There’s something tragic about the way the moonlight hits her. It’s like tonight is hers. The black sky looking down and shaking its head. Another one lost to this wicked world.

Our flaws are announced with a chorus of trumpets and a blinding spotlight.

Joy Green has that beast in her. That thing that devours. That greedy parasitic whisper that resides in the bones. And it’s just getting started with her. The only way out is to slay it and Joy’s not the slaying type. Now Cesar’s calculating his losses and he’s livid, with himself, blinded by his own ambition, too stupid to see that thing in her, knowing that beast is going to eat and thinking…Why not be the hand that feeds it?

This is no quick fix. There is no Band-aid big enough for his life.

A crack rock-bottom is beneath rock-bottom. It’s a slab ceiling in every direction. A concrete box filled with guilt. During the chase you’re focused. The only thing that exists is the fix. Your mind is lost in the now, in the journey. Your life, everyone you’re hurting, everything you left behind, it all quiets down until you find this bottom, this moment of clarity. And when you find it the guilt is upon you. There’s nowhere to go. Not until the fix frees you.

If you ask Denny, he will tell you: "I'm a patriot. I love my country." A country that doesn't love him back. Doesn't love him black. A patriot. Let that register. A black patriot. In a country that won't acknowledge that Black Lives Matter.

Cars slowed down as they passed. White drivers with white passengers. White parents with white children, watching. Not seeing, I imagine, three innocent black boys being harassed by racist police officers. Seeing three black criminals being brought to justice. Young minds being shaped into wrong thinking. Generational ignorance being reinforced through misconstrued observation.

Where the concrete kept his pain at bay, the page gave his pain a place to go.

Because the worst hurt in the world is losing your father’s love. The worst hurt in the world is watching his eyes change when he looks at you. When the marriage trudges forward but the family gets divorced. And your mother can’t stand you for telling on her. And your father resents you for being the one who found out. And they both, in their own ways, move on without you.

The city yawns and stretches. A lazy Sunday morning opens its eyes. Cesar’s always loved it down here. The water flowing beneath him. The city surrounding the ancient river. A bright green canopy of trees far off in the distance. Cesar’s always appreciated the beauty. He’s always thought it was a perfect juxtaposition of urban and God.