Living on the Street

How close to the edge will you come, to know something you really want to know…? a short story by Christina Carson

It was one of those gorgeous fall days. Leaves were beginning to mottle the grass still green from fall rains. The ones still attached to the park trees rattled in the now cool breeze sounding like old bones clacking together. Sadie lifted her face toward the sun as she walked idly along the cement path that mimicked the lake’s curves. The sun’s heat was no longer scorching and now felt soft on her skin.  Her hands, clasped behind her back, hung onto a small brown paper bag, her lunch. She had brought it to the park to eat away from all the noise and endless drama in the corporate scene where she worked. She often ate in this park and was fond of a particular bench under a clump of crepe myrtle trees just up from the lapping water. The spot felt like a natural shelter and at this point in her life, shelter was something Sadie sought in many forms.

As she rounded the last curve at the far end of the lake, she stopped, dismayed. Someone was sitting on her bench. She stood still for a moment fretting. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted the comfort of her special spot. She studied the man who now occupied one end of the bench. He was sitting almost statue-like. A few pigeons had come up to see if he had any bread for them. He stared down at them and appeared to say something she was too far away to hear. His hands were folded in his lap, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The pigeons seemed to enjoy his presence for even without food, they pecked around his boots and stopped to rest in his shade. That helped Sadie with her decision. If the pigeons thought he was safe, perhaps he was, and she could share the bench with him.

As she got closer, she could see he looked a tad tattered. Street person, she thought. Hope he’s not schizophrenic or drugged up. She grimaced a moment as she noticed how much she’d changed. Years back she’d never have thought about that and it wasn't just changing times that brought up those concerns. She could feel how hard her heart had become, how pinched off from life she was. For christsake, she thought, I’m not the only 45 year-old whose husband ran off with a younger woman. But no matter how rational she tried to be, whenever her mind began to rummage through that heart-rending year, the pain of betrayal owned her before her next breath.

Still eyeing the man on the bench, she wondered, who was he? She huffed her breath out her nose as she realized what she had just thought, Was; who was he? Who was she for that matter, for she certainly felt more was than is.

She had been approaching slowly, but something about that last thought brought a resolute pace to her walk. Not wanting to scatter the pigeons, she walked behind the bench to the other end and looked at the man as she asked, “Mind if I share the bench with you?  I like this end of the lake best.”

He said nothing, nor did he look at her. She began to feel uncomfortable. About to excuse herself, she said, “I’m sorry…”  Still staring straight ahead, he raised his hand slightly. Then he patted the bench seat. She lowered herself onto the far end of the bench, offered him a quick little bob of her head and said softly, “Thank you.”

She followed his lead, stretched her trousered legs out in front of her and leaned back. She laid her lunch bag in her lap and began to quiet herself, since that tiny hint of rejection that had gone through her when he didn't reply had already started her heart thumping. The pigeons didn't come under her legs. She guessed she didn't feel very sheltering to them. What a basket case I am. If I think this behavior is so stupid, why can’t I stop it?

She scanned the lake, near tears, and attempted to get her attention on the mallards that were slightly off shore. “It will pass,” he said. The kindness in his voice made it almost impossible for her not to begin sobbing. “Don’t hold your tears in. Let them wash you clean.”

Her emotions were so conflicted now; she hardly knew what to do next. She studied him out of the corner of her eye. He had several days’ growth of beard reminiscent of the young lions’ in her corporate scene in their attempts to create an image they never quite achieved with their smooth skin and unweathered lives. Underneath the ashy pallor of the man, there sat, nonetheless, someone who felt solid. His fingernails were dirty, his clothing worn and a bit dingy, his hair wild from too few cuts and too many mornings uncombed, but still he appeared unapologetic. No, that wasn't quite it. He appeared to feel comfortable with himself. She wondered how that could be? How did he get to that place from where he was?

She began to open her lunch bag to the cheese sandwich, baby carrots and apple she’d thrown together this morning when she decided to eat at the lake. Absorbed in unrolling the bag’s open edge, he startled her when he said, “Are you comfortable now?” The bag fell out of her lap. She made three quick grabs to reclaim it before it hit the ground but with no luck. She scooped it off the grass imagining how silly she must have looked. “Apparently not,” she replied.

He smiled deeply, the way people often react to the easy comfort honesty brings to any moment. By then she had the bag open, the wax paper off the sandwich and was offering half to him. He took it not like a man who was hungry but a man who was touched.

He bit into the sandwich and asked, “Did you run out of imagination this morning?”

This time she laughed, “It is pretty dull isn't. I decided at the last moment to eat here, and this, she held the remainder of her half sandwich up before her eyes, was the product of that lack of planning.”

“Are you sure it was a problem of planning?”

To finish this story, click here.

If It Weren't for Dogs and Babies

By Christina Carson

For your entertainment, a short story to read as you sip your Sunday coffee or tea:

A Short Story: Part 1

Marley came up the dusty drive faster than usual creating a cloud about him that his sudden stop in front of the house caused to settle back down on his 50’s pick-up, already encrusted with dirt. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford a current model vehicle. Rather, keeping old relics running spoke to some part of his lack of certainty that life’s supposed progress was indeed heading toward improvement. He jumped out of the cab and walked faster than his usual amble, taking the porch steps two-at-a-time. This was his third trip to Charlie Frances’s empty house in three days; his gut tensed. A scabby looking little beagle lay in front of the door across the small doormat this time. That wasn't there yesterday, he thought. Marley’s eyes narrowed, creasing his brow along well-worn lines. He looked up with a quick right and left glance. There she was seated in the wicker rocker on the shady side of the wraparound porch. Charlie Frances was back. 

