Seen Yesterday

A man is walking along Congress Street (that's my town's main drag). He's a dapper old fellow, slim. I've seen him before, many times in fact, and always here, walking along Congress Street. He's wearing a brown sport coat and a string tie. Jeans. His hair is greasy, slicked-back, so he looks like somebody from another place and time--say, a small Arizona town in the 50s. The expression on his face yesterday was, as usual, intensely inward--the look of someone engaged in a heated internal monologue. He passes me--I'm waiting at the bus stop--and he gets just about to the entrance to Starbucks, then stops suddenly and seems to stare out across the intersection. Then he shakes his head slowly in arrogant disgust and says, loud and distinct, "NIG-ger heaven!" Then he turns around and walks back toward me, passing me again, still shaking his head and muttering, "NIG-ger heaven!"

How very sad.