Insiders and Outsiders
Insiders and Outsiders He looked up after fumbling through a bag and smiled as he handed her a cigarette. Nothing remarkable, you might say. It was the smile that got me - a nd the purple glasses-neither of which I had seen him wearing before. She was disheveled–her hair frizzing around her head and crowding her back, badly in need of a kneading of her knots. He seemed better kempt than she was, his locks shiningly clean like they usually were. Maybe it was their bodies that showed their "sameness"-her belly protruding from under her fuchsia t-shirt in an untucked fashion, his swollen ankles sticking out from the borders of his too-short pants. Maybe they also shared colors. I had seen him in pinks and violets, although usually more pastel than his friend's shirt. But still, something was connecting them, hence the grin that I had never seen him direct at anyone, not even the child who had stopped to say hello one day. Maybe they were both beggars or druggies. They se...