AncilI walked over to him and the closer I got to him, the more I smelt his order of unshowered human. His stench wasn’t bad enough for me to fall and die but it was pretty bad and had me quite irritable.
“Hey,” I greeted the homeless man.
“Hello! Good day sir. Can you spare me some change?” The homeless man said. He was chivalrous and pleasant in the way he spoke; like a real gentleman.
I took out five bucks from my pocket and said, “This is all I can give. But I need your help in finding someone.”
“At your service sir,” the homeless man said.
“A girl. I’m looking for a girl. I know that a lot of people pass up and down these streets but the girl I’m looking for had a bright green turtleneck sweater. You can’t miss it.”
“Big brown eyes?” The man asked.
“Yes yes! Big brown eyes,” I said, with clear excitement. I was making some progress. “Did you see where she went?”
The homeless man poked his arms out with his hands wide open and his palms facing the night sky signaling me to pay up. “Ten bucks.”
“I only have five,” I said.
“Ten or nothing.”
“Just a moment ago you were such a friendly man. What happened?”
“Just a moment ago I didn’t have anything of value to you. Ten bucks or nothing.”
“I can’t believe I’m being conned by a homeless man,” I said, digging through my pockets in hopes of finding some more money but all I found was lint and a mint wrapper. “I really don’t have any more money left. I spent most of it at the restaurant. Please, just let me know where she went. I’m begging you.”
The homeless man turned away from me and said, “Ten or nothing.”
“Please,” I begged. “She’s my gir….. She’s my girlfriend and I’m worried that something may have happened to her.”
“Based on what I saw she seems to be in good hands; very good hands.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He poked his hand out again signaling me to pay up and it triggered a kind of burning anger in me that I didn’t know existed and his smell didn’t help in fanning my flames
“You idiot!” I shouted. “All I have is five. I can’t give you ten so quit asking for it. If I had it, I would have given you it already. All I want to know is where my girlfriend went.”
“Fuck off,” the homeless man said rudely, turning his head away from me.
I stooped down to his level. “I’m going to ask you one more time and if you don’t tell me what I want to hear I’m going to be forced to do something you’ll regret.” I sighed hard with my eyes closed then said. “Where did the girl go?”
He got closer to me and his putrid smell became even more poignant. He placed his hand on my shoulder and said, slowly “fuck off.”
My jaws tightened and I looked around to ensure that no one was there. I knew no one was around but it was my natural tendency for my jaws to tighten and to look around when I was angry and about to do something stupid. “What did you say? I don’t think I heard you.”
“I said, fuck off,” he confirmed.
I got up and paced back and forth not sure what to do or how to get the homeless man to talk. The only thing on my mind was finding Kate or at least knowing where she was. All kinds of thoughts spiraled through my brain. Was she kidnapped? Was she lost? The uncertainty was driving me nuts. In a rush of blood, I grabbed the homeless man by his dirty collar and shouted, “Where is she?!”
“I said fuck off man!” The homeless man shouted, his spit flying in my face. All the blood in my body flowed to the veins in my head and it seemed to replace all the rationalism in me. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and twisted it with so much force that I heard the cracking sound it made as it bent. The homeless man broke out into a loud wailing cry which could have probably been heard by everyone in the area if there was anyone in the area.
“I can’t feel my arm. I can’t feel my arm!” he cried.
“Where did she go?!” I shouted.
The homeless man just cradled his broken arm and continued with his loud wailing.
“I’m going to ask you one more time. Where did she go?” I asked with my teeth gritted.
He caught his breath and then said, “I don’t know. I don’t know where she went. I just saw her with you going into the restaurant earlier today.” He was breathing heavily with his unbroken arm over his broken arm. “I was in the parking lot asking folks for money when you guys went in. I noticed you and I noticed her with her brown eyes and green sweater and I was going to ask you guys for money but then I got chased out by the guards. I didn’t see her after that. I swear.”
“Is that what you were going to tell me if I had given you ten bucks?” I asked.
“That’s all the information I have.”
“Well that’s not enough,” I said. I was angrier now, first because of his constant plea for ten bucks and secondly because of the fact that he didn’t have any information. I had the urge to hurt the homeless man even more and I did. Without thinking, I swung a kick at the homeless man on the ground. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of person to beat up homeless people or kick puppies or steal candy from babies or whatever but put yourself in my shoes. The girl whom I loved walked out on me in the middle of a double date without saying where she was going and never returned. The only hope I had of finding her was a smelly old homeless man at the side of the street but he kept asking for money I didn’t have to answer a question he didn’t know. My body was also still aching from all the blows I got from Kate’s father and that in itself had me quite irritable. And to top it all off, I missed the Tom Hiddens concert. So it was obvious that my night was going pretty badly and my expulsion of anger towards the homeless man was just the sum total of it all. I was just venting my night and all the pent-up anger I had towards Vince on the homeless man one kick at a time.
Suddenly, I felt a hand pull me away and when I turned around I noticed it was Kate.
