Goucher College Fiction Workshop
All Print Rights Reserved
By David Robinson
“Ya got any shange, man? Nickels, dimes, o’ quarters? Jus’ a li’l bit to help me out?”
Every
day it’s the same shit—same questions, same time, same street corner. Sometimes
I give him some change. If he catches
me in the right mood, I might even give him a one dollar bill. But most days I
just lock my car doors, turn the radio up loud, and don’t pay any attention to
him.
Most people would call him
black. With his shaggy beard and the
way dust collects on him, I’d say he’s more of a gray color than anything
else. I’m not sure if he knows who I am
by now, but I’ve been living here for a few months. Every weekday I see him on the corner of Pratt and MLK, around 9
a.m. when I’m driving to school.
Sometimes I think he recognizes me.
He’ll grin, exposing his crooked, yellow teeth, and look at my Jeep, his
eyes lighting up like he’s seen a friend.
Other times, he just bangs on my window while he looks down the street
at the other cars. Maybe he asks me for
money everyday because I’m white, which most people aren’t around here. He’s probably just really stoned.
I
want to turn the radio up, but it wasn’t working when I started the car this
morning. Neither was the heat. I sigh, clouding my view of him until he
becomes a total blur, then quickly returns to the form tapping at my window. The light has been red for almost three
minutes now. Maybe I can wait him out.
“Hey,
ya got any shange, man? Nickels, dimes,
o’ quarters? C’mon man, is cold out
here, jus a lil’ bit to help me out?”
Still red. I grab two quarters and a nickel from inside
my pocket and push the button for the window to go down, but it only opens a
crack, then stops.
“Here you go, man,” I say,
pushing the coins out so that they fall into his hands cupped around my door.
“God
bless,” he says with a bow of the head and moves on to the car behind me.
He always says that. God fuckin’ bless. I would give him money every time I saw him if I knew he wasn’t
going to say that. I don’t believe in
God and I don’t care if he does. What
the hell am I supposed to say to him when he says something like that? Next time, I’m gonna look him straight in
the face and say, “I didn’t sneeze,” and then I’m gonna drive off whether the
light is green or not.
The light’s green now. Yup, definitely green. Only one shade of green on a traffic
light. My car doesn’t seem to care. I push my foot down on the gas all the way
to the floor, and nothing. Not even a
slight jerk. Honking progressively
comes at me until the entire lane of traffic behind me is beeping their
horn. I grab at the key with my hand,
which is covered by the sleeve of my jacket, and turn off the ignition.
“Fuck you, mothafucka,” yells a man in an old beige Cadillac as he passes me on the right. I bite my lips from the cold.
I turn the key again and the
engine doesn’t respond, so I push the flashers button, but that doesn’t do
anything either. That homeless guy did
something to my car. The wind slaps me
in the face as I open the door. The
homeless man is stumbling slowly down the street, oblivious to all the
commotion. His pace is slow and
lifeless, like clockwork.
“Hey,” I shout, but he
doesn’t respond. “Hey, what the hell did you do to my car?”
He turns and looks at me,
eyes wide open with no expression on his face.
He starts the same methodical walk towards me. I can feel the gel in my hair stiffen. There’s nothing worse than a wet head of hair on a cold day.
“I said what the hell did
you do to my car?”
“’Say wha?”
His voice is low and raspy.
“What did you do to my car?”
He lazily turns his head and
stares at my car, his eyebrows cringing as if he is trying to remember just how
it was that he wrecked my three year old Jeep Grand Cherokee. The wind picks up a little bit, blowing at
the back of my neck. It must be 25
degrees outside today. He squints at me
and turns his head slightly.
“I just gave you some
change,” I say, “Two quarters and a nickel.
You had your hands on my car and now it doesn’t work. What did you do to my car?”
His upper lip curls and he
scuffs at me. An ivory white Lexus
pulls up on the right of my car, and the homeless man starts stumbling towards
it, shouting about nickels, dimes, and quarters.
I go back into the car to
give the ignition another shot but it won’t even try to turn over. I’m going to miss my Introduction to
Political Science class. I’ve skipped
the class before and I’m probably going to fail whether I show up today or not,
but it still pisses me off. Now I have
to get the damn car towed. I pull the AAA card out of my wallet and scan it for
the number to call. My father gave it
to me when I turned sixteen and this is the first time I’ve used it. There’s a 1-800 number on it and I dial it
on my cell phone. My teeth are
chattering as I tell the company where my car is at.
“How long’s it gonna be?” I
ask, but before I can get an answer, the cell phone loses its signal.
