EARLIER IN THE DAY

She’s the only friend who, although we don’t work together, is in the same business as me. In our conversations we use words like, ‘splitting,’ and ‘object,' and we know the difference between depression and despair.
Both Kuvuka and Kino were closing at five so we went to the bar we’d been the last time we met for coffee.
‘Do you want your milk separate or with?’ said the woman serving was there last time too.
‘I don’t know,’ said my friend.
She decided with first time, separate the second. I had two double expressos, a glass of iced water on the side.
I told her about my Dad and his wife, their relationship, and said, ‘Is that what all of you want, you women?’
She said, ‘You have control issues.'
Out on the street before we said goodbye a man carrying a bottle of Oasis came out the Pipe towards us.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
I put my hand up, said, ‘No,’ kept walking.
‘You people...’ he said.
‘You get much of that?’ said my friend.
‘Walking along here, yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t like being so rude but I don’t want either of us wasting time. Him telling the story, me listening.’
‘They like to tell a story,’ she said.
‘There’s always one,’ I said. ‘Well, not always...not everyone, but often. I’ve got a policy though,’ standing, waiting for the lights to change, ‘not to give money to anyone from my block.’
‘They could hassle you anytime then,’ she said.
‘True,’ I said. ‘And I don’t give money to someone I’ve given money to earlier in the day.’