Chapter 3
Cousin woke from the noise of cars, and people. The sun was out, but he couldn’t feel the heat. It was still cold as he tried to ignore the chatter of people walking through the park way. There was talking coming from just outside the park entrance. Someone was complaining about a parking ticket.
“How can I get a ticket, and I live across the street?”
Cousin didn’t know if the man was talking to himself or to the police or to someone with him.
“In the house across the street. It’s where I park all the time. It’s says a hundred dollars. Yeah, I have the sticker where they told me to put it.” He was talking on the phone.
“Well, I’m not going to pay it if I live in the house across the street. It’s where I park.”
The ticket operator on the phone responded. ”Sir, if you have a problem with the parking ticket, you can come in or write the address where payment is requested, and they can handle your problem.”
He blew out heavy. Cousin heard the man suck his teeth over the sounds of crowded cars in the street. The car horns began to blow.
“Alright, alright, I’m moving now. There’s a car in front of me,” someone shouted, the car horn continuing to blow.
Cousin turned over on the bench, sitting up, putting his feet on the walk way. He still held on to the money given to him earlier in his hands. Looking down at the green paper, he saw what looked like twenty something dollars. And he hadn’t really had a chance to thank the people that had given him the money. Whenever he took money from people, he would always make sure that he was thankful, not unappreciative.
Counting the money in his hand, he counted twenty-seven dollars. With the four dollars he had in his pocket, he had thirty-one dollars total. Normally, he would smile at the amount of money he had, but he had not had a chance to do anything during the night, and had only just walked from the alley to the park way.
He still needed to find a place where he could take a bath. He needed to shave, and the hair from his head cut. He needed to walk further downtown to the appliance store to get the cardboard. But first, he needed to find some plastic bags.
The small trash can closest to the bench was overflowed with garbage. The overflow of trash had spilled out onto the walk way. Cousin saw some paper napkins that seemed to be unused, and away from the rest of the disgust of the trash.
Standing from the bench, a group of women walked into the entrance of the park way. Walking pass, Cousin sat down to allow the women to have the space of the walk way. He could see that the group of women had on what looked like fitness clothes; tights and small shirts that stretched across their chest. Cousin kind of smiled at the women, looking in the opposite direction like he was busy into doing whatever he had came to the park way to do.
Passing the large man on the park way bench, the group of women became quiet, to begin to run along the walk way. Turning back around, standing up, Cousin watched the women run over the top part of the walk way through the sidewalk that went into the farthest part of the park.
He walked over to the trash can, picking up the small stack of wrinkled napkins. Looking over the paper napkins, he put them in his outside coat pocket. Stretching in his look at the trash in the trash can, he could feel the strain in his back. It turned into a kind of small pain where he bent over slightly, breathing in.
The sun came from behind the last of the rain clouds, as the blowing from the car horns in the street began to sound out again.
Looking over the empty space of grass and trees into the direction of the bathrooms, he figured the bathrooms would be open now that the sun was up, and over the tops of the first set of trees that were at the entrance.
People were at the water fountain outside the bathrooms as Cousin walked through the bathroom doors into the inside. The bathroom was empty, but the bathroom was dirty. There was toilet paper over the tops of the toilets, on the walls, lying across the floor. Someone had left wet toilet paper in the sink, and had let the water flow over the sink counter onto the floor.
Cousin walked through the puddle of water and toilet paper, walking to the sink with the filled water. Grabbing the wet paper from the sink drain, Cousin threw the toilet paper into the toilet. Looking through the entire bathroom, he began again to think what was wrong with the people where they would leave the toilets not flushed, and urine and defecation over the toilet seats. And this was a public bathroom. Over time, because of the mistreatment of the bathroom, they would probably close it, where you would no longer have the pleasure of coming to the park way, and using the bathroom. And that would have greater consequences for him, not having nowhere to go, than the people who used the park way for recreation.
Cousin flushed one of the toilets that had not been flushed, the water in the toilet swirling, rising up to the top of the toilet seat. He watched as the toilet water overflowed onto the floor.
He could feel the sense of panic in his thoughts as the water continued to flow onto the bathroom floor. If someone came in, and seen the mess of the bathroom, and now, the overflow of water from the toilet, they might assume he was responsible or give him some type hassle about something he had no knowledge of.
