Night time Deposit

 

Wobbly walking patrons executing their exit; fleeting rats from a sinking ship adhering to the last call for alkye-haul. Some grumbling and growling, but all obeying and deploying like good soldier paratroopers in a straight line right out the back of the plane, on a night time mission to where they do not want to go; to do what they do not want to do, as if three hours in a bar would have changed anything in their lives but its sharpness.  All sufficiently attired in inebriation and all appearing inoculated behind faces still numb from flowing spirits and flat screen televisions that radiated games of choice in full blown detail and surreal suspense for their mindless entertainment. Adorned and bedecked in smoke filled clothes that radiate the smell as if steam form an overheated engine into the darkness that slowly absorbs them all one by one. Their ears still impounded in throbbing rhythms and chants of tunes still imbedded into the wall thirty feet behind them. And as the immune stumble on oblivious to the chirping crickets and passing traffic finding its way in much the same way home, albeit a bit faster; the back door opens and the lady with the bag walks quietly and slowly to the corner. Upon her face an err of caution much like the alley cat looking for some pray scampering in the corners and recesses of the dark alleys that surround her every move. Her hand firmly clutched around the nights takings. The price the needy are willing have anted up for peace. No checks, no balances; just her alone in a race to safely reach her goal directly across the street, at two am. Not until she places the night’s returns into the safety deposit box, will she breathe easy.