We’re standing in the usual place, because it’s the usual place. It’s too hot, like it is most of the time. If it’s not too hot, it’s too cold. I blame the fur. When it’s hot the fur makes me hotter, when it’s cold it doesn’t. You’d think there gotsta be a way round that, but there isn’t.
I said this to a guy once, one of my regulars, after we’d finished and he was getting his affairs in order, like they say. It’s simple, he says. Is it, I say. Sure, he says. Get a better fur for when it’s cold and don’t wear one when it’s hot. You’re crazy, I say. How am I crazy, he says. This fur is my uniform, I say. If I didn’t wear it nobody’d recognise me and I wouldn’t get any business. I’d recognise you, he says. You wouldn’t, I say. I would, he says.
So I try it. The next Thursday, cause he’s one of my Thursday guys, son of a bitch walks straight past me. Goes to Jenny instead, and she gets the money I’d have gotten if I’d worn the damn fur. No food for me that night. I could only afford enough for the little one and her brother. Assholes didn’t even ask why I wasn’t eating anything.
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