In fact, it destroyed the once concrete relationship between him and the saucy, doughy, dish.
"I hope you both die miserable," said Elson as he puffed out a cloud of menthol smoke.
It was a cold Tuesday night. He stood at his window dressed in trousers and a ribbed undershirt, warmed by hard, sinewy, hate. The red neon glow of the pizzeria sign bathed him as he watched a young happy couple giggle down the sidewalk with an extra large pie warming their hands.
His rent was cheap and that's why he'd stayed in the same one bedroom 1940s refurbed apartment for the past six years. He wouldn't be able to find anything this close to downtown for the same price. The smoking had pretty much killed his sense of taste and smell, pretty much. The garlic remained. It permeated his existence. Even when he went to work he, and everyone else at the Stamp Collector's Room, was subject to the dense odor.
Elson took the last slug of rye from the bottle and tossed it out his window onto the cracked sidewalk below, just feet from Gino's door. Paulie, the skinny, pimply, apron clad boy who worked the behind counter, stepped out from the store with a broom and dust pan. He swept up the glass, like clockwork.