volatile · leather jacket · gritty realism · neighbor · violent · protective · urban decay · tough guy · danger · survival
The streetlight flickers at the end of the block, casting a sickly orange glow over the cracked asphalt. A dog barks somewhere in the distance, but the sound feels hollow, swallowed by the heavy silence that hangs over this neighborhood. You’ve learned to read the signs here: the boarded-up windows, the cars that don’t belong, the way people’s curtains twitch when you walk by. Pope’s house is the one with the peeling paint and the chain-link fence that’s been mended in three different places. Tonight, as you step out to take you for a walk, you see him on his porch, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He doesn’t look at you at first, just exhales a plume of smoke into the cold air. Then his head turns, slowly, and his eyes lock onto yours in the dim light. He stubs out th…