He walked out of the space of the toilet, letting the water flow around the toilet seat, underneath the doors of the toilet, the water finally going down inside the toilet. But the trash in the toilet still remained, turning around in the water. He thought to try to flush the toilet again, looking at the water on the floor. Deciding against continuing to mess with it, Cousin closed the door to the toilet, walking back to the sink. Looking at the bathroom entrance, he saw the hand lock that locked the bathroom door from the inside.
He thought about the appliance store and the shelter a couple of streets over. If he could clean up in the bathroom, and get the dirt from his face, and out his hair, he wouldn’t need the cardboard from the appliance store. Where he could stay around the shelter until they began to open for the people, and if he wasn’t too dirty, they might let him stay for the night.
Someone over in that direction might have something where he could cut his hair, and get the hair from his face. He couldn’t remember what day it was, having not been downtown in a couple of days. He didn’t know whether the church was doing food today, or whether the shelter was doing food for the public instead of for the people that would stay overnight.
Cousin began taking off the layers of shirts he had on, laying them on his coat, quickly walking over to the bathroom door, locking the door from the inside. In his panic, he walked back to the sink, cutting the water on. The water from the faucet came out hot.
Grabbing the rag from inside his coat pocket, he began to soak the discolored rag wet, wiping across his face, chest and up under his arms. He allowed the water to soak on top his skin, wiping away the dirt, and grime of being outside. He could begin to smell the smell of being clean and clean water.
Looking at the locked bathroom door, he unlaced his boots, pulling off his socks, laying them on the side of the sink.
There was the dark of the dirt, how it stained into his skin, in between his toes, and the backs of the bottoms of his legs around the ankles. His feet hurt sore, and looked swollen, wiping the rag across both feet.
Becoming quiet, he heard someone approach the front of the bathroom. It was a group of people going into the women’s bathroom. He could hear the women through the walls of the bathroom.
“You didn’t run at all. And you always talking about how you’re concerned about your health, and your weight.”
“I don’t know. I just wasn’t into it this morning. I saw that man sleeping on the bench when we first came in the park way, and I just took it in wrong how I saw it, I guess. To have to sleep outside in the cold. And not one of us said anything to him or nothing. We didn’t offer no help, to see if he was ok or nothing. Just walked by, and to do what? Run a couple of yards in the park way because we are complaining about being too fat or wanting to look good for someone who doesn’t want us.”
“Well I didn’t see him, because if I would have seen him, I would have given him something. I always try to give what I can, but to get involved with someone’s struggle means you are not struggling, and that you are overcompensated for if it’s not your struggle.
The woman with the initial concern responded. “But it’s all our struggle. Each one of us in this bathroom have over thirty, forty dollars that we give away to nothing for things that are not going to help us or our spirit. Chocolate, and cakes, beauty supplies, clothes, and we still stay stressed and discontent, upset for someone to love us, for the world to love us, but yet we don’t love.”
“Yeah, I hear you, but when you get involved, and it’s not an immediate victory, then what are you going to do. Quit your employment, and join him, to see you sleeping outside, living outside. This world we live in, this country we live in, is not how they tell you when you are a child. The real world is that people don’t care all the time.”
Cousin could hear some more people walk up to the bathroom, straitening his stance for the sound of the bathroom door being locked. The women’s bathroom door opened and closed again, as more women walked in. The group of women in the bathroom started laughing as the conversation continued.
“I thought you said you were ready to compete in the marathons?” The woman was still breathing heavy over the commotion in bathroom. “A couple more weeks, and I’ll be ready to go,” starting to laugh again. “What you all in here talking about?”
“Your friend right here,” pointing to the woman that sat with her shoulders over the sink, rubbing water across her face, “Was just finishing up her college work of the reason why she was so slow today.”
“Did you see the man sleeping on the bench when we first walked in the park way?” pouring a handful of water again across her face.
“Yeah, I saw him. That’s a pretty bad deal, and it being cold and everything. Sometimes I think about what I’m going to do about that. Regardless of our situation, we should never just be like we don’t care, and forget about what’s going on in the city. When we walked back, if he was still out there, I was going to give him so money. I just was trying to concentrate on not passing out from my run.”
