Red Cent

“To many people.” Wanda was so tired of saying it that the words came out like a polysyllabic name. She sat on a bench at West Lake Center and watched as streams of people cut meandering routes around her. When the weather was nice, as it so rarely was, she tried to enjoy the sun. Now it was summer and even in the shade, the air was warm and felt good.

A skinny teen in tight black jeans that sagged below his boxers attempted to flip his skate board. The board spun around in the air, but as one of the boy's feet landed on the tail end of the board, the nose cut upward into the boys groin. He fell to the ground rolling and grabbing his crotch as his friends gathered around.

Wanda rolled her eyes as she took another sip of her Starbucks lunch. Her temp job scanning legal copies in a high rise a few blocks away had turned into something more permanent. She was fairly certain that her boss Mike was keeping her around because she hadn't made a mistake in four months, but just as likely it was because he enjoyed the look of her back side through his office door. The Xerox machine where she was stationed was on an internal wall near the water cooler, and Mike always had his office door open. Her high heels pinched her feet, but every once in a while she would catch him averting his gaze a little too late.

“Hey could you spare a dollar?” The gray bearded man's eyes were bloodshot and contrasted the clean clear image of Mike that had been floating in her mind. He held out a rumpled Starbucks cup in front of Wanda and shook a few coins.

“Sorry, I only got credit,” Wanda said and took another sip. She shrugged and looked away a bit annoyed that the bum didn't move along.

“How about a quarter?” he said. He jingled the cup a few more times. Wanda looked up at him. Was he wearing two pairs of pants in this heat? She found it disturbing that so many winos in Seattle would wear layers fit for the arctic.

“No, like I said, I only have a credit card.” Again she looked away feeling more uncomfortable with each passing second. It was her one hour to get away and she didn't want this beautiful day tainted by some hobo.

“I just need to catch the bus to the U-district,” the bum said.

“Why? Aren't there enough people around here to harass?” Wanda saw that the venom in her voice had jolted the scraggly man from his pathetic rehearsed script. They both knew there was no bus. His eyes lit up in a way that could either be anger or amusement. She wasn't sure, but as the seconds passed and the man stood, she felt her resentment turn into something close to disgust.

“Lady, you have no clue,” he said shaking his head and turned to walk away.

“Why not do something other than mooch off of people? Why don't you get off the booze enroll in some AA program and get your shit together, huh? I have no clue?” She felt her voice growing louder with each word. The man stopped after taking a few steps. His shoulders were shaking. Was he crying?

“No, better yet,” Wanda said and took another sip, leaving the statement unfinished. Then she muttered into the cup, “Just fucking kill yourself.”

The bum turned around slowly and she saw that he wasn't crying. He was convulsing in a deep, silent belly laugh.

“Kill myself?” He asked. Did he really hear her above all the noise? His eyebrows were raised creasing his forehead in mottled brown ravines. His blood shot eyes seemed clearer somehow, the irises a sky blue.

“Yeah, that's right. There are seven billion people too many, and some of us have jobs and try to contribute.” She looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “It looks to me like all you want to do is take our hard earned money and drown yourself in booze.” After she had said it, she felt better. But then she wondered, why was she talking to this guy? Maybe it was because he hadn't moved on the first time she said she didn't have anything for him.  It was probably because she was tired of staring at the Xerox machine all day. She downed the rest of the mocha and stood up.

“So you contribute to this great country of ours, and I'm just worthless scum?” He shrugged bringing his palms flat up in the air. Wanda thought his hoarse voice was a decibel too loud, but no one else seemed to notice. His denim coat lifted from his waistline, and she saw the the belt loops of his pants were tied together with shoe string. It appeared that under his dirty jeans were a pair of gray sweats. Maybe the layers were so he could drink and pass out without catching a chill. Disgusting.

“Never mind, just go bug someone else, I only have 15 more minutes and I don't need the head ache.” Wanda shook her head and started walking across the square. She hated that he was probably eyeing her butt as she walked away when she was startled by a guttural grunt that sounded like a bear.