Now I have to wait. I try and get comfortable, but the leather
is freezing against my back. It’s 9:15,
my class starts in fifteen minutes. I
hate waking up this early just to take a class that the school requires. I close my eyes and try to picture Maui on
my spring vacation last year. As I
start to fool myself into believing that it’s actually getting warmer, there is
a tapping at my window.
“Ya got any shange,
man? Nickels, dimes, o’ quart-“
“Are you fucking serious?” I
say. He looks at me for a moment, his
eyes wide open, mouth drooped to the side.
He squints hard.
“C’mon man, is cold out
here, jus a lil bit to help me out?”
I fumble through my pockets
and grab the rest of what I have, forty-seven cents, and get out of the
car. The wind slaps my face again, but
harder like the back of a hand.
“Where can I get some of the
shit you’re smoking?” I ask as I hand him the change. His hands are covered in a grayish soot. It looks like he’s been washing them in
gravel.
“God bless,” he says.
God fuckin’ bless. I take out a cigarette and shield it from
the wind with my jacket while I light it.
The first few drags of the day are the best—total ecstasy. After a couple drags though, I can’t think
about anything except how painfully cold my hand is. As I switch hands on the cigarette, I notice that he’s still
standing there next to me. He’s looking
right at me--eyes wide open and mouth to the side.
“Shit, man,” I say, lighting
another cigarette in my mouth and handing it to him. He holds the cigarette in his hand for a moment, then takes a
long, slow drag from the side of his lips and leaves it resting there. I take a couple more drags, looking at him;
he’s staring right back. It makes me
feel uncomfortable.
“Good thing my father gave
me this AAA card,” I say, “Or I’d be shit out of luck.” He continues to stare blankly at me. “Yes siree, shit-out-of-luck.
“Don’t tell my father I said
that though. I haven’t even spoken to
the asshole for six months, let alone thanked him for anything.” I have this strange feeling that this guy isn't
going to tell my father.
“Fuck, I don’t need
him. What did he get me that was so
great? He got me this car and look
where that got me? Shit, that’s gonna
set me back a pretty penny. Radio
doesn’t work, neither does the heat or the fucking windows, and the goddamn
engine doesn’t even work. That’s a
shitload of stuff to happen to one car.
Don’t know how the hell I’m gonna come up with the money for that. I’ll probably just have to sell the damn
car. You wanna buy a jeep?”
“Altanata’s bussed,” he
mumbles out of the side of his mouth, cigarette still hanging at the end of his
lips.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Altanata…is bussed,” he
says. Now I’m the one staring blankly
at the other, clueless to what he’s talking about. A few cars have assembled a line, waiting for the light to turn
green. He starts a slow walk towards a
silver Mercedes-Benz, which sparkles despite a gray sky. The man inside it has a nice tan—hard to
come by in Baltimore during the winter.
He rolls down his window and hands the homeless man a bill without
taking his eyes off the traffic light.
The other cars are old and rusted, like lumps of coal, beat up and
expressionless. The light goes green
and they all file down the road in order.
The shiny Mercedes speeds off, dodging between coal in traffic.
The wetness in my eyes feels
like tears. My lips are dry and when I
wince, I feel them cracking. It hurts
so bad in my fingers that I don’t even bother to bend them. A feeling of numbness in my toes has crept
all the way up to my spine.
The homeless man’s face
shows no sign of feeling the cold. His
eyes, wide open, are like big white globes with a single stormy cloud in the
middle of each of them. Little islands
of thin gray hair cover his cheeks and chin.
Gray like the sky. Like the cars
and the gravel. He walks towards me
like a vengeful mummy, with sluggish steps that drag his tiny frame. The yellow flashing lights of the tow truck
are absorbed in his utter blankness.
“Damn that was fast,” I say.
The man in the tow truck
says very little. He latches my Jeep onto
the back with quick precision. I tell
him to take it to the nearest gas station with an auto shop and he says I can
ride there with him.
The homeless man is standing
in front of a few cars at the traffic light.
The cars and the people inside them all look very plain. He stands there, not looking at anything,
saying nothing to anyone. They echo his
mute blindness. I walk over to him and
place two one dollar bills in his hand.
He grins slightly, the cigarette moving upwards with his lips.
“God bless,” he says.
I look into his white-globe
eyes for a moment, lost in the drab coloring of their stormy centers, and I
smile. The light is still red when I
get into the truck. I put my hands over
the vents, which are blasting heat.
“So what’s a matter with yer
Jeep,” asks the man. “Engine won’t
start?”
“Yup,” I say. “Heat and radio don’t work either. Same with the windows.”
“Oh,” he says and pauses for
a moment. “Sounds like the alternator’s busted.”
The light turns green.