All the women in the bathroom became quiet, looking at the women in her response. Cousin could only hear the running of water, as the group of women walked out the bathroom. He could hear their conversation pick up again as they walked in the direction of the entrance. Cousin quickly rubbed the rag over both his feet again, pulling his socks from the sink. Putting on his socks, he put on his boots, lacing up the strings tight. With just his shirts off, he rubbed again across the front of his chest, rubbing the rag across his back.
Looking at where he now stood in the bathroom, Cousin grabbed the first of the shirts that were thinner, pulling the shirt over his head. Grabbing the second shirt from his coat, he put the shirt on, buttoning up the shirt. He felt better in his clothes having removed some of the dirt.
Pulling the thicker button up shirt over his head, Cousin put his coat on, looking around the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t left anything or added to the mess. The bathroom looked horrible with the toilet paper on the walls, and in the water, and water from the toilet on the floor.
Seeing that he could no more clean the bathroom then what he had already done, he walked to the front door, unlocking the bathroom door, walking out into the morning cold. There was the sound of the busy of downtown in the city; the people going back and forth, the sound of people with money, the sound of the poor in the city.
There was the sound of young people, and there was the sound that he made. It was a quiet sound that no one seemed to hear, that his sound was not a sound of the city. Cousin was something that had not worked, and he was the only one. But in spite of, he liked the sound he made, and he liked the sound he heard.
From the bathroom, walking further up the walk way, he decided to walk the sidewalk in the park, and come out from behind the downtown buildings. That way he could walk straight down, and cross over the main street, and he would see the shelter, and the church.
Turning through the trees of the park way, stepping onto the sidewalk, he began to walk in the direction of downtown. At first, when Cousin first moved into the alley, when he would walk downtown, he would stare at the tower of the buildings. To build something so big across the sky was something to look at. To think of the time and effort to put something up, and for it to work, was something to appreciate.
Cousin turned, startled from looking at the downtown buildings to someone yelling in his direction. Looking in the direction of the yelling, he saw the bathroom, and people around the bathroom. And from the entrance of the park way, he saw someone running in his direction. From where he stood, it looked like a woman, and she was running directly toward him. Cousin thought to run, seeing the people around the bathroom, and the mess in bathroom. He tried to turn back around, and walk like she wasn’t talking to him or that he hadn’t seen her, walking further up the sidewalk. Coming in his front direction from the back side of the park way, someone was walking their dog.
The woman called again, this time her voice sounded louder as she continued in her run. Cousin finally turned around when it had become obvious that she was calling at him. The woman ran up on Cousin, stopping just a couple of feet in front of him. She was breathing in and out heavy, and she looked tired, but Cousin saw that she was beautiful.
The woman bent over, pulling on her sweat pants, resting her hands on her knees. She stood back up from breathing, coughing into the direction of the ground. Finally catching her breath, she began to speak.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you or nothing.” Cousin could see she was holding something in her hand. “I wanted to give you this,” handing the small fold of money to him. Cousin took the money from the woman, putting it in his pocket without looking, looking at her beauty. He smiled a little, showing the rough of his teeth.
“You look tired,” he said to the woman. He had so much he wanted to say.
She laughed, “You sound like my girlfriends.” There was an awkward silence as they both stared at one another. But he was helpless, and she knew it.
“Thank you,” Cousin said, finding the strength to speak.
She smiled again, as Cousin turned around, walking into the direction he had been walking. He wanted to look at her again, but that time had gone as fast as it had come as he ran away in his mind to the walk of his footsteps. The dog that the man was walking began to bark as Cousin passed by.
Chapter 4
“You’ll have to wait and see. I don’t know right now. All the beds are empty, but if you’re not here when we start taking people in, then you’re not going to be staying. I don’t like to say it like that, but that’s what it is.”
Giving the young man in a heavy jacket a small bag of food, she continued. “And we’re not serving food to the public until tomorrow. But you should come early because breakfast is the best of what we serve.” His coat fit too big, and the shirts that he had on made him look bigger than what he was, and uncomfortable in where he was.
He had on what looked like a couple of pair of pants. The sweat pants could be seen up under his pants, pulled and tied around the waist. The only thing that looked something natural about the activity of the city was that his sneakers looked brand new.
The hat he wore pulled down tight over his face. He had tried to tell the women that blocked the entrance to the front door of the shelter that he didn’t have a place to stay, that he had been staying outside for the past couple of weeks, and that it was cold.
“Can I just take a shower, and then I can leave, and it won’t be a problem?”
