Mine had cream.
His was always black.
Larry never begged me for money.
Some mornings we talked about the weather.
Other mornings he complained about the pigeons.
Once, he looked down at my office heels and told me they looked like they had been designed by “someone who hated human feet.”
Usually, I stayed for five minutes before rushing to work.
That Tuesday morning was different.
Larry looked terrible.
His skin had a yellow tint, and his hands shook when I passed him his coffee.
I pointed at the cardboard sign.
“What is this?”
He looked down at it.
“The clinic says I probably have about a month.”
For a moment, the noise of traffic and commuters around us seemed to disappear.
“What?”
“Liver failure.”
I sat beside him on the freezing pavement.
