Shag and Jar

‘Albert Scrim is dead’, said the man in the hat, ‘died from leg sores and an affliction of the gout. Poor bastard, underexposure, imagine that, doctor said he was underexposed to food and proper lodging, had teeth worms and an ulcerous gut, rotten clear down to the large intestine, all putrefied and mollies, poor bastard. Never did much like the cunt, but he was a good fellow with the shag and jar, never one to say no to a hand-me-up.' The man in the hat tossed a handful of coppers onto the sidewalk where Albert Scrim petitioned for stuff that weren’t no matter or good for those that already had stuff that mattered, saying in a polite, whispering voice, ‘allow me, sir, to beg of your pardon, have you a copper or a half-nickel to spare, I seem to have forgotten my change-purse at home, in a rush I was this morning, out the door like a lick of speed I was.’ Albert Scrim left behind three shoes, two pairs of soiled underwear, a greatcoat, a pair of army issue trousers, a woolen sweater, fisherman’s knit with cabling, a green pullover chemise and three dollars and twelve cents, all in pennies, that he had stitched in the inside pocket of his coat, for safe keeping and to help redistribute his weight, his left side being slightly bigger than his right, which caused him to keel to one side like a channel buoy.