SoC 3:1

Photogenic

 

T he big black musician closed his eyes and leaned forward as he played, cuddling the tenor sax, his body trembling. Jerry thought it isn’t because he’s cold, but because he’s so wrapped up in his music.

Two men and a woman dropped loose change in the open case on the sidewalk and the musician nodded appreciatively without opening his eyes. Jerry looked down at the singles and fives that other people had placed in the instrument case, lying them carefully under quarters and so the bills wouldn’t blow away, and when the man stopped playing Jerry looked up and saw him waving his arms slowly back and forth to keep warm.

“You play great, mister.”

He smiled quietly and nodded. “You got one of them honest homeboy faces, you an honest kid?”

Jerry nodded and the musician bent down to pull three singles from the case and pointed to a delicatessen on the opposite side of the street. “Then why don’t you go over and tell the guy behind the counter to fix a coffee and butter roll for Henry, and get something for yourself.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

The musician pulled three additional quarters from the days donations. “That’s for the counterman, I always tip.”

“Okay.”

The boy turned and the musician said “Leave your gym bag here, why you wanna be lugging it around anyway?”

“Okay. I got my stuff in it.”

“It sure wouldn’t be my stuff!”

The boy laughed and dropped the gym bag beside the open hard saxophone case and ran across the street.

************

“Yeah, yeah, Henry sent you, seen you talking to him, you getting anything?”

He nodded and put the money flat on the counter, “Can I get the same thing with this much?” The counterman nodded and when the order was filled he returned one of the quarters. “Henry’s seventy-five cent tip and you get a quarter back, a buck would be too much.” The counterman smirked, a man and woman at the counter laughed and Jerry rushed back to where a new crowd had gathered. Henry winked when he saw the bag and a moment later his eyes were closed again, the music slow and beautiful, coins clinking in the case, a lady lying a single with two quarters on top and another lady put three singles beside it, moving a pair of quarters over them.

When the crowd moved on Henry stopped playing and sat at a nearby picnic table, pulling the tab back from his coffee and setting it down as he turned to the wrapped roll. “You gonna have yours standing up?”

Jerry laughed and sat facing the musician, both of them eating quietly.

“So, you running, or what?”

Jerry shook his head and said, “NO!” a bit too loudly.

Henry laughed, “You look cold, like you been cold since early this morning.” He looked down to Jerry’s pants below the knees. “You got your pants wet this morning like you sunk in some snow and you been cold ever since and now you’re gonna get sick my fine little homeboy.”

“I did sink in some snow. Me and my dad were having a snowball fight and I—”

Henry nodded and turned again to stand by the tree he’d been using for a backdrop. “Only, where’d you find snow to sink in? There ain’t no snow in the city. All shoveled up and melted away. You come in from the sticks.”

Jerry swallowed, this guy was so smart, he thought, way smarter than anyone he ever knew. He shivered and his throat felt like it did when he got sick at home.

“Hey, homey, take five more bucks from in there and go back to the deli and get some real hot chicken soup. Eat it inside and get warm. And when you’re finished, go home, wherever your home is.”

“Can’t—can’t take your money like that.”

“You’re my good deed for the day, that’s all. You ain’t taking nothing that wasn’t given, besides, you helped business. Now go on and do as I say.”

“I’ll pay you back, I swear!”

The sax player nodded and put his right hand out, taking Jerry’s and clasping it back, different from a normal handshake. “Henry.”

“Jerry.”

“Now you do as I say. They got a men’s room in the back, go change your socks, then get the next train or bus or find whatever horse you rode in on, and get back home.”

************

He went to the men’s room and sat in the farthest stall from the door, removing his shoes and socks, all of them damp and cold, his socks soggy, and he shivered and massaged both feet, sneezing twice, pulled a pair of socks from the gym case and rubbed them against his feet before putting them on. ‘That’s better,’ he thought, squeezing the damp socks over the floor, a small puddle forming on the small colored hexagon tiles. When they felt sufficiently dried out he balled them together and placed them beside the two dry pairs of folded underwear and undershirt in his case. The shivering wasn’t as bad now and he thought about the winter boots he’d left by the front door when he rushed out of the house before dawn.

When he was finished he went out again and sat at the counter. It was slow now and he was alone at the furthest end. He and ate slowly, rubbing his legs against one another. When he was sure no one was watching he dropped down and rubbed them quickly with his hands and a moment later the shivering stopped, his feet felt warm again, maybe not quite warm, but not cold either.

His fingers went into his pocket and he pulled out the money he’d set aside and counted it again, three twenties, a ten, three fives and seven singles counting the change from the five Henry had given him. It took a month to slowly steal the part that came out of his father’s wallet, sneaking into their bedroom while they watched television.

Did they notice he was gone yet? Sure, they had to, almost the whole morning had passed and one of them must have checked his room and seen the empty bed.

The three twenties came out of the kitchen hiding place this morning. She’d probably make a big thing about it, saying he was no good, a thief and a liar, like she always did.

He whispered, “Now you have a reason to say it.”

Henry was no longer in the park when he left the deli. It was strange, he thought, not like he left, more like he’d never existed.

************

Two old men sat at one of the concrete tables and breathed onto their cupped hands, shivering quietly over a chess game. Jerry watched them snatching the pieces up after each capture, snapping them quickly on a lever of a strange looking double clock, one lever going up as the opposite lever went down, one clock stopping as the other started.

They made taunting remarks about the other’s position as they moved and he wanted to laugh at some of the things they said but neither of them seemed to notice how funny any of it was. It reminded him of baseball with the catcher saying things about the batter while the pitcher wound up and threw, except the old men were much funnier than any catcher he’d ever seen.

He watched the minute hands lifting a pair of red flags and the moves became much faster, neither of them bothering to adjust the plastic pieces still in play or to put away the captured ones that lay on their sides beside the board.
Then it all stopped abruptly and one of the men leaned back and shook his head sorrowfully.

“You robbed that one.”

“Yeah, sure I did, robbed it off a silver platter!”

The first man laughed and winked playfully at Jerry.

“You play, kid?”

“I’m too stupid for this game.”

The one who’d lost hurriedly reset the clock, “You got it wrong, the dumber you are the better. Look at Izzy here, he always wins and he’s the dumbest person on earth.”

“Yeah, dumb for playing you all the time, putz. One more game, Patzah, then I go home before I freeze.”

He wondered what kind of name that was and if Patzah was the other man’s name. Izzy looked down at him before the first move. “Don’t every say you’re stupid, understand?”

He nodded, surprised by the serious tone of the man’s voice.

“You got a whole stinking world out there full of people who are gonna tell you how stupid you are, no need to help them out. Understand what I’m saying?”

He nodded again. “Okay. I won’t.”

When the second game ended, stolen again by Izzy, he hurried away as the two men packed the pieces and clock.

Their voices faded behind him, replaced by new voices from people who were nearer to him now and he thought ‘Late afternoon now,’ and it was much colder than it had been when the sun was out. He shivered and sneezed and ran out of the park.

************

It wasn’t till the streetlamps came on as he wandered down a narrow street that he began wondering where he’d sleep.

The buildings weren’t tall here the way they had been on the avenues, and instead of the streets being straight with wide lanes for cars they were narrow and wound in different directions like a country village, the low brick houses and stores mixed together and when