The next morning, Clyde stands inside an office supply store, calculating in his head how many additional supplies he can afford. He selects a ream of 24lb paper a 9” x 12” manila envelope, and a padded #6 envelope. Satisfied with his choices, he heads to the front, hoping the cashier with the disapproving look isn’t working today. It’s better to work with a clear mind. Disapproving looks and snide comments stir up thoughts that spin around, dimming his concentration, before eventually settling down in a thin layer of sediment on the bottom of his mind.
The supplies blow through all of his money. He decides to try what he did once before and set up the typewriter in the park. Then he can work on the book and beg at the same time. He puts the sign, the crate, and the typewriter into the shopping cart, locks up behind and heads toward the park. He doesn’t see Sandy or Theo today. He wonders about it, but he doesn’t need the distractions, so it’s all for the best.
He looks up from typing when he feels eyes upon him. The woman in the red beret stands before him.
“I have something for you.” She sets her camera bag on the sidewalk and crouches down to unzip it. She pulls out an 8 x 10 black and white photo and hands it to him.
Clyde looks at the photo. Through the rush of blurred legs, Clyde is in focus, concentrating, with his fingers on the keys. His overcoat hangs loosely from his shoulders and piles on either side of his crossed legs as he sits in front of the ancient typewriter on its black leather case. The sign leans against the shopping cart beside him. The hat sits expectantly on the sidewalk. The trees in the park provide the perfect backdrop. The picture is stunning.
“Wow.” Clyde is speechless.
“I want you to have it.” She zips up the bag, slings it over her shoulder, and continues down the sidewalk with a bounce in her step. He wonders, briefly, why she wears such bright clothing yet shoots in black and white. Once she disappears into the crowd, his gaze travels back to the photo. In the lower right is an oval stamp for the Waverly Ballantine Gallery.
When Carl shows up at 6:30 that morning, Theo hurries over to tell him about the unwanted visitors from the previous evening.
“How many of them were there?” Carl asks.
“I never saw them, but I heard voices, at least two. It looks like they were cutting out the copper pipes.”
“Do you remember where they were?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
On the way, Theo says, “I don’t know how they got out. I didn’t see them going over the fence. Is there any way in from the adjacent building?”
“Not that I know of. It’s a brick wall.” Carl thinks for a moment. “But there’s a basement.”
“We’ll check that out next.” They arrive at the room with the vandalism. “See, they were cutting out that pipe when I interrupted them.”
Carl leans in to inspect the damage. “Damn, we just put that in yesterday. That’s going to take hours just to get it back the way it was.”
“Let’s check out that basement. They headed off in this direction. Is there a way down over there?”
“Yes there is. That has to be how they’ve been getting in here. Follow me.” Carl leads them to room in back. The brick wall separating the two buildings makes up one wall. There is a plywood panel in the floor covering the access to the basement. There are footprints in the dust surrounding it. “This looks likely.”
Theo turns on his flashlight as Carl raises the panel revealing steps going down to the basement. Carl pulls a smaller flashlight out of his tool belt. “Shall we?”
They climb down the stairs and can easily see the footprints on the dusty floor. Either there was an army of intruders or they have come and gone several times. The footprints lead straight to another room. Theo follows as Carl opens the door and enters the boiler room. Theo shines the light up into the corners of the room and behind the boiler. He bumps into Carl.
“Sorry,” Theo says.
“You should try shining your light where you’re walking.”
“Right.”
The footprints circle behind the boiler to a grate in the floor. They shine their lights through the grate revealing a ladder going down.
“Where’s that go?” Theo says.
“No idea. Let’s check it out.” Carl picks up the grate and sets it aside. He winks at Theo and begins to climb down the ladder. Theo follows close behind.
They climb off the ladder in a tunnel that goes off in either direction. The footprints mingle with many others. The dust is almost worn away. This is obviously a very well-travelled tunnel. There is no way to tell which way the intruders went from here. Theo resists the urge to shine the light around, even though he imagines a spider crawling up his sleeve. He brushes off the imaginary spider.
“At least we know how they’re getting in. Great job, Theo.”
“You’re the one who found this place.”
“Not without your help.”
“I guess all you need to do is slap a padlock on that grate and your problem is solved. I hope I just didn’t work myself out of a job.”
“No worries there. Can you do another week of nights, just to make sure we got rid of them?”
“Of course.”
“Then maybe we can work out something for days. What do you know about construction?”
“I know which end of the hammer pounds in a nail and which end pulls it out.”
“That’s a start. Do you have a social security number? This would have to be on the books.”
