When I walk towards my new and still-unfamiliar apartment on 140th street & Broadway, two words lead me there: Liquor & Lotto.

Liquor and Lotto. Liquor and Lotto. Sometimes I repeat these words within the cadence of my step, and let my mind make all kinds of associations about My Life, and Liquor, and Lotto.

• I think about what my Grandmother might say if she knew about where I lived (and how I lived).
• I think about impulsivity. And big dreams. Payoffs that I’m still waiting for.
• I think about what others think about when I’ve been drinking. I think about drinking. I think about you. 
• (And you.) 
• (Y tú también.)

I think about how unhappy I am that the storefront pulled down the old marquee lettering—Flashbulbs: LIQUORS—and replaced it with roving neon lights.

Angry, too. “How dare they tear down that old sign,” I often think. It was so classic. Now it just feels obscene.

I put too much meaning into everything, I know. But I can’t help but believe that the sign, and it’s changing look, is subtext.

A subtext for my life that sings like a Howlin’ Wolf song.