Filed under: Short Stories
It was a Friday when I noticed him. Nothing more than a large brown stained jacket with an arm or leg poking out here and there he couldn’t have been older than nine. He was sitting quietly on an old rusted bike staring at the line of cars with a look that spoke more of boredom than hope. Dried cement and dirt clung to his shoes, two sizes too big, covering a torn Nike symbol, the same symbol worn by million dollar athletes and high-school cheerleaders. The irony didn’t appear to shake him. February in Atlanta is cold and as I started to roll down the window thinking two dollars might get him a coffee or a Redbull. That’s what all the kids around the apartment complex drank; they seemed to like it well enough. Seriously who knows what a beggar kid drinks? He glanced at the two dollars sticking out the small slit (who knows what kind of diseases he might have) and ambled over and mumbled, “thank you mister.” There were scars on his face when he said it as if someone had taken a fire poker to him a long time ago. Walking back to his bike he hunched over a large bundle of blankets on the ground and put the cash in an old diet coke can. There were scars on the can too probably long forgotten in some waste dump in the city.
The light turned green and the cars started to move. A large Escalade upfront was taking it’s time, another trophy wife taking her kid to private school. She was going to town on the phone talking about last night’s episode of Celebrity Rehab and how her bagel tasted awful this morning. As she started to pull away she casually flung her half empty Iced Mocha out the passenger’s side window. With a sound not unlike shit hitting the toilet it splattered at the feet of the beggar kid.
What happened next has been discussed a million times and explained to two different police officers.
First, “bitch”, was said in a surprisingly angelic voice. The mouth that it came from was standing defiantly on the sidewalk, fists balled and eyes narrowed. It was as if Maximus was before the emperor once again in Gladiator and the whole movie theater watched in anticipation. The kid had become larger somehow as if mutating into some kind of defiant saint waiting to fight for all of poverty or loss of life.
The Escalade came to a screeching halt, the following cars missing its bumper by mere centimeters. Blonde hair was flying everywhere as the trophy wife tried to figure out the locking mechanism on the car. Those things are always hard to figure out when you’re pissed. And she was pissed. Leaping from the car, even going so far as to skip the stainless steel side-bar, she tore around the front of the car headlights gleaming on a decent boob job.
“I said bitch.”
WWHHAAPP! The sound hung in the cold air. Tears started down the kid’s cheeks as people stood one legged leaning this way and that out of their cars trying to see the action. “And why did you say that street trash?” she said it as if she was talking to a junkyard dog. Slowly he lifted his hand his hand to his cheek and looked menacingly into the face of his attacker.
“Because you got your $4 cup of coffee on my new shoes.”
