He shoved his way up the ghetto food chain till he crested on the plateau of his youth, and soon after began the steep descent into the valley of age and the possibility of a miserable sunset.
Until recently, he was content to live on the bare necessities, to revel in cheap narcotics and bus-stop broads. The future was too distant a prospect to be bothered with. Sadly, a time comes when the fountain of youth dwindles to a mere trickle, when the bulging muscles shrivel into limp sinewy strands, when the one time supple joints stiffen and lose their spring.
This life, area life, it is unforgiving, physically telling, and does not come with retirement benefits. Watching the younger area brood through dark rheumy eyes, he knows they still respect him…but that too is temporary, they merely accommodate his inevitable transition into dotage until it becomes an intolerable nuisance.
Dark thoughts of what his life might have been and the reality of the uncertain future lying ahead give him momentary pause, until they are clouded over by the heady forgetfulness of the inebriated. He’ll wake tomorrow, all his problems still in place, the only change in circumstances being the huge hangover that has been added to the number and what new schemes he can hatch or goods he can misappropriate to feed his beast.