“Yes.” He used his social security card to get food stamps, but he has scarcely looked at it since.
“Great. We’ll talk. Now if I can just get my old knees back up that ladder, I’ll have my welder fix something up so we can secure that grate.”
Theo hurries back to the shelter to see if he can find his social security card. All of his other jobs have been short-term under-the-table arrangements. This one sounds legit.
As he enters the shelter, he looks around hoping to see Sandy. His wishes are answered when he sees her putting away supplies in the kitchen. He hurries in with a huge smile on his face.
After hearing the news, Sandy gives him a hug and says, “That’s great Theo. You have your social security card?”
“I hope so. I have some stuff in my locker.”
“Do you want help looking?”
“Sure.”
They head down the stairs to the basement of the shelter where the storage lockers sit against a wall. The lockers provided by the shelter are small, only big enough to store a backpack and some other items crammed around the sides. Theo and Sandy can’t imagine what they would do if they had to haul all of their belongings wherever they went. They would have a lot less belongings. That’s what would happen. Theo locates his locker, in the direct center of a wall of identical lockers. He unlocks it and pulls out an old cardboard cigar box that is taped shut. He extracts his switchblade, slices the tape, and returns the knife in a quick and precise set of movements.
Theo is overwhelmed with the memories that rush out as he opens the lid. Back when he was a child running around happy in a diaper or completely naked, he never had the time to sit down and contemplate life. When he grew older, he began to realize that his life was not like that of the other kids in school. It seemed like whenever he made friends, he was forced to move to a different school, sometimes multiple times in a single year. All of the other kids seemed to be permanently at their schools. Due to this, his siblings became very close. They were the only constant.
His oldest brother was Desean, five years his elder. Then there was Jermaine, who was only a year and a half older than he was. He rounded out the bunch. Theo, short for Theodus. Growing up, he would follow a few steps behind his brothers like a lost puppy. Even though they moved a lot, he always felt that he had a home, whether it was in a shelter, in a cheap hotel room, or in an occasional apartment. When he got older and went to school, the kids used to tease all of them. He and his brothers were always the new kids. Theo didn’t need his older brothers around to stick up for him. He became a very good fighter out of necessity and practice.
Their mother tried. She tried very hard. She made them go to school, perhaps just to get them out of her hair so she could look for work. She got jobs and collected food stamps. She kept clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs. For the most part, she kept a roof over their heads. She would cry herself to sleep some nights. It was hard to miss when they all shared the same bed.
One day, Desean gathered Theo and Jermaine together and told them his plan. He said that their mother would be better off without them. They all knew she was sad. Desean said she just couldn’t afford to keep them around. Desean said it was for the best if they all left to fend for themselves and free their mother of the burden. It sounded like the right thing to do at the time. Now that Theo is older, he realizes that losing her three boys had to have been the worst thing ever to happen to his mother. He begins to tremble and shake from the memories and from the immense guilt he feels.
“Are you all right, Theo?” Sandy places a hand on Theo’s shoulder and can feel him trembling.
“Yeah, um, here.” He pulls some papers from the box. “When we left home, my oldest brother said we would probably need these. He saw our mom pull them out every time we switched schools.” He sees all of their birth certificates. He turns away from Sandy and discreetly wipes a tear. Come on, you’re a grown man. This is embarrassing. He wonders if his mother is still alive somewhere. Maybe she got married and has some new children. Another tear and another. He has to use his sleeve to wipe them away. He feels Sandy’s hand rubbing his shoulder.
“Here’s what you need,” Sandy says.
She holds out a social security card. Theo sees his name printed on the card as if he were practicing penmanship at the time. However, there it is, his passport to a real job.
“Thanks Sandy.”
“Memories really suck sometimes, don’t they?”
Theo gives out a short laugh. “Yeah, they sure do. I’m going to try to get some sleep. I’ve been up all night.” He puts everything back into the locker and spins the combination lock. “Thanks again.”
“No problem. Get some rest.”
Sandy watches as Theo heads back upstairs. She is happy for him, but with him working and Clyde typing, her enthusiasm to panhandle alone just is not there this morning. She has more than twenty dollars saved up and she decides it is a good day for one of her ‘hobo holidays’. She likes to get out of Manhattan occasionally and try to feel like a tourist.
She opens her locker and takes out her backpack, revealing the beach bag stuffed into the far back corner. She allows herself this indulgence. She keeps some beach attire even though it takes up valuable space. Today she decides to head to Rockaway Beach in Queens. It is an easy one and a half hour trip via the A Train. Round trip is under five dollars, and admission to the beach is free. She puts some extra money into her bag to buy food or to get herself out of a jam.
