potholes

Today I found myself sitting next to a man who was crouched next to a pothole on the service drive to the freeway, sifting through the asphalt crumbles with an arthritic knuckle. He was searching for cigarette butts that had a little white at the tip, the ones with a drag or two of life leftover. A growing parabola of urine stained the front of his grey sweat pants. He had on a pair of black leather shoes, slightly too big but laces neatly tied in a bow.

I was sitting in a black leather seat in the back of a new Ford Focus, listening to satellite radio with the air conditioning blowing over my face, thinking about what I would eat for dinner when we rolled to a stop next to him. I looked up to scope out the area, the way I always do when I come to a stop light in Flint. Someone in the car mumbled something about how we should leave the city by 7, and it was 7:05.

The car was silent for the duration of the light. The driver fiddled with the radio and then started to tap the steering wheel with her thumbs. We were anxious to get back to the suburbs, where the grass was mown and the potholes were filled and the cigarettes were either brand new or in the garbage and all the apartments looked the same and all the people in them were predictable and tidy and comfortable.

I kept thinking about his shoes, and what it must have been like the moment he was tying them.

Its a bumpy ride home. Here, potholes and highways mark the boundary between heartbreak and sterility.