And he said: “The one people do when they’re already standing at your grave.”

He made me laugh.

On a pavement, at eight fifteen in the morning, four weeks from the end of his life, that man made me laugh out loud, and he was pleased about it, and I watched him be pleased about it.

I pointed at the cardboard again.

I said, “Why this?”

And he looked into the coffee for a bit.

And he said: “I don’t want to die belonging to nobody.”