Fight 5.1

     The shouting came from the white house to my right. They were all white houses, or off white houses. It was St Patrick’s Day and a Thursday and about 10 pm. Albany was already drunk. College kids crossed slowly in the middle of the street, cop cars idled at stoplights, and the fluorescent lights of the dollar pizza place on the corner illuminated a swarm of white legs like moths around a porch light.

    All the houses looked the same. Full recycling cans sat on the island of grass and dirt between the street and the cracked sidewalk. The shouting came from the house with the garage in the back of the driveway with its lights on. The lights backlit a small gathering of people I couldn’t see but for the ember of a burning joint.

     We were walking to the bar I believe. My friends moved ahead, their arms swaying but I stopped to listen to the man yell at this girl. I stopped and tapped the toe of my boots on the cement. It was warm for March and I had only a long t-shirt on.

      He was screaming now. Something about her being out late or the dress she was wearing. I can’t remember. I couldn’t see who they were but they had given themselves a considerable distance from their friends. His back was to me; he must’ve backed away slowly throughout the fight. He suddenly got very quite.

     I pushed my hair back form my eyes and put the bottle I was walking with down on the lawn.

     “Oh you’re gonna cry like a bitch,” she said. “That’s right. This is how it always goes. I do something and you get upset and cry like a baby. You do not deserve me.” He was softly crying.

      He was still backing up, farther away from the garage light. I picked my beer up off the mixture of thin dirt and grass and I left. I walked without really knowing where I was going, I was told the bar was on Edwards but I couldn’t read the signs. Plus, all the houses looked the same.

     I finished the beer and kept walking.