Sometimes Jason watched his old neighborhood from the tops of buildings when he could. He dressed in an old, discarded suit that had never seen the light of day, just so he wasn’t recognized by anyone.

It hurt, most of the time, staring down at the streets he once wandered with nowhere else to go. His stomach twisted uncomfortably any time he’d catch a glimpse of his old neighbors, aged, but still stuck here, standing on their balconies to smoke their worries away like he’d see them do when he was young.

It hurt more to see the girls turning tricks on the corner, getting into the nice cars that pulled up to meet them. He remembered how he’d hung around them, clinging onto the sleeves of their jackets like a lost puppy. He watched as, over the months, little laundromats and bodegas went out of business to be replaced by empty lots of dirt, eternally for lease because nobody wanted to buy property there.

But, just sometimes, he’d get a glimmer of hope. A little kid helped crossed the street by the nice schoolbus driver, somebody sweeping shards of glass up from the sidewalk so no one would hurt themselves on it. That was why he came. Those moments, when he couldn’t possibly think of it as all bad.

He was only snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a faint rustling behind him and felt someone there, hypervigilant from his years of training. He spun around as fast as he could, pulling his weapon out and pointing it straight at the intruder. “What the f*ck do you want?!”