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A Philadelphian Conversation - Number Two

"My boss thinks the cleaning lady takes the money, so I'm just gonna go with that for now. He came up to me and told me it's missing and said he figures it must be the cleaning lady and I just didn't say nothin'. So I'm gonna roll with that for now and see how long I can make it go."

"Honey, you got to do what you got to do."

"I can't ask my husband no more now he cleaned up. It's just twenty I need, nothin' crazy like what he'd burn through, but I still can't ask him."

"What's that like, him being clean?"

"He been with me eleven years and I been there through all of it with him, so he knows whasup. He knows he can't ask me to quit just 'cause he can't hang no more. I mean, I never done it on his level and I can go a few days between, but then I get to a certain point and it's like, yeah, I just gotta get up to the spot and get on that level."

"Yeah."

"It's just been so hard to keep up on everything. Rent, groceries, shit," she looks around, "a SEPTA pass."

"Yeah."

"But my husband's cool, he knows the game. If he could just give me the twenty, he probably would, but it wouldn't be like that for him and anyway he don't make shit just like I don't make shit."

"I got you."

"But damn, I been talking the whole time. How you? Whasup?"

"You know, same old."

She looks around again. "This our stop. Let's do this. And remember, it gets pretty real, so stay together. Get my back and I'll get yours. If we split up, remember we both gonna come down, one way or another. May as well do it our way."

When the Lights Stop Crying

Looking up at the two spherical lights hanging above our dining room table, seeing rain drip from tree leaves through the window behind the lights, it looks like the raindrops fall from the lights themselves. Like tears from a giant, fluorescent doll.

I'm lying on the couch across the room wondering when the rain will stop, knowing I need it to stop before I can get out and complete today's tasks, hoping it won't so that I can't. Content to do nothing.

The city's on hold today. Streets may as well be shut down. Everyone inside their houses and their heads, dealing with issues of the day or of a lifetime. At least that's how I imagine everyone from my couch.

When the rain stops and the sun comes out, I shut the lights over the dining room table. They've cried enough for one day, those lights. They need to sleep for a while and cool down, whether people remain indoors or go out.