The Carriage Man

The carriage man wasn't looking for a windfall, just enough cigarette butts to last him through the approaching thunderstorm until the ground dried and more would be tossed from passing cars or flicked from the tobacco-stained fingers of gagging pedestrians. He was gauntly bent over the pub's plastic pock-marked cigarette receptacle which was filled with sand swept from the sidewalk several years ago. From my vantage point, across the street on a third floor terrace, I'd say he found himself five or six butts- maybe even one or two with an inch or so of smokeable tobacco. Butts in hand, he pushed his rusting carriage across the street and parked it in the curb with two wheels lodged into the slots of a storm drain. Then he sat down on a concrete slab under a sumac tree, spread out his long legs, and fingered through the butts he held in the palm of his hand. A crack of thunder split the air. One by one, he fervently massaged the tobacco from the butts into an old plastic film canister. From a daily he pulled from his back pocket, he tore out a two-page thick strip of newsprint, tapped some second-hand tobacco onto the paper, and rolled himself a cigarette, ever-careful that any tobacco seeping from the ends would fall somewhere retrievable. Another crack of thunder and a splash of lazy, hulking drops discolored the sidewalk. He moistened the end of the newsprint with his lips, sealed the roll, got up and secured his cigarette in the joint formed by the first branch and the trunk of the sumac tree and fumbled despairingly through pockets looking for matches. When found, he retrieved his cigarette and lit it. With a deep inhale, smoke coursed down his throat and into his lungs where it could be absorbed into his bloodstream. The rain steadied and he arched his head back to accept a few drops. From across the street and three stories high, I saw a smile fill his face and a glimmer come to his deep, jaundiced eyes as he exhaled.