Everybody called her Dirty Alice. Yeah, pretty much everybody. She sat outside the bodega and people assumed the tatters begged beggar. Dimes, nickels, pennies and other tarnish magnets bent the air towards her daily.
She collected them, of course. They sat next to her treasures behind the brick wall, never spent. Everybody called her Dirty Alice. Everybody. Except Josephine.
Josephine addressed her as Miss Alice and all the formalities that went along with the respectful prefix followed. Whether it mattered to Miss Alice or not, nobody knew. Nobody. Except Josephine.
She knew.
Josephine wouldn't scold anybody who used the Dirty, but her furrowed brow was enough to get them to shut their cake holes. At least in Her presence.
Miss Alice would be addressed with respect and Josephine would create the habit gently.
That's the only way to enforce such things.
Miss Alice had that story you'd expect. She was alone now but had somebody once. A wonderful somebody that was taken away suddenly. She loved too big, too fast, too much and she rolled the dice one too many times.
Snake eyes.
Josephine tucked hundies inside wonderful pages she knew Miss Alice would enjoy. She gave her voucher wrapped hamburgers for a nights stay inside. She'd never offer them outright. That wouldn't be dignified. It might embarrass Miss Alice and Josephine would never do that.
Miss Alice looked forward to the swaggering sillhouette of her patron. It wasn't the discreet gifting but the look and the smile she looked forward to.
Josephine did not dare ask or address Miss Alice and Miss Alice appreciated every silent nod. Besides, she'd never leave this spot. She'd never go far from it. The cement sucked the some life from her love and from her one night. Random acts are the cruelest, yeah?
They shot, he went down. They rolled his rumple and took the twenty he had on him and ran. Cowards. She'd not leave this spot. It pulled her down like a giant sad magnet and it held her bones heavy.
There was no poetry in her incident. No great flowery scent of something deeper. Just random cowardice, another couple caught in it's crossfire.
Josephine despised the cowards hiding behind potent, stolen steel. It raised her temper which made her boil big even more.
Did the same simpering mice pass her each day? She wondered. Sometimes, just every now and then, Josephine would watch to see if an eye knowingly looked down at Miss Alice. If a stupid word ever came out of a stupid mouth towards the twisted hair of the gray woman.
That's what really happens, you know. When life drains, gray remains. Your outlines fade and your cheeks wipe. Miss Alice would never leave this spot.
Josephine would never stop passing it.