She returns the backpack to the locker and secures it. Then she takes her beach bag into the bathroom and changes into her swimming suit with a sundress over the top. She has a floppy hat, sunglasses, and an old bottle of sunscreen in the bag. She wonders if the sunscreen will still do the job after so many years.
On the subway, she almost feels like giggling with excitement as she escapes for the day. At this hour, almost everyone on the subway is heading into work. They have the sullen scowls of cattle heading to the slaughter. She wonders if it could possibly be that bad having a job and a home. However, she is heading to the beach. Another giggle tickles her throat and almost breaks free.
She arrives at the beach after a long ride on the subway and a short walk. The beach stretches toward the sea offering its belly for the waves to splash upon. A city worker is raking up seaweed and trash a couple hundred yards away. He is the only other person on the beach at this hour on a weekday. Showers are spread at intervals between the beach and the boardwalk. They are meant to rinse off the sand, but she likes to spend some additional time soaking when nobody is around. She slides out of her sundress and steps into the shower in her bathing suit. The takes the bar of soap and begins with her hair and works her way down, soaping up the bathing suit as well as her hair and skin. The water pounding on her skin is so intoxicating that she barely notices it is ice cold.
When she is done, she turns off the shower, steps out and pulls the tattered off-white shelter towel from her beach bag. She looks at it and wonders if she should buy a real beach towel to complete her ensemble. However, a beach towel would take up far too much space in her locker. Her picture of the perfect day on the beach will have to retain some tattered edges.
She walks halfway between the boardwalk and the water and spreads out the towel. She places her bag and her dress upon it and walks the rest of the way to the water. There is nobody else on the beach, so she can keep an eye on her bag, and the money within. She wades out waist deep and becomes comfortable with the temperature. She dives in and swims out to deeper water where she pauses to tread water, breathing hard. She estimates how far she swam. Probably only about 100 yards. This used to be so much easier. She takes a deep breath and swims back to where she can touch bottom. She can feel it in her muscles. When did she get so out of shape? She rubs her shoulders and realizes how thin they are. Bad nutrition and lack of exercise. What a toll they have taken. She makes a mental note to get back to the beach more often as she trudges to the beach and back to her towel. She collapses next to her bag and reaches in for the sunscreen.
A couple of hours later, other people have joined her on the beach. It is not crowded, but several families have set up camp, the nearest within a few yards. The children play in the sand with shovels and buckets. Some of the older children are tossing around a Frisbee. There is a volleyball game going on. The smile slips from her face as she begins to feel like an intruder. She is an imposter here, a voyeur spying on the normal people. She tries to shake this feeling. She has just as much right to be here as anybody. Why does she have to feel this way? Why does every good day begin to crumble like this?
She quickly gathers her things and scrambles over the rubble that was so recently her perfect day. This can be salvaged. She gets away from there and heads to the boardwalk. She spots a hot dog vendor. She has money. The smile returns. She heads over and orders a hot dog.
The vendor says, “Do you want sauerkraut on that?”
“Yes, the works.”
“There’s relish, catsup, and mustard over there by the napkins.”
She pays the man, thanks him, loads the hot dog to overflowing and continues along the boardwalk. She is back in her groove. The perfect day is back on track. The hot dog tastes like ambrosia. The excess relish falls between her fingers and bounces off her knees. The seagulls will have a feast. The food stalls give way to merchants selling sunglasses and T-shirts. She spots a beach blanket for sale that she loves. The feelings of being an outsider come crashing back. She forces them away. Just let me have this one day. She turns abruptly from the stalls and almost knocks over a small boy. She sidesteps around him and makes her way back to the beach.
There is still a lot of day left. She finds a new spot and spreads out her towel, acutely aware that the tattered towel is not appropriate. She squashes that thought and gazes out at the water. She thinks of Theo asleep in his bed. That is a good thing. If he knew what she was doing, he would scold her for wasting money. Maybe a day at the beach would do him some good.
After another hour on the beach, she feels like a new person. Unpleasant thoughts banished. She begins to think. Fifteen minutes back to the subway, and hour and a half ride, and another fifteen minutes walking back to the shelter. She ought to think about leaving. Caught out after dark walking through Manhattan in a sundress carrying a beach bag is just asking for trouble. She also needs to stop at the showers and rinse off the sand and sunscreen. She gathers up her things and begins the journey back to her real life.
