Tony Madeira smoothly buttered his toast, keeping one brown eye on the kitchen clock and another on the green metal door to his apartment. From the otherwise bare white wall, the clock ticked off the seconds until 10:00 a.m.

He ate his toast without ceremony, taking care to first nibble off the crust as always. After he finished off the dry, buttery bread, Tony dabbed a napkin at his mouth and then washed his hands at the kitchen sink.

The clock played its mournful battery-operated chime, DUM-de-DUM-dum, DUM-de-DUM-dum, DUM-de-dum-dum, dum-de-DUM-dum. Tony grabbed the morning paper off the table. He was already wearing his dressy walking shoes and a jacket, so he just went out the door, down the short green hall, down the three-story fire escape, and to the broken sidewalk.

He opened his eyes and stared at the psychiatrist, who seemed amazed and intrigued.  Or maybe the cappucino on his desk had his eyes.  Who knows.

“That the kind of memory you talking, brother?” Tony had more where that came from, if he had an audience to tell it to.

The psychiatrist was used to prisoners acting cocky and unhelpful.  He simply plunged on.  “What’s at ten in the morning, Tony? What happens then?”

“I flip over the sign in the window. I open my doors to the first customers seeking a trim or a nice, close shave.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

Sighing, Tony folded and unfolded his thin, artist’s hands. A hint of tears glittered in his sad brown eyes as he quietly answered. “Yes. I believe that’s all.”

“Can you tell me more about what was going on as you went to the barber shop?”

“I can recollect some things, I suppose.  Won’t do me no good.”  Tony shut his eyes, and gave up more memories.

In the small ghetto common yards, the youngest children played and played hard, some of them waving at Tony, most of them keeping a wary side-eye on the man as he wordlessly passed. Nobody threw a ball at him or said “What’s good?” Nothing was good then, probably, and their dads or babysitters already told them, no doubt. 

A small group of boys, about seven to nine years old, gathered at the curb ahead of Tony. Each boy stared without noticeable emotion at the middle-aged barber’s approach, just like yesterday when Tony first noticed the feeling of wearing a target on his back.  Do it say “Shoot me” on my back? What, what it say?

When Tony came near enough to be spit upon, the tallest boy in the group coldly glared straight into Tony’s watching eyes. As Tony continued down the connecting concrete walkway leading out of the complex, he could feel the heartless gazes of the boys. He even imagined that some of the boys still had enough humanity left in them to feel sorrow for him.