Adam Graves & the Six Pack

Adam Graves walked with a limp. It was a bad knee that caused his limp, an accident from years ago, outside the walls where medical care was scarce, if not non-existent. At first, months and even years after the accident, he forced himself to walk without a cane but now, when age and weight increased, he could no longer support himself with his own body. Adam embraced the cane, wholeheartedly, and bought a mahogany gem with an exquisitely carved mallard duck head, green neck, hard marble eyes inset into the wood. The top of the duck’s head had been rubbed to a soft sheen, fitting Adam’s palm like it had naturally been carved out of him. Adam named the duck Willard, in one of his odd, drunken nights out with his crew. They all laughed at the haphazard name but it stuck.

And now, at this moment, Willard was jammed underneath a neck, Adam pushing it into the fleshy folds of a man pinned against the concrete backside of a dilapidated apartment building. The man struggled to catch his breath.

“Please, please,” he said in between gasps of air. “It’s, it’s-” the man sputtered, gagging, clawing at the duck’s head, “it’s all I have.”

“If I recall correctly,” Adam said, “we had set on a price before I ventured out here. Is that correct?”

The man nodded in affirmation.

“And, if I’m not mistaken, you knew you wouldn’t have enough. Is that correct?” Adam asked, a slight invocation [this is not the word I want] to his question.

The man nodded in affirmation yet again.

“I’m curious, and please be honest with me, what made you think I would acquiesce to a reduced fee?”

The man stopped squirming, looked at Adam with wet eyes. Adam pushed hard into the man’s neck, his eyes widening, and then dropped to his knees, gulping for air, when Adam removed his cane. Adam leaned on his cane and shoved one hand into a pocket.

“Well?” Adam asked.

The man whispered out “I don’t know.”

“Please, look at me when you speak to me. It’s not only kind but a sign of respect,” Adam said. He dealt with this day-in, day-out; the lying, the disrespect, the absolute dregs of society. Why they couldn’t just show some respect, show some humility, was just beyond Adam’s coprehension. Civilized society must follow standards, some decorum, some sense of civic responsibility.

The man turned his face toward Adam. He coughed, stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, squinted from the sun behind Adam.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. He took a deep breath. “To be honest, Mr. Graves, I’m desparate. You’ve already taken my family through and, don’t get me wrong, we’re eternally grateful, but it was a lot of money.”

Adam nodded. Same sob story, same excuses.

Adam walked back to the wall under the cover of a moonless sky. The wall had been up for most of his fifty years on this earth. He didn’t understand then how lucky it was to be on the inside.