Danny Conway Street

I walked down the street like I owned it. My street, got it? Danny Conway’s street. I was stepping over cars in my way, kicking them out of the gutter. I’m walking here. I’m out. Served my time. Repaid my debt to society. Which means you, you umbrella fuck. You don’t like my rain? This is my rain. I brought this rain with me. The outside gate at Morrel opened up, I walked through, and the rain fell down. It’s been raining ever since. It’s okay, I’ll let you use some of my rain.

Don’t worry. I’m rehabilitated. A new man. Impulse control is tight as tits. Cashed in all my PX tickets for these shoes. Clean and white. New. Like me. Had the same eighty bucks in my pocket I had when I walked in 72 months ago, and I was looking to make something happen with it. So I was just walking down Danny Conway Street, my new white shoes eating up the sidewalk, when I walked into Buster Holmes. I mean, I walked into him and almost knocked him down.

Buster had been out for almost two years and he looked soft. And it made me mad. Buster’s hair wasn’t coming back in yet. Morrel had thinned him out up there, which you see a lot of. Comes from having to keep one eye open all the time and never knowing where to put your back.

So Buster at first acts like he doesn’t even know who I am. Or maybe he really doesn’t. Being out and soft, maybe all that is so far in the past he can’t even remember it. I said, “Buster, you asshole, it’s Danny!” And he stood there looking at me for a while. And then you could see it: he remembered. And he got even softer. Like a loaf of bread. “Buy me a drink, asshole. I’m out, and I got something I want to talk to you about.”