on gravity

It's Saturday night in Boston. We walk past the Hard Rock Cafe. Under the awning, sheltered from the rain, a small crowd of smokers huddle together. They look like a herd of some tacky breed of animal, with their hairsprayed dos and gaudy clothes and scowls. We turn the corner. Burton points out a pair of grungy undies in the street, flattened by that day's steady rain. Their owner is long gone. "They must've fallen off?" Surely.