that illusion of stability

"That was when I checked my phone. It was a small flip phone that I sometimes forgot about for days on end. It was always dropping calls. I had bought it from the back door of a bodega on Graham and Conselyea along with a packet of calling cards that gave you pretty modest minutes unless you were calling Yemen, in which case your time lasted forever. I had four new messages, all from unknown callers. I sat down on the stoop of a brownstone to listen to them. They were all made from that same rock from the same quarries in Pennsylvania, the stuff that looked like it could survive any kind of calamity, natural or man-made, legal or otherwise. The neighborhood was full of them and that was part of its charm, that illusion of stability."

~~ from An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy

He had been poor once

"He smiled a thin-slipped, distant smile and slid back further into his chair. We were sitting in plush leather armchairs and every now and again he would cross or uncross one of his legs. He seemed awfully proud of himself, sitting there. He had fought and clawed and believed it meant something that he had. He had been poor once, when he was young, and now that he wasn't anymore he thought it all had meaning: his rise, his marriage, his bribes and permits, the cotton robe he was wearing and letting slide open to show off his old man's skin, all pocked and flaccid."

~~ from An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy