StreetWise!
The train was just letting out and the steady tramp, tramp, tramp of morning commuters’ feet made the street wake up.
He sold a couple of papers. No big deal. Easy sell these morning commuters. Still wakin’ up. Didn’t talk much.
A couple of kids came by, going the other way, toward the school around the corner. One tall, skinny, dark-skinned kid, not a black, another kind, dug in his pocket and pulled out some bills. Bought a paper. His friends raced on into the little store next to the copy shop—shrieking even before they got their sugar. Sugar’s bad for kids, Mama’d always said that. Makes ‘em wild. But this dark kid. No sugar for him, he’d bought a paper. Didn’t say nothin’, just stood there till his friends ran back out. Then they all moved off toward the school like they was joined at the hip.
You see anything, everything on the street.
Couple of regulars came by. Said hi, catch you next time.
Was okay.
A campus cop came by, rode a bicycle. Looked like a student, young, shiny brown hair. Glasses. But a uniform. The bicycle cop was mean and looked through him like he was invisible. Like he was wearing that cape the Harry Potter kid had. They’d showed that movie at the shelter one night. Scary flying things. He shivered.
He watched the cop who couldn’t see him. Bicycle cop crossed over the street, headed to the campus. Cut through two parked cars, for Pete’s sake. Didn’t cross at the crosswalk. Cops don’t think they hafta follow the rules. No sir, no sir.
StreetWise!
The train people had passed. Next train in a few minutes.
He watched the young cop some more. Got off his bike, talking to a student. He watched more closely. Was the student in trouble? Nah. They were both laughing. Shook hands. Okay. Okay. Nothing to worry about there.
StreetWise!
The sparkle shoes lady turned the corner and came down the block toward him. He squinted. He thought it was her, but where was her sparkle dress? Where were her sparkle shoes? Today she was all in black, her long blonde hair pulled back like an old school teacher. Well hell. But it was her. He looked carefully. Couldn’t be two of ‘em that tall with blond hair. From the neck up she was still more than okay, ‘cept she did look sad. And the black dress. She didn’t look like Glenda now. No sir. All that black she could be the Wicked Witch of the West. He hated black. Funerals and cold meat and people crying. He shuddered. Street needed to pick up. He looked at his own shoes.
He took a quick look up, hoping the Glenda/Wicked Witch had gone, but she’d stopped. Met somebody. Black woman. A campus cop, her uniform kinda tight on her short round body. Kind round all around. He smiled at the rhyme. Maybe he’d use it. Poems could rhyme if you wanted to, right? Kinda round all around cop even had round hair. She only came up to Glenda/Wicked Witch’s chest. Looked like Abbott and Costello. ‘Who’s on first?’ He chuckled. But he still didn’t like all that black. Good. They were moving down the street. He looked back at his shoes until they passed out of sight.
StreetWise!
Good. The next train had come.
Oh shit! That guy was hangin’ around the station. No good panhandler. Hustler. Scared people. Bad for business. He put on his meanest face as the guy walked by tryin’ to hustle a commuter. Givin’ him a hard luck story. Commuter didn’t even look up. No dice. He’d heard it all before. We’d all heard it all before. Hustler gave up.
He smiled.
6
Her life is in a bag
All she has
It’s very sad
“Bag Lady”
Dee Dee Robinson, #471
StreetWise
Thursday, May 18, 8:00 a.m.
A chill wind razored down the street directly off the lake four blocks away. I shivered in my thin jacket as I stepped out the front door. May in Chicago. I briefly contemplated going back in for something warmer, but it was too much effort. Besides, it wasn’t the freezing gusts that were chilling me. It was fatigue. Memories from the previous evening had kept me awake most of the night. That image of the mouth and nose clogged with concrete rising slowly in front of my eyes had been with me ever since, waking and sleeping.
At first, of course, I’d been charged up by the adrenaline rush that comes with a rescue. Jumping into the elevator shaft, acting heroic. But somehow the horror of that gray clotting matter holding on to its prey had gotten right down into my bones, turning them to jelly. ‘Preserve me from this’ had been a prayer I’d silently breathed through stiff and frightened lips more than once last night.
I doubted Courtney’s death had been an accident and in my mind’s eye the memory of that dark gaping mouth of the elevator shaft had included monster shapes, feeding the mouth, feeding her to the dark maw. Those monster shapes were the shadowy outline of a murderer.
These charming thoughts accompanied me as I walked slowly on my sore feet toward the corner. When I turned, I brightened, seeing Alice Matthews coming down the sidewalk. She must have taken the train. I could see a brief flash as she lit a cigarette and inhaled slowly. I waited.
Alice was hatless and she only had on a light jacket that wasn’t even zipped despite the cold. Both the jacket and her hair whipped in the wind. She seemed lost in thought and she was almost next to me before she glanced up.
“Who died?” she quipped. My mood was none too subtly reflected in my choice of clothes this morning. I was in black from head to toe and I’d tied my hair back, too tired to do anything else.
“A young woman about twenty years of age, I’d say,” was my curt reply.
Alice’s deep brown eyes flashed up at me, and I was brought up short, ashamed of my self-dramatizing. I flushed.
“Sorry, Alice,” I said. “Really bad night.”
I proceeded to give her a quick run through of what had happened while we walked down the street toward the university. We passed Dwayne, the StreetWise vendor, to whom I’d spoken last night. He seemed to be concentrating on his shoes again.
While I gave her a blow-by-blow description of the demonstration, the reception, the so-called rescue and then the time in the hospital, Alice kept running her free hand through her blowing curls, pushing them back from her face. The wind at our backs kept pushing them forward. With the other hand, she took short, quick drags on her cigarette. She finally threw it down on the sidewalk and ground it out with her heel. She was probably afraid of her hair catching on fire. But her attention was clearly on what I was saying and when I finished, she groaned.
“Jane Quixote rides again. God, Kristin, don’t you ever quit jumping in where you don’t belong? This time into an elevator shaft for Christ’s sake? And you say Stammos was there and saw you pull this stunt?”
I nodded.
“Yep. He helped pull me out of the elevator shaft.” I remembered the power in his arms and shoulders.
Alice sighed.
“Sounds like you’re making friends in high places as usual. I’ll see what they say at morning briefing. You teaching today?”
“Yes. I have a morning class, heaven help me. Want to meet for coffee later?”
Alice nodded.
“Sure. Later is right. I’m on for ten stinking hours today. Last night was the first night I didn’t work in four straight days.”
She reached