A pile of completed manuscript pages on clean, white, paper grows beside his typewriter as Clyde types quickly, but carefully. It will not do to have any white out. The final version has to be perfect. It is tedious work transferring the text from the brown bags, but this is the final stretch. Once done, it will be time to celebrate. He leans back and contemplates the celebration. He sure doesn’t want to celebrate alone, or sober. He will need a couple of items. It’s a good time for a break. He leaves the room and locks up behind. There is a liquor store a few blocks away, but he needs to pick up something on the way. He stops at a convenience store and heads to the personal hygiene aisle. He looks at the box of condoms and then to the female clerk at the cash register. This is too embarrassing. He thinks of another plan and leaves the store empty handed.
New York City is not bereft of seedy bars. The one Clyde has in mind is only a block over. It’s a narrow bar with no windows. Clyde pushes open the door and enters. There are a few customers sitting at the bar. They don’t bother to look up. There’s a mirror behind the bar allowing them to see who walks in, if they are interested. Nobody seems interested, which suits Clyde fine. There’s only room for the bar, the stools, and a walkway. Clyde passes the bar and heads to the back to find what he is looking for; a coin operated vending machine that sells, among other things, condoms. He makes his purchase and, while he is there, takes advantage of the men’s room to relieve himself.
His next stop is a liquor store. A bottle of cheap wine will round out the celebration. At the checkout, he spots some plastic wine glasses and decides to splurge. He would like to get some more pages finished, but he realizes that he needs to replenish his money supply. He decides to try the typing/begging combination. It isn’t the best way to accomplish either, but it is a way to do both at once.
He drops the wine and glasses off at his room and loads up the typewriter before heading to the park. As he sets up on the sidewalk, Sandy walks up behind him.
“Hi Clyde. How goes the book?”
“It’s taking a lot of time retyping the entire thing. I ran out of money.” Clyde smiles sheepishly. “I guess Theo was right. I need to pay more attention. Where is he anyway?”
“There’s some new construction going on. Theo knows the supervisor and is keeping an eye on their equipment overnight. So he’s been staying over there at night and sleeping during the day.”
“If there’s anybody I’d want as a security guard, it would be Theo. Of course, he has been filling that role at the shelter. Are you still safe over there if Theo isn’t around at night?”
“Yes, I’m still safe. His group of apprentices from the self-defense classes can handle anything.” She rolls her eyes. Clyde is overprotective. If anybody should be worried, she should be worrying about Clyde.
“Well, you know how it can be.”
“The shelter is pretty safe. Its reputation keeps out the riff raff. Let’s make some money, okay?” Sandy crosses the street so that they are not interfering with each other. Clyde finishes setting up and gets busy typing. He looks up to say thank you whenever something lands in his hat. The woman with the red beret doesn’t show up today. He would like to thank her properly for the picture, but that will have to wait for another day.
The shadows lengthen, and the commuters thin. Clyde packs up for the day and looks around for Sandy. She must have already headed back to the shelter. He places the newly typed pages into an envelope and places that carefully into the shopping cart. He actually got through quite a few pages today in spite of the welcome interruptions of receiving money.
The typewriter greets Clyde as he opens his eyes and takes in the morning light. It looks like an indomitable force sitting quietly in the corner. Clyde imagines the effort it will require to get those keys flying. It seems like more than he is up for today. He spent the last two days transferring the story from his paper bags onto nice white paper. He misses the creative process. A trained monkey could do this.
He makes the decision. Today is a day of rest, and he knows exactly how he is going to spend it. He grabs some money from his tin can and locks up the room as he leaves. The morning commute is just beginning. This is perfect timing. He heads to the nearest subway stop, purchases a ticket and goes through the turnstile. Once inside, he can spend the entire day on the subway.
He would do this on occasion to get ideas for characters, scenes, and plot twists. Today it is just an escape. He needs to exercise his brain. As he watches people, he makes up stories for them. Some are mundane and some become very extravagant. Take the woman across from him. He imagines that she was born and raised in the Bronx and has never ventured out of New York state. She works as a receptionist and has travel fliers tacked to the walls of her cubicle. She dreams of going to France or Venice. It will never happen. She will go home tonight to her three cats and curl up with a romance novel.
