Cardboard Crown
The sky never got bright enough to turn the streetlights off. 4:30 p.m., walking on the sidewalk littered with random shoveled chunks that had half-melted then refroze, he presses the button on his watch cap, and its attached spotlight shines down, reflecting off black ice, showing him the way. The day had been so short, it was an afterthought, already banished, forgotten.
A ball of ice rolls down into his chest and disintegrates with every breath. Ice cream-headache wind blows down the empty trail near the river lined with homeless encampments. He spots a couple of small fires blinking through the bare trees like eyes trying to stay open. He turns off his light. They might think he’s police, a representative of trouble arriving. He’s just passing through, a man without a car. A man walking home from Burger King smelling of layered, thick grease, that rubs off on his jacket through friction like it does every day. The burger jacket. He’d stolen it off the back of a chair while some guy was in the BK bathroom. The jacket makes him hungry and nauseous at the same time.
Walking because his car has died. He’d been priced out of his car by the repair estimate. A new transmission for a fifteen-year-old rusted-out van. He crushes the estimate in one hand inside the pocket. He tilts his head down and scrunches his shoulders, but the wind blasts his forehead, following the dark river in its sinuous path, silent and nearly invisible, nearly lethal.
He’s not homeless, but he lives on the frayed lifeline of minimum wage. Rent vs. car? Two miles each way. Not impossible. Even in February.
A homeless shadow at a distance from a small fire shouts, “What you looking at, mother fucker?” In truth, he isn’t even looking at the man. Is the man looking at him? Does it matter? In the dark, he can see his future self in the empty night mirror.
His story turns like the half-frozen river. He lugs his dinner in his other hand, the bag- rattle magnified by cold absence. Takeout from BK. The usual Whopper/fries combo. Already cold, but he’ll zap it in the microwave in the apartment above Jack’s bar where alcoholic rats scratch through his dreams. They start early at Jack’s and stay late. There isn’t a Jack. It’s not that kind of place.
He shares the room with his cousin Stevo. A room, all they share. Stevo will not get one French fry ever. He will not get one ketchup packet. Stevo stole some money from him once. He has no proof. He has the absence of innocence. Stevo, like the last present in the Yankee Swap, better than the alternative of nothing. He remembers his parents arguing over even that. No one had enough to give everyone a present. They all did the mental math of the costs of each gift. A math error had landed his father in prison. His mother was living with another guy in another town. He doesn’t drink at Jack’s or anywhere else. Anymore is his secret word.
He’s got a ways to go to get to Jack’s. His numb forehead caused by his own lack of hurry. He veers toward the homeless encampment, vague figures around a vague fire, the rustle of tarps. He opens the bag and pulls out a stack of flattened BK crowns and starts handing them out. The ragged figures turn the useless crowns over in their hands as if trying to read another language.
They don’t all insert slot A into tab B and put the crowns on their sorry-ass heads and dance in a circle around the fire, everyone their own king or queen, prince or princess. He doesn’t tears open the bag and share his burger and fries like Jesus’ loaves and fishes. This isn’t about miracles or parables.
This is for me, he says, clutching the BK bag as it crackles against his side. I worked for it. In truth, BK had HELP WANTED JOIN OUR TEAM up on their marquee forever. Then one morning it read GOOD LUCK WE ALL QUIT after the entire night shift walked out, leaving the restaurant empty and unguarded. Then all the letters were stolen. They still need help. He takes all the hours he can, needing help himself.
Homeless is a complicated word, another distant cousin he’s only met once. One by one they toss the flattened crowns into the fire and reach their hands out to feel the brief but dramatic new warmth, ignoring him entirely. He just nods and walks away, a little jump in his step like a secret he’s keeping even as it threatens to escape. He clicks his watch cap back on and strides into the darkness, chasing his own light.
—
Care to Share?
Consider posting a note of comment on this item:
—§—
Previous Post
—