The woman shut the door, shaking her head, “Breakfast,” she said through the door windows.
The young man turned on the sidewalk, looking up the street at the opening of the street, and the store across the street on the corner.
Cousin had walked the entire park way to the last of the downtown buildings. The sidewalk of the park curved into downtown where the height of the buildings began to shadow the streets in front of the park way. To use the last entrance of the park way had been a good little walk, seeing the exit from the sidewalk through the entrance into the streets downtown.
Passing the last of the buildings to behind the entire of the downtown area, the entrance to the park way was blocked with construction equipment, and what looked like park recreation vehicles.
The wall went around the entire park way, up across, and back up the street to where he had walked from. To walk back to the front entrance would take more time, and put him further away from what he had wanted to do. He thought, did he want to stay and sleep out in the city or walk back to the alley?
He didn’t know. He would first have to find out about the shelter, and the food. He knew he needed to count how much money he had on him before he went up into downtown. He didn’t like to walk around with a lot of money, without having something to do or somewhere where he would have to work to do something.
Walking closer to the construction of the park way entrance, signs that said closed had been placed around the entrance sidewalk, and taped closed with construction tape. The wall that separated the park way from the sidewalk, and the street had fallen apart at the entrance or something had crashed into it, breaking it apart. There had been a path made through the entrance that had been covered, and completely blocked.
Cousin walked to the shorter side of the wall, making an attempt to climb over. The way his bones cracked and pulled, his muscles sored, and the swell his legs, Cousin rolled on top the wall, rolling over, falling to the ground. The fall was hard, as the large man fell, hitting the ground hard.
Turning over on the ground, Cousin climbed from his knees to his feet. The line of parked cars, and lined houses crowded the street and cluttered the sidewalk. The street, this far down from the middle of the park way, was barely enough room for cars to be parked on both sides without blocking the middle of the street.
The street was quiet, the busy street of the downtown main street in view, the hectic passing back and forth of cars, and people walking in all types of directions. From where Cousin stood against the back of the park way wall, the corner of the business intersection seemed to part a separate world in the city. Amongst the crowds on the corner, there was no room to move if the crowd wasn’t moving, and when the people moved, you had to move.
The house door opened across the street as the muscled build men walked out the front doors, walking down the steps onto the sidewalk. A woman’s voice could be heard coming from within the house, talking out the front door. Cousin began to walk slowly away from the park way, looking for somewhere to cross the street, his head turning into view of the downtown buildings.
The woman, at first sounded like she was speaking English, but as he continued to listen, Cousin couldn’t understand what she was saying. The two men on the sidewalk had not yet seen him across the street, beginning talk. He didn’t know what language they were speaking as one of the men, with a heavy accent, said something to the woman in the house. It sounded like she was fussing about something.
Cousin didn’t want to cross the street with the two men standing so close to where he was walking. Looking up at the sun, it had moved further up into the air, a little further above the tops of the trees, the slant of his shadow stretching across the sidewalk.
Two more men walked out the house with what looked like boxes in their hands. The boxes looked brand new, opened and taped around the sides.
One of the men on the sidewalk walked to the designer car that sat on the street, opening the front door driver door, reaching into the car. The trunk of the car came up, as the men with the boxes walked to the back of the car. The strong sound of their accent began to sound in the quiet of the area. Finally, a man walked from the house with a small carry bag across his shoulders.
As Cousin tried to further his distance from the group of men, he noticed that the last man that walked out the house had something that bulge against the side of his hip. Cousin was too far away to tell what it was, but could see the print it made on his back side, under his shirt. Putting the bag in the car, he closed the trunk.
The men with the boxes still held the boxes in their hands, as the man at the driver door pointed to a car that sat across the tiny street in front of the park way. The one man that had not moved from the sidewalk said something to the other three men, running across the street to the other designer car.
Cousin could see he also had something around his waist that showed up under his shirt. Looking back up the street in the opposite direction of where he was walking, he turned around to walk back down the street, away from the city.
He could feel that he had walked in on some people that he didn’t want to be around. They might be into some type business where they didn’t want no one around, having not seen yet Cousin behind the clutter of cars, further up the street.
The woman’s voice called from inside the house again, this time sounding angry. One of the men looked up at the house from the car across the street. As Cousin tried to walk further up the street behind the cars, the man begin to look in his direction, seeing the large moving figure in contrast to the cars.
