs a bath," the same man said. "I hate seeing this!"

"Don't believe everything you see," Blank whispered walking past a store window. "Don't believe any of it..."

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