Sunday. 9:45pm. I had no cigarettes and Vespucci's closed in fifteen minutes. It was do or die time: do I slap on a nicotine patch or do I buy smokes. Of course I was an idiot and decided I needed tobacco. I put on my coat and sneakers (and pants) and barely made it by five minutes. As soon as I exited the shop there were two drunk gangbanger wannabes walking by. One of them asked "hey, got a cigarette?" I looked down at the full unopened pack. Then I looked up at him and replied "none that I can spare." Lately it seems I can't be out of my apartment five minutes without someone trying to bum money or cigarettes off of me, and it annoys me to no end. As a matter of principle I said no. I found myself walking with them, one in front of me, the other to my left. They both called me homosexual epithets. One said "you can't spare a cigarette? Maybe I can't spare your life." The other called me a "punk-ass nigga" and then noticed my orange Vans and mistook them for jail-issued sneakers. He remarked how I just got out of county and how could I not spare a smoke? When we got to the intersection of Clark and Gray I banged a right onto Gray once it was obvious the young thuglings were continuing down Clark. I really wanted to laugh, which is usually how I react to bullshit bravado, but I didn't. I also wanted to say the following things, but I, probably wisely, decided to keep to myself:
- If you're trying to mooch shit off from other people, particularly strangers, I'm not the punk-ass.
- I couldn't care less about your sexual orientation, but if you're eying my footwear so closely you can tell the color on a dimly lit street, it might not be me who's the "fag."
- If I did just get out of jail, then there's a real possibility I just spent the last of my money on cigarettes so I really can't afford to spare any.
- Jail-issued sneakers don't have laces, poseur.
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