He took a quick breath in and blew it out audibly to calm himself. He swallowed hard and then walked around the corner and slid quietly onto the glider across from her, oblivious to the dust that had settled on its cushions. He leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely and dangling between his knees. Clearing his throat one more time, he asked, “Heh, where you been, Sunshine?” His voice, though not as steady as he would have liked, was soft and sincere. He waited.

Charlie Frances had been sitting with her head down as if in deep thought. As she lifted it slowly, her eyes rose from his dusty boots, to his callused hands, pausing at his chest, garnering confidence to meet his stare. Gentle and accepting, his expression caused her to smile as sweet as when she was six. It always did.

“Tough couple of days, Marley.” Though she seemed calm, the foot on her crossed leg incessantly beat a soundless rhythm on the air beneath it. Marley remained stone still. “Went up to Sawyerville Monday to that estate auction they have there. Wanted to unload some of those old pieces of furniture the folks left me. They could almost pass for antiques, but I think it’s just junk. That’s my inheritance, Marley, this old place, the junk in it, and of course this goddamned diabetes. She paused offering a response to a question he hadn’t yet asked. “I ran a little short of cash.” She saw his mouth open in protest, but raised her hand like a traffic cop to hush him. “My deceased hubby’s hospital bills and funeral expenses arrived three days back. Five invoices in one day totaling $125,000. It’s not doable, Marley. I can’t fix it any longer, this broken mess I call my life. I figured it finally got the jump on me.” She smiled back at him, her face not so much a picture of defeat but confusion. “So I started scrimping on my insulin and chose lights and water over food and drugs.” The implications weren’t lost on him, and he felt panicky inside. “I was thinking the auction house might spot me an advance, then I’d fill my prescription, but before I got back to my pick-up, I started feeling woozy. In a flash, I was down on the sidewalk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t move.”

She tried to blink back tears but was unsuccessful. Unable to bear what he felt from her words, he moved over by her, and squatted next to her. As gently as his thick, awkward hands could move, he pushed the strands of hair the tears began sticking to her cheeks, back behind her ears.

“Shh, shh, shh, shhhh,” he soothed. Oh if only she weren't so sure she deserved all this suffering, he thought not for the first time. He’d seen those storm clouds gather over her when they were just kids together and then build up through the years. It was her husband’s death, however, that unleashed them into a steady downpour. Not only had he given her a shitty life, but also he’d wiped out any savings they had, dying as slowly and as expensively as he could. There was no doubt in Marley’s mind that it happened just like that.

“How did it all come to this?” she asked. “Who would have thought my life would end lying paralyzed on a sidewalk? I had so many good chances in life, Marley. I made it. I got out. I went to university. Away from these bigots. I thought anyway. But some part of me sure stayed stupid. Maybe it was his title, PhD. and all the seeming prestige of being a professor’s wife. It certainly wasn’t his kindness. But, Marley, I was the one who said yes and married the sod. What accounts for such stupidity, Marley? Mine, I’m talking about.”

He knew she wasn't whining, that her question was sincere, but Marley always felt nervous when she asked such questions. He couldn’t answer them. He wasn’t even sure they had an answer. He just didn’t want her to continue the drumming she’d taken as a child, only now by her own hand. She was different. No question about that, had been from the first day he saw her; and it was to that sweetest of memories he’d drift when she’d ask the hard questions.

They met the day his dad, a local farmer, was taking him to town but had stopped first at Charlie Frances’s home place to see her dad. She was sitting on this same porch, singing to a stray she’d just rescued, a coarse-coated mongrel with cloudy eyes and bones sticking out every which way. She had him in her lap and appeared not to notice his stench or his filth. She was doctoring his sores, digging out the ticks, and singing a song she made up as she went along.

Marley had tried most of his life to understand what happened in the magic of that moment, how it is that love begins. He wasn’t dull-witted. But it was something that hid in his heart away from the prying eyes of reason and logic. He didn’t even get to speak with her that day, and truth be told, he was glad, as absolutely nothing would have come out of his mouth in that moment. But he sensed how different she was, and he began to notice how she never fit in. People labeled her a dreamer, as they couldn’t figure out any other way to describe a child whose interest in the world gave wonderment a whole new meaning. She wasn’t making an acquaintance with the world. It was like she already knew it, and now was only deepening her relationships with it. As a result, she saw things no one else saw. It was hard to explain, for she seemed to live from a totally different frame of reference. The world for her wasn’t subject to object. She was like a baby discovering its toes only to realize they were part of her. She knew the world in that way, each new discovery somehow connected to her and her to everything else. It was people who eluded her grasp, for they kept demanding of her that she see the world from how they thought it was. And to her that seemed down-right silly.

Amid the sweaty practicality of a farming community, her behavior seemed foolish and unproductive. Her innocent need to understand most everything wasn’t valued, but considered instead as haughty, blasphemous even. Only Marley knew her, sensed who she was, and felt the strange energy of life that swirled about her. She created the pounding in his chest, the same thrill of just being alive he got when he’d test himself playing chicken on the river road or taking over the controls on his uncle’s plane. She made him feel whole and useful and more a man he respected. All he ever wanted to do was make it right for her, let her know someone got who she was, and loved her for every inch of it.

“People walked right by me, Marley. Right by me, lying there, helpless. One even made some comment about being drunk in the middle of the day. Even the old street guy, who was sitting there drinking out of a paper bag, moved off a bit as if I was defiling his space as well. The light around me was starting to close off into a cone, and my one thought was, how did I make such a mess of my life? I was sure I’d die on that pavement with nothing but peoples’ judgments being the last words ringing in my ears. I wasn’t in any pain, just losing control of everything. And then it happened, like it was right out of a Disney movie….

Look for Part Two tomorrow to brighten you Monday morning.

Christina Carson, Writer

Novels of Substance & Story