Suzie’s House 403 : Clear Blue Sky I

What a beautiful day with clear skies but mild temperatures. That meant plenty of foot traffic for Jim to spange from. He had his can out and flew a great sign. Bills and coins dropped into his can every little while. Life couldn’t be better.

“Get a job,” a man in a three piece growled as he stomped past.

“I got one!” Jim shook his can to make his point.

To his surprise Mr. Businessman came back.

“You think this is a job?” The guy got up in Jim’s face. His lips twisted in a sneer, and he reached for the front of Jim’s shirt.

“Well it’s not like I want to be here.” Jim couldn’t quite meet the man’s eyes.

“How you feel has nothing to do with it. The question is what you are doing for others. What have you done for anyone but yourself?” Though the man’s eyes flashed, he didn’t do anything, like he was waiting in the hush for Jim’s response.

“I entertain people.” Jim lifted his chin, waiting for the guy to argue with him.

“Oh, really? I could use some entertainment.” To Jim’s amazement, the guy took of his jacket and plopped to the concrete planter next to him. “So. Entertain me.”

“Oh. Well… I was born in Madison Wisconsin. I have a mother, a father, and a sister named Emma.”

“This is entertainment?”

“I haven’t got to the good part yet.” Jim settled in to his story. He raised his voice a little because the more people listened to his story, the more likely he’d get something out of it. “I thought I had a nice, normal family. I mean, it’s the Sears and Roebuck family, right? If people could order it from a catalog they would.”

That line worked pretty good. At least a couple of people stopped to listen.

“Everything was great until one morning I woke up in Des Moines with nothing but what I’d had on the night before and a note in my father’s handwriting telling me not to go home.” Jim had learned the hard way to leave out the part about the money. People didn’t’ give you anything when they thought you would waste it.

“How awful,” a teenage girl said. “You must have been desperate.”

“Yes, yes.” Jim nodded. Actually he wouldn’t remember, but it sounded good. Whatever his feelings when he first found himself lost and alone, he was quite happy with his life now.

Sure, there were days when he went hungry. Sometimes he got rained on. Sometimes the police gave him grief. But all in all, people were pretty nice, and he had his friends.

“Is it true what your sign says?” the girl asked. “You’re trying to get money for a phone card?”

“That’s right.” Jim was pretty proud of his sign. He’d thought of it on his own.

“Well, then here.” She dropped a red and white phone card into his can.

“Verizon! Yes! Thank you! Thank you so much.” He jumped up and did a happy dance around the bewildered girl.

“Yeah. sure. I don’t need it anyway.” She pulled her hands free, and went off with her friend. She was smiling in satisfaction.

“Wait. If your father doesn’t want you to go home, what do you need the phone card for,” Mr. Three Piece Suit asked.

“For my friends.” Jim snatched up the phone card. He pulled out a pocket knife that he’d scored in Washington DC a few weeks ago and started scraping.

“What kind of friends could a bum have?”

“Good ones. The kind that will watch your back, and keep it real.” He typed the numbers from the card into his phone. As soon as the minutes loaded, he whipped off a text telling his friends to come get him. “I was hitching out of Des Moines and got picked up by this really cool dude. A bunch of us have been traveling all over ever since.”

“A bunch?”

“Well, sometimes it’s just the five of us. But we’re always picking people up. I think there’s eight right now, but there were fifteen of us a week ago, all squished into one van. It was really something.” Jim grinned and shook his head.

“You know that can’t last. Someday the van will break down and you’ll all have to go back to living in the gutter.”

“Hey, why aren’t you off somewhere working,” Jim tossed back at the guy.

“I just got fired. Now I have to find a new one.”

“Oh. Well I got one for you right here.” Jim handed him the sign as a van covered in graffiti pulled up to the no parking zone. “Ditch the suit and you’ll have it made.”

The side door of the van popped open. Jim grabbed his cup and hopped in.

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