The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free.

The belch hitched a ride on the wind. The chunks that followed took to the garden bed. Another night in hell's paradise. Three and a quarter bottles down. Suicide wasn't the aim but it was getting close. Just a drink, he said. That's what he always said. And it always took a turn.

Begging. Scraping by. Sometimes he thought he'd rather give blowjobs like Lady May. She really worked it. Cleaned it like a tube of toothpaste. Really got them their monies worth. He kind of felt he was close to the same sense of selling himself already. Why not just slip in a finger and join the chorus?

The guy's hands shook as he wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. He couldn't remember the last time he'd worn anything new. His clothes were beginning to grow their own sense of identity. That's how well he knew them, and the stains they'd both grown accustomed to.

Maybe he needed another bottle. He slumped against the wall then rode it all the way to the bottom. There it was, that soothing chill of shaded bricks against his bare lower back. His eyes flickered like a TV screen. He smiled his ignorance wide. He felt free, but maybe he was just as trapped as the rest of them.

With outstretched hands, he continued the charade towards the working class parade. What else was he going to do with his time? Between the drinking and the vomiting, this kept up appearances of someone that gave a damn. The money though, it always flowed up. Besides the few notes needed to keep himself unshackled, it royally flowed up.

Tuesday, he thought, as a coin spun in his direction. He couldn't wait for Tuesdays. That's when things took a different kind of a turn. One you mightn't expect from such an inconspicuous barfly. The slice of charity hit his wrist, bounced into his chest then disappeared into his lap.

Where the fuck is Tuesday, he begged, his smiling eyes dimming by the ticking of each hurried footstep as they passed. The unlucky ones. The ones not yet drinking from the spring of insanity.