Independence Day
Two homeless people meet on the street. One is a man I call Boris, 35ish, maybe 40—thin, thin, thin! He’s got glasses and a stubby black beard. The other is a woman, Shorty. Shorty’s age is harder to tell. 30’s? 50’s? I would guess she’s 42, but it’s just a guess. Shorty is just a nickname I made up, but sometimes I wonder if I guessed it right, because she’s got short hair, plus she is short. She has the kind of eyes everyone calls “smiling eyes,” only they reflect a lot of light, too, like “twinkling eyes.” They should write a song about her eyes. What makes them really shiny is her dark, wrinkled skin. She has that cowhide skin that creases her face really deep and makes it look like she’s always happy. And old. Maybe she is only 22.
I see her with Jack Samson every morning on our way to the construction site. She’s always on the same stretch of median. At first we used to joke about her. You know, over beers after work, Jack would lean forward and say, “Would you rather put it in Hillary Clinton or the bum lady?” I used to laugh, say, “anyone but the bum lady,” and wonder what it would be like to be with either one of them, since I never had a real girlfriend. When I first pictured Boris and Shorty having sex it used to make me feel sick. Her oily hair and dirty nails. His unclean wiener. I bet they both have bad breath. But then I started thinking, maybe it wasn’t so bad—you get used to the grime, and you can do it outside, which is kind of fun. I like to picture them going into the woods holding hands, and Boris would lay her down beside the little stream there, and in her mind she’s some maiden sneaking off with the knight back in olden times. That kind of sex starts to sound much better than sex that’s just done in four-walled houses with tired beds and hair-sprayed hair and greaseless skin.
Shorty has one of those mystery bodies because she wears oversize tee-shirts. Jack told me she must have hot tits under those big shirts and that’s why she has to wear those clothes so the men bums don’t mess with her. I told him that even if that were true, the men bums have a code and don’t mess with their own. Or at least, not someone like Shorty. I started thinking maybe Shorty was just a nice person who fell unto some hard times. To me, she always looks like some kind of mother, because of her really kind smile. I bet if she had pot roast, or a place to cook pot roast, she’d cook it just right and make sure you had two helpings, maybe three.
Sometimes Shorty just holds up this sign written on piece of ripped cardboard that says, “Smile!” and that’s it. Not even, “Smile, anything helps,” or “Smile, your kindness is appreciated.” It seems like she means it too, because when I do smile at her on my way to the Quick Mart, she smiles right back and gives me the buck-toothiest one ever—which makes me smile even more. Even homeless people like to smile, and that’s why Shorty’s meeting Boris on the street now. Even homeless people like to love.
Today is the 4th of July, and I brought Boris and Shorty some beers. Not because I think that all bums like beer, but because I know these are the kind of people who appreciate a gift. I came from my house and started to cross the median, but the light changed. I waited for it to change again, just watching them for just the right time to give them the gift. Part of it is that I like to see what they’re doing, and part of it is that I’m scared that they won’t know what to make of me. I guess I just don’t know.
I can hear what Boris is saying, but not Shorty, because Boris is talking really loud. He’s saying something like: “Well I know what happened to my Honey!” But then I got closer to the curb and heard him say, “I spent all my money because it’s my money!” Oh. He was red-faced from the heat and his anger, but precious Shorty just stood there with her hands in her dirty pockets. Her lips were straight lines, but the wrinkles they made were already cracked. She was poised to laugh in his face.
She didn’t laugh though. Instead she said, “That wasn’t your money, we earned that together fair and square.”
“Oh, now look who works on Wall Street! You don’ know my money, bitch,” Boris said. I gasped. Boris moved like he was going to hit her, but instead he crumpled forward and grabbed for a backpack that was by his feet.
“Great, now you’re leaving because I want my 20 bucks?” She asked. Her grandma hands found their way out of her pockets to her hips.
He paused as though he were cooking up the greatest comeback of all time. “Fuckin’ guess so.”
She was still, and for just a moment is seemed like Boris was going to hug her. His glasses tipped forward on his nose as he first stepped, then tripped all 140 pounds into her. She caught him and they stood there for a second, his thin frame looming over her small one. I don’t know why he was still so mad, it really looked like they could have just hugged and made up. Then Shorty grabbed for his backpack, and Boris was knocked off balance. This made him very mad. He was like a cartoon stick man, pushed over by something as small as the wind blowing.
But he righted himself. He pulled back his sinewy brown arm. Shorty suddenly looked so much shorter than I had ever noticed. Did she always have bags under her eyes and big pit stains? She didn’t look like a mother at all just then. I dropped their Fourth of July beers to the ground and sprinted across the rubbly pavement to intercept whatever Boris was about to do. As my sneakered shoe stepped onto their part of the median, they both looked unphazed, expectant. Boris squared his tottering figure to me, and his punch connected with my left eye and knocked me to the ground. “Why didn’ you bring the beer, hon?” Shorty asked. I smelled her b.o. mix with the scent of fresh tar on the other side of the median. My first thought was that my face was broken, but then I realized that it probably wasn’t, since Boris was so skinny. They walked away, and although I couldn’t open my eyes to see, I imagined they were arm in arm—crossing the street to where I had dropped their beers. I guess he was bound to punch someone that day. Maybe he felt like he needed to earn his beer.
Then I just lay there feeling my bones throb. This is what you do when you get socked in the face. Let the eyes sink deep into your sockets like pebbles. Move the breath through your ribs like opening gills. Eyes like pebbles and ribs like gills. I waited for the sun to get lower, maybe an hour on the ground, and no one checked on me. No one even noticed me. I heard Shorty’s cardboard sign hit car wheels as it tried to escape. I finally got up when I heard the first fireworks, and I remembered it was time to celebrate.
- Lauren Trojniar
Lauren Trojniar earned her B.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Bard College. She currently works at a cafe and enjoys riding her bike. Her fiction has also appeared in the2ndhand.
SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE : issue #003 |