Providence, on a Tuesday

Josh Cummings
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read
Art by Tavares Strachan. Photo by Josh Cummings.

Outside a cafe, we’re sitting against a faded brick wall at a worn wooden table beneath an arching walnut tree. The sun is setting in our faces and our skin is glistening in the heat. The city passes us by.

A muscled Italian man is telling his life story, unprovoked. He was an alcoholic and now he is seeing a therapist. He works as a disaster restoration specialist. He has a daughter that “saved his life.” He believes in his story more than any man I’ve ever spoken to.


Down the street, there is a dog park. The ground is made of dirt or dying grass, singed by dog pee. An old woman from the Section 8 housing across the street throws Chinese food onto the sidewalk to “feed the birds.” From the other side of the fence, dogs strain for gobbling pigeons.

A short, hairy-shouldered man is lecturing me about a horror film — something to do with a fox — that he watched with his Korean ex-boyfriend. I don’t know why he is telling me this. He knows more about Shiba Inus; the dog breed, than anyone on the planet. He has the fattest dog I’ve ever seen, which lays in the shade with such utter lethargy that it seems he may die right here in the dirt at any moment. The dog is an Shiba Inu. I wonder if this man really knows anything at all.


On the east side where the wealthy live, renovated colonial houses stand tall and proud beside two-hundred year old oak trees and trendy eateries. Sparrows crowd in the well-trimmed cedar bushes. It is dusk and everyone is emerging from their air-conditioned homes to walk in the pale summer breeze.

There are two homeless men sitting on the gum-crusted concrete outside the restaurants. They have a guitar but they don’t play. Their sign reads “Broke and Hungry.” They are young and animated and full of life, though quite down on their luck, it seems.

I wonder if they will someday find their way off of the streets and spend their days telling strangers the dark stories of their past, or walking a fat, dying dog.

Written by

Writer living in Providence, RI.

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