He had seen him, Cousin thought, bending down to mess with his boots, standing up again to begin to walk back in their direction, away from the park way main street.
The group of men began to talk to one another. Their voices picked up in speed, and they sounded agitated.
Walking pass where he had fallen from the wall, he began to walk up on the one man that had crossed the street to the second car. Cousin could see the bulge again underneath the shirt on the man’s side.
The two men with the boxes crossed the street as Cousin walked up on the car, and the man. They all began to speak across to one another, across the opening of the small street. Cousin felt alone as he looked for some more people that would see him, see what was going on.
The men put the boxes on the sidewalk as Cousin moved into the grass of the sidewalk to walk by. Not wanting to look, he could feel the panic as all four men turned in his direction. The one man grabbed the bulge from his waist as the second of the group of four men said something to him in a heavy accent.
“Hello, sir. Can I take a little bit of your time?” grabbing through the top of the boxes, pulling out what looked like a flyer for something. The first man pulled the phone from his waist side, to begin talking on the phone. The one man that had began speaking to Cousin, motioned to one of the men with the boxes to get something from the car across the street, handing him the car keys.
The man that had initially started talking to Cousin continued. “Something we want to do at the park way,” slowing in his talk as he began to look at Cousin; the clothes he had on, the way he dressed his clothes, the coat, his hair. He was not a customer.
He handed the flyer to Cousin in hesitation. Cousin could see what looked like a price of thirty-five dollars for something. He saw the words ‘park way’ across the flyer.
Cousin reached out, grabbing the flyer. The dirt from his hands told that he had been sleeping outside.
The second of the first two men ran back across the street with the small bag Cousin had seen him put in the trunk. Turning to each other, they began to talk to each other, Cousin not understanding what they were saying. They seemed to be in disagreement, the man that held the bag digging into the bag, pulling out what looked like some type of ticket.
Handing it to Cousin, he smiled, “It’s going to be fun,” with a thick accent in English. Cousin didn’t look down, looking again across the waist of the men. The one man continued his conversation on the phone.
Though the language was different, and their clothes were new and clean, and he was dirty, he didn’t feel that he was lost or that far gone where he didn’t belong. He was just going through what he was going through.
The second man with the bulge from his waist, pulled what was a phone from his waist, pressing some numbers, walking across the street back up into the house.
Cousin looked down at the ticket and flyer. “Thank you,” he said to begin walking again into the direction he had initially started on. Before he could get into his walk away from the group of men, the man that had handed him the flyer said something to him.
“Hold on a second.”
The man reached into his pocket, pulling out a fold of money. Pulling a couple of dollars from what he had in his hand, handed it to Cousin.
Cousin shook his head no. He felt that he had been wrong, and that they had already given too much. “I think I’ve already taken too much,” he sounded over the group of men.
The man walked closer to Cousin, pushing the money in his hand. Cousin smiled, wanting to give the money back but not wanting to argue, said thank you.
“Thank you for the ticket,” he said turning, continuing in his walk to behind where the city came up on the downtown buildings. The man turned around, walking back to the group of men on the sidewalk. Further up the street rounding the corner, Cousin put the flyer, and ticket in the inside of his coat, putting the money into his pocket to the towering size of one of the downtown buildings. The size of the building blocked the light of the sun in all directions, creating the large shadow that covered the part of downtown where he was.
The building was one of the older of the downtown buildings, the bottom of the building made up of brick, turning into concrete further up the floors.
The downtown of the city was busy, but from this building, the commotion of the people was quiet. The shadows of the older building created what seemed like a large dark alley in the middle of the street with the stores, and the dark of the food places that cluttered the sidewalk.
Walking passed the alley of the building, Cousin looked at the stain and stench of the small alley walk way. Straight through the alley, to the other side of the back of the building, he could see the alley way lead pass the downtown building to the busiest street downtown.
He could see the clutter of cars, stopped from the traffic lights, stopped in the entrance of the alley on the street. One of the cars turned from its stopped position, turning down the alley toward him.
Cousin walked pass the alley to the corner of the small eatery, tables and chairs stacked to the side as the restaurant was about to open. The car pulled to the open end of the small alley, stopping at the sidewalk, and where Cousin stood. The driver inside the car looked both ways up the street before turning toward the park way away from downtown . . . . continue