Wanda spun around to see the bum, his face was red, eyes shut in what was either a grimace of pain or something equally disturbing. For a moment she wondered if he was having a heart attack. He inhaled deeply and let out a guffaw of laughter that was unlike anything she'd ever heard. She considered walking onward, but something about the spectacle made her pause. After all, she had come to the square to break the monotony, and she still had a half hour to kill.

“Oh, that's funny is it?” Wanda said, but she too was now smiling although hers was a hard one.

“You people! You--” and he broke down once more in a moist chortle of amusement leaning over to steady himself with his hands on his thighs. The humor was somehow contagious and Wanda felt her own smile grow.

“We people what?” Wanda asked. She was actually curious. He was probably insane, but she wanted to know what was so damned funny.

“You think you have it all figured out! You think you know the proper way to live life.” He was wiping tears away from his eyes.

“Buddy, I don't have shit figured out. All I do is work and try to get by, so it bothers me when street people come up and ask me for my hard earned money.” She squeezed on the cup and the plastic lid popped off and fell to the ground.

“So why do it? Do you really think your contribution is a positive one in this... system? Are you blind to what you're actually doing?  I mean actually doing to the world.” He looked around at the buildings and nodded with what appeared to be appreciation. But it didn't sound to Wanda like he was referring to the architecture.

Wanda bent over and picked up the coffee lid and realized that she probably looked like a fool talking to this dirty transient. But as she looked around to the oblivious masses, Wanda realized that it might be interesting to hear this man's perspective.  She felt a mixture of revulsion and intrigue.

They were standing a dozen feet apart and it was a bit difficult to hear what he was saying over the white noise of the fountain. Wanda stepped back to the bench and sat in front of the bum who began to look down at the empty spot next to her.

“Don't you dare. You probably have all kinds of critters, lice and scabies that I have no desire to come in contact with.” She noticed that she had been crumpling her cup reflexively and that it was now in the same shape as the bum's coin collector.

“What matters in life to you?” The bum asked.

“I don't have time to get all philosophical with you. I only have a few more minutes and have to get back to work, something you wouldn't know anything about.” However the question had been something Wanda had been wondering to herself recently.  The job, Mike, days filled with paper, where was it all leading?

“And you've chosen to spend those precious minutes talking to some bum off the street, huh?” He seemed to find everything she said hilarious.

Wanda looked at her crumpled cup and wished there was a bit more of the mocha in it. For the past few weeks she had never felt quite awake. She suspected that the Xerox machine was sucking her life away sheet by sheet.

“Well, I suppose I don't really care, but why were you laughing so hard just now?”

“When a snooty little know it all bitch tries to give me advice, it just gets my goat is all.” The bum's eyes were twinkling. Wanda chose not to be offended.

“Well when a stinky old alcoholic tries to get beer money off me, and I tell him I don't have it, and he presses me... did you not hear me the first time?” Wanda felt her mood shifting back to annoyance and was beginning to regret sitting down again, but her feet were sore and she felt like she should try and talk some sense into this strange man. He should at least learn how rude it was to go around asking for change.

“What if that stinky old alcoholic hasn't touched a drop since before you were born?”

“Don't give me that shit. You're bloodshot eyes tell a different story.”

“Not that you've asked, but I'll tell you that I was woken up three times last night and only got a few hours of sleep. They found my camp and I had to move. They gave me a ticket for the stolen grocery cart and took my dog and everything else I had. It wasn't much, but now I have to start all over again.”

“Who's they?”

“Who do you think?”

“Oh right, the cops.”

“Smart girl.”

“If you had a job and paid rent, none of that would have happened,” Wanda listened to her own canned advice with a twinge of self contempt. She knew by looking at him that he wasn't fit for the job market, but maybe a janitor or something.

“Maybe not so smart,” but he was still grinning.

“So you're just content to wander around and bum money off people all day? Don't you have any self respect?”

“It doesn't have to do with being content or not. Just like you, I'm trying to get by. Live my life. As far as self respect, I don't see how I'm hurting anyone.”

Wanda tried to look at him in a different way. The bloodshot eyes were shining, but behind that was a look of exhaustion. She wondered if the man's story was true. She knew the SPD had made a promise to try and clean up the streets and stop unwanted solicitation. Perhaps it was true, and for just a moment she felt something close to pity.

