Hardship

He knew that he didn’t quest the common life of a laborer. A struggling writer a poet and an alcoholic, that about sums it up. Always struggling to get something on paper, he was familiar with hard luck. His piers had found fame through writing about being down and out; he was simply looking for a paycheck. Jack never liked to write in first person. He found that it always attracted the wrong readers; people who knew him could point their judgmental fingers at him. Old men would question his work ethics and old woman would curse his morals.
The best time to write was broke, alone and hung-over in a seedy hotel or rooming house. The story always about Jack, but he needed players. Runaway mothers or prostitutes, old musicians and dancers or their down in the dump followers.
Jack rubbed the week old stubble that irritated his neck. His face caved through hardship yet his stomach had been full to long as he carried a small beer baby. He was considering butting out of the ordinary and renting a dank room down at the strip joint, actually just above the dance floor so he could feel a pull on his loin once the songs began.