Well that was a downer. If that is the way the day is going to be, he might as well have stayed home. What about this young couple? They’re not dressed as if they are heading to the office. She has bright pink hair, piercings through her eyebrows and nose, and tattoos. He has a leather jacket, but it looks too new. He has no visible piercings or tattoos. He is obviously a trust funder. His parents have forbidden him from seeing this girl, but he could not stay away. He drove his Porsche into the suburbs, too frightened to bring it all of the way into the city. He bought the leather jacket yesterday and still has the tags stuffed into the pockets. He took the subway to pick her up. Now they are on their way to the Staten Island ferry to begin a day of sightseeing and splurging. He will wow her with his spending and his parents will never find out.
This story has more possibilities. Too bad the kid doesn’t know that she is going to end up taking him for every cent he has, and he will have to go crawling back to mom and dad. Another sad ending. Most of his made up stories end that way.
A man across from Clyde dabs at his nose with his handkerchief. He is just back from a trip to Greenland. He doesn’t realize that his runny nose is due to an ancient virus released when the ice caps receded. In a month’s time, eighty percent of the world’s population will be dead or dying.
Right beside the man with the runny nose sits a quiet man with a nice suit. The SEC caught him doing some insider trading, but he was acting on orders from his boss. That’s the real target of the SEC. Now this man is an informant. They promised him that he will stay out of jail and the charges will be dropped, but he wonders if it is really worth it. He hates going into work each day and gathering evidence against his firm. Once the SEC gets enough, they will bring down the firm, and he will be out of work. Even if no charges are brought against him, will the stigma of having worked at this firm prevent him from obtaining another job? Will he ever be out from under the thumb of the SEC? Will his girlfriend leave him when he loses his job?
Clyde wonders if he should move to a different car. This one is full of people with dour futures. However, life on the streets is looking better and better. This is working to cheer him up.
He spends the entire day on the subway making up stories about the other riders. Only a couple of his stories ended up with happy endings. His favorite was about a woman who found a lost puppy on her way home. Her apartment had a ‘no pets’ policy. However, her landlord had a dog just like it as a child and allowed her to keep it. That is pretty much life though, many mediocre endings punctuated with a few bad endings and a sprinkling of happy endings.
He exits the subway with the evening commuters, feeling refreshed and looking forward to the next couple of days of typing. It shouldn’t take more than that to finish the final draft. He heads back to his room with enough energy to get out several pages throughout the evening and decides to hole up in his room and plow through the rest of the pages, however long that takes.
Clyde and Sandy sit on his mattress and look toward the typewriter and the manuscript beside it. The light from the flickering streetlight comes through the windows illuminating the room in flashes. If one were not used to it, it would be annoying. However, intermittent light is better than complete darkness. How much longer does this streetlight have before succumbing to eternal darkness? The end must be near.
“How’s it feel?” Sandy says.
“I’m used to working on it. I’m kind of sorry it’s done.”
“So, what now, Mr. Steinway?”
“You mean, Steinbeck.”
“Whatever.”
“I wait for the publishers to start lining up in the alley here.”
“Serious.”
“I guess I have to tell someone I’m finished. I’ll have to find out what the next step is.” Clyde begins to think that perhaps he should have thought this all of the way through before spending most of the last year writing.
“Let’s get some wine and celebrate.” Sandy claps her hands.
“I have a bottle for the occasion.” Clyde pulls out a bottle of MD 20/20 from behind a loose board on the wall. “I knew I’d finish someday.”
He unscrews the cap and fills two plastic wine glasses. Sandy smiles thinking of the formality of the glasses. They raise their glasses and clink them together with the unsatisfying sound of plastic upon plastic. They take deep sips of the nectar.
“I have something else to celebrate with.” Clyde smiles slyly.
“What?”
Clyde pulls a condom from his pocket, smiling mischievously.
“Where’d you get that?”
Clyde puts his drink aside. Sandy follows suit. They move close and kiss. The strobe effect from the streetlight casts a surrealistic light on the scene. They begin to undress. Their coats and shoes hit the floor raising some dust. Next Clyde’s flannel shirt and Sandy’s blouse come off. Underneath her blouse, Sandy wears a long-sleeved undershirt. Clyde lifts this over her head revealing her breasts. He pauses to caress these before beginning to remove her pants. Clyde then removes his own pants while watching Sandy slither out of her long johns and socks. Clyde struggles with his last sock as his big toe juts stubbornly through a hole. Sandy lies back, and her hair splays across the mattress. Clyde frees his foot and lies down next to her, running his hands down her body as they kiss through ragged breaths. Sandy is surprised at the strength of the desire that was waiting just below the surface. She feels one of Clyde’s hands on her breast and the other travelling down past her stomach, she gives herself over completely to the desire, and they make love, a pleasure rarely afforded.
To be continued. Part seven.