“The difference is,” the bum said after a beat, “I chose long ago not to participate in modern day slavery, and I suppose that's where I find the self respect.”

The comment caught her off guard. The bum nodded and looked away from her to where a little girl was screaming at a helium balloon that had gotten away.

“Slavery? No, I actually get paid for my work,” Wanda said.

“No, I mean that,” the bum said pointing to the balloon. Then with his hand he arched across the square and ended with his index finger pointing at Wanda.

“I'm not a slave.” Wanda said. “No one here is a slave. I realize jobless slobs think work is slavery, but it's not. It's just decent folk trying to contribute.”

“No, you misunderstood me.  Your clothes, your shampooed hair, your shoes, your life,” he nodded gravely, “You have slaves.”

Wanda was taken aback by the sureness with which the man spoke. She looked at him closely. His eyes were still twinkling with a knowingness that wasn't quite accusatory. She frowned and shook her head.

“I have no idea what you're talking about, and you can stop pointing at me now.” She brought the cup to her lips forgetting that it was empty. The man brought his finger down to his lap and nodded. 

“Have you ever been out of the country?” The bum took a few steps closer and sat down next to her. She scooted to the edge of the bench and considered standing up. But she would be standing up for hours bent over that damn machine, so she decided to tolerate the proximity.  He better not try and touch her.

“Yes, I went to Italy last summer with some friends,” she said as she folded her legs and tried to pull her skirt down to her knees.

“Have you ever considered going to China?”

“Oh, so that's what you're getting at? You mean I should feel bad about buying things made in China. That must be it, because they're government is so oppressive and their labor conditions are atrocious, and blah blah blah.” She brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.  She had read it all on Facebook.  The sky scrapers full of underpaid workers making every electronic gadget imaginable, the slums in India where children collected hair from the trash to make wigs.  Poverty was a fact of life and always had been.

“It doesn't matter about how you feel about it.” The bum was tapping his fingers together and looking up at the balloon as it drifted above the fourth story food court. “You can feel bad about it, you can feel terrible. You can feel apathetic or even good about it.” 

“Obviously you feel a particular way about it,” Wanda said with a sigh. She too was watching the balloon that seemed to take its time gaining altitude.  She prepared for the man to launch into a rant about politics or some such nonsense.

“Yes I do. But you should at least be aware that every dollar you spend is a vote for how you really want the world to be. Feelings are really beside the point.”  And that was all.  They both watched the balloon for a moment in silence before Wanda realized he was finished.

Wanda frowned and looked down into her empty cup. “That's absurd. I can't change the way the world is. Ever since I picked up a National Geographic when I was a child I knew that I was lucky to be born in America. Some people don't have it so easy, but that's not my fault.”

The man chuckled.

“What gives you the right to lecture me?” Wanda asked.

“Am I lecturing you?”

Wanda looked at his filthy denim jacket and pants. There were dark liver spots under his thinning white hair, and from this close she could smell something sour emanating from him.

“Listen, I've had a nice time chatting with you, but my lunch break is almost up. Try and find some place to clean yourself up, because frankly, you stink.” She reached into her purse and retrieved a ten dollar bill and placed it on the slatted wood between them.

“Only credit, huh?”

A gust of wind rose up and carried the bill off the seat.

“Whoa!” Wanda said and bent over to retrieve it before it blew out of reach. “Hey, if you're going to guilt trip me, I'll just keep it.” But she was already extending her hand to the man.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” the bum said. He placed a dirty palm over his heart and bowed to her as he took the bill with his left hand.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“My friend Doug has two terriers that need some food.”

“Dog food?” She frowned and regretted giving him a half hour's wage.

“What would you like me to do with it, sweetheart?”

“Don't you need to take the bus somewhere?”

“No, I said that because without a dog, I wouldn't get a red cent. Besides, the bus to the U-district is free.”

“Oh, yes, well it was interesting to meet you.”

“Adam.”

“Yes, right Adam.” She considered giving her name, but then he might want to shake her hand.

As she walked across the square she wondered if he was looking. He was old enough to be her father, old enough to be her grandfather even. She stopped at the intersection and looked back, but he was already gone.