Things would be easier with a tent, but I need to move faster than that. I am a man on the go. All the time. I can’t bother setting up some lean-to. I gotta be free to stop, drop and snooze. That’s just how I am.
On this particular day, though, being homeless is putting a cramp in my style.
My pants, or maybe more accurately, the pants, are not where I feel like I left them last night, which makes me think that maybe I didn’t actually end the night with pants after all.
My shirt (the shirt), though, is crisp, wrapped in a plastic bag and draped nicely on a hanger, which is on a branch and waving in the cool breeze that is sliding off the retention pond and blowing into the little patch of brush in which I have spent the night.
Waterfront living. Because I know how to live.
Still, the pants thing has me flummoxed. I’ll need to visit the dry cleaner again, but that will have to wait. I have a bank to rob, a car to steal and a long overdue vacation to take.
Plus I have to pick up Jess.
As luck would have it – and when doesn’t it – there’s a Wal-Mart nearby where I’ve seen the day shift out back smoking with the door blocked open. A guy with no pants might draw unfavorable attention, but the same guy with a crisp white shirt, well, maybe they would see the real man, the actual man, and not be distracted by a pair of week-old boxers. Or is it two weeks? Time flies when you are on the move. I can’t actually remember when the boxers showed up.
But that’s another distraction. I need to prioritize my day again, because the pants thing, while not a show-stopper, has to be figured into my schedule. Should I stop by the bank first, then go to the store, or should I get the car and then go clothes shopping?
All this as I’m getting dressed. Multi-tasking, they call it. Scheduling my day while I decide whether or not to tuck the shirt into my boxers or leave the shirttails out, casual-like. Normally I wouldn’t tuck a shirt into my underwear because it makes the underwear show. Turns out the same is true with or without pants.
And just like that I’m dressed and ready, once again a man on the go. I decide to stop by the store first, since I’m sleeping in the weeds behind it.
Two steps and I remember that I am not alone. Jeremy is crashed out in the little clearing next to mine, a brown stained orange coat pulled over his head. I know it’s him because he smells so strong you can’t help but recognize him wherever he may be.
Before I kick his feet to wake him I size up his trousers. I’m no thief, but one day he might not need those pants, and on a day like today they could come in handy for me. Not this day, though. I’m looking for something a little dressier than the tattered cotton slacks Jeremy is passed out in this morning.
I kick his shoes and he snorts awake.
“The Indians are coming, run!” I yell at him, and he scrambles himself as best a drunk can scramble, which is mostly just arms flailing. He’s not really a morning person, so I go easy on him.
“Jer! Jer! It’s okay, they missed us!” I tell him. He keeps flailing, not quite awake yet. There is something primordial to Jeremy, even when he isn’t half asleep. This is why I like to keep him around.
I kick his shoes again and now he’s mumbling and rolling onto his side.
“What’s that?” I ask him.
He repeats what he said before, but I can’t make it out. He’s going to kill something or another. I don’t doubt him. I’ve seen him do it.
He’s not a real killer, though. He’s an explorer. Of people. That’s what he does for a living. He roots around inside people’s minds, takes notes, and then feels guilty for imposing. His regrets don’t stop him or anything – it’s just his process.
Here’s how he starts:
He takes up a collection, offering his hat around as he bounces a basketball off the sidewalk. That’s it. That’s his trick, the act for which he expects and receives his livelihood. It’s the combination of these activities that justifies the pay: dribbling the ball with one hand, making the hat convenient with the other, always conveying expectation.
And that’s the key – the implied compulsory nature of donating that he is able to communicate. He gets it across through body language alone. The basketball trick isn’t actually that good. It’s mostly just a method for presenting the hat.
But all the while – as he bounces, presents and gestures – he is calculating, adjusting, testing, feeling you out and then re-adjusting and testing again, always staying below the level of consciousness. It’s a high-speed, custom-tailored snow job that makes you think he’s doing something interesting. He is, but the ball has nothing to do with it. He’s a snake charmer, making your wallet rise, dance, and flick tongues of cash at him.
Motherfucker bounces a ball, looks into your soul, and takes your money.
Sometimes while he’s rooting around in your psyche, he’ll make little side trips, run his fingers along your synapses on his way through and back out. What he finds there is usually just some ammunition to use on the next person, but now and then, inside some little girl’s head, or in some businessman’s or some suburbanite’s, he’ll lay hands on a taproot that leads back to himself. This circle, looking into you and seeing his own soul there, this is what makes him drink, this notion of begging himself for money. It strikes him in his motivator: he is one with everything, which means he is profoundly, and forever, alone.
Whiskey? For chumps. Even he knows it tastes bad. Anything sweet, anything cloying, that’s what he wants. Makes you wonder what his real addiction is.
He is waking up, which means he is thirsty.
“Grab your ball, Svengali,” I say, and he smiles at me an improbable drunkard’s smile. His teeth are a shiny row of ivory.
“Let me brush my teeth,” he says, an excuse to drink some mouthwash.
While he flosses and brushes and makes a show of how fastidious he is, I take inventory of my tools. It doesn’t take long. Without pants, I am definitely working shorthanded. I’m just standing around idly while my pal performs his toothbrush ablutions. When Jeremy opens his store-brand mouthwash, I sit down and together we take in the morning air for a few moments.
“I need new pants,” he says.
He can’t resist. “You like it inside my head so much, why don’t you clean it up in there? Fix the plumbing or something,” I say.
He looks hurt, and I suddenly feel like a heel. He’s invited himself in, but only because he’s trying to be a good teammate.
“But seriously,” I tell him, “we both need to stop by the store and get some Haggar double-knits or something.”
“That shit don’t breathe,” he says, passing the bottle. “And I was talking about me. I already know what you need. Don’t have to look very deep to see it, either.”
“No, look deeper,” I say, “and admire the fucking rainbow.”
“Admire the dog shit,” he replies.
“That too,” I say, and hand back the blue tartar control. “Ready to make our mark on the world?”
He knows of the girl and the galoot big brother, has coaxed coin out of both of them. “What’s Paris like this time of year?” he asks.
“Piss-stained but otherwise tasty,” I tell him, “but I’m thinking road trip.”
“Biloxi?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Think she likes to sweat?”
Jeremy mulls that over while we finish off the mouthwash. I have my own thinking to do.
