godspeed, my son.

On a Corner

   "Y'know, sometimes I just sit here to meditate." He said as he sat on the pavement, the edge on the side of the road. It's the place where most of the busses stop, right before they splatter mud on the passersby. He was comfortable with this fact.

   He stroked his beard. The beard he had been keeping since he was just a young man in high school. I could see in his eyes that this wasn't just any ordinary moment. He had something to tell me.

   "Stevie," he called me. I had never been called Stevie before. Usually people referred to me as Ted, seeing that that was my name and Theodore had too many syllables. Yet, the man called me Stevie. I wasn't sure when I first met him if he was some kind of Alzheimer's victim. He would latch onto memories of me and try to place them in his life somewhere. I had seen this in an episode of "The Wonder Years" or "Full House" - one of those shows bound to be syndicated over and over again. But one character on there had Alzheimer's and kept referring to one of the girls as Jeanette. She had never been called Jeanette before; I had never been called Stevie before. I don't even know anyone named Stevie, yet it was my name for the time being.

   "Stevie," he called again. I looked up at him after pushing back the cuticle of my left thumb. It was something I would often do when bored. I brushed my thumb a couple times and perked my ears.

   "Stevie, y'know, you should never push your cuticle around like that. It's not healthy." I'd never heard of pushing back a cuticle as unhealthy, but this man seemed to know his shit. He had the attitude of a Navy Seal, the distance of an alcoholic grandfather, the eyes of a warden, and the smile of—Christ, his smile. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. And I had seen a lot of smiles in my few short years. It was something I noticed in people. Like the drag queen with the bad teeth. And the toothy grin of the politicians on the tube. I guess those are the two things I could really describe him as - toothy yet decayed. His teeth had character - everything he ate left a mark. Not a disgusting mark, but something that seemed to have an effect on him. It wasn't like you could see the ghost of mashed potatoes or the fried okra in between his canines; it's like his teeth talked. As if to say, "I've been to places you'll never eat. I see more than his eyes can decipher." His teeth were wordy. His teeth knew their vocabulary, though the tongue had yet to learn it.

   "My God, Stevie. What did I just tell you?" he snapped. My cuticle. I was pushing it again. I hadn't started this habit until someone told me to get a manicure and I was too cheap to get a real one - or know what exactly happened in a manicure. My thumb bled.

   "Let me get you a band-aid."

   He sifted through his pockets, certain that he had some kind of gauze or bandage in his deep folds of fabric. He had the mind of a clerk - the kind of clerk who had worked at the same convenience store for the past sixteen years and knew every aisle, every cracked tile, and every location of where some little shit had puked his breakfast. And he had to clean it up. The clerk knew his pockets.

   "Mr. Stenzel, I'm fine." I stuttered, sucking my tiny wound. The blood touched my tongue in a strange way. I remember back to my childhood when I used to suck my cheeks in after I had lost a tooth. The skin touched the tender gum in a way that I craved. It began my strange sado-masochistic memory; I loved licking the stringy roots, the nerves.

   He licked the front of his mouth - his tongue pushed behind his upper lip as if to signal he had thought about articulating a response. "Well, alright." He said, compacting the items in his pockets into a ball of junk.

   He sat up now, cross-legged and basking in the cloud's shadows. This was his place. He seemed at peace on this street corner. It's like the great monolithic urban developers had paved his peace, yet he still had a way to connect back home.

   "I used to - " he started.

   "Huh?" I said.

   "I - " he started again, then gulped spit.

   "Used to what?" I said, trying to lead him.

   "Used to sit around an' meditate."

   "Yeah, ya said that." I looked down at my thumb and wiped where the blood had been. "So?"

   "Stee, when you get to be my age --"

   "Oh, fuck that age bullshit." I pushed my hands on the pavement and felt its warmth burn me.

   "Son?" Warden questioned.

   "You're not old, so stop saying that shit."

   He brushed his paint-stained fatigues, in a pseudo attempt to remove the splatters. He huffed like some stupid fairy tale wolf.

   "Don't talk to me like that." He said firmly. "Your genera-"

   "My generation ain't done shit for you. I know it." I stole his words like my dad ripped the porno mag from under my bed, only to follow it with a look that condescended. A look with the force that Dad had: "not in my house."

   "Jesus Christ." I slammed. I stood up from this shit. He didn't know me. He didn't know bullshit about me. He was just hell-bent on pulling energy out of anyone around him. I know the type.

   "Get out." He demanded. "That's ridiculous. Don’t talk to me like that. Get out." He threw his hands aside to guide me away.

   I chuckled. "From your street corner?" I stood up. The blood rushed to my head and, in a moment, I was lightheaded again. I stumbled, grounded myself against the stop sign. He didn't even notice. I could've fallen into traffic and the fucker would blink once and shift his eyes to the left.

   "I'm out." I said once everything focused. I walked away in the direction of traffic. Under the bridge where the swishing of cars hummed and the radio frequencies could not reach. I was out. Then in a flash:

   "Steve," the beer whispered. I stopped. I could feel the warden clutching me. I could hear the commander's strength. I could sense his beard's follicles scratching through his taut skin. I turned around to see him. The warden was yellow and bloodshot. His lip was cut. It was the kind of angle you only see in your dreams. The dreams where you wake up with sweat sticking your chest to the pillow your arms had wrapped so tightly. Except you can't blink assurance into your mind now. You're faced with a situation no pinch will relieve.

   "Here's your band-aid."

   Still in its wrapper. Still sterile. The warden smiled wryly. My name still echoed in the tunnel, but the gift never reverberated. And the clouds would forever shroud the gratitude.