What are friends for?
“Streetwise! Get your Streetwise!” She sells her papers here every morning.
“Hey, I’ll take one.” I get one each time a new one comes out.
“Oh hey how you been honey?” She hands me the paper, takes my dollar.
“I been okay, sick of the heat, you know. How you doing?”
“Can’t complain, it’s a beautiful day.” She smiles.
“Well, I gotta get a move on, you have a good one.”
“You too!” She turns to the people walking by, “Streetwise! Get your Streetwise newspaper here!”
I walk into the building where I work, sign in, hit the elevator up button. I’ve been here on an internship for about six weeks. Every time I buy a paper I tell myself I will read her nametag and find out her name. I’m pretty nearsighted and she wears the tag right by her breasts so I don’t want to seem creepy. Plus she’s told me her name once before and I can’t remember it. Kathy? Katie? Carol? Kay? Something like that. I feel like a dick, I’m the guy who works in an office who forgets the girl’s name, the homeless girl, and then I feel like a bigger, uglier dick for calling her ‘the homeless girl’ in my mind. Maybe I can get a co-worker to find out her name.
The weeks of the internship roll on like a long summer car trip, the steady rolling past of identical scenery and baking in the sun. I fall a little more behind each month, dipping into my savings to make up the difference. Occasionally, which really means regularly but erratically, I get pissed about being broke and I think fuck it I can buy something if I want to, and it’s usually a book. Sometimes I feel guilty afterward and so I tell myself something about capitalism and inequality and not by bread alone and so on. By November I’m checking my bank balance daily, keeping a mental tally of transactions so I always know how much I have. I try to pay cash as much as possible. I know when my paychecks clear and when the days are when I really can’t spend anything. I drink extra coffee with lots of creamer and sugar in the breakroom at work. Sometimes there are donuts and I stuff my face. I tell myself fuck it I’m a punk rocker who gives a shit what these people think, and I tell myself no one notices I take too much of the free food and then I tell myself I’m getting fat and what the fuck kind of punk rocker has an office job? When a paycheck clears I’m less likely to binge buy because I don’t feel any pressure, because I know I could buy something with no problem if I wanted to, and right before a check clears I’m too careful. The worst binge buying threat moments, the times when bookstores whisper in my ear and restaurants run their fingers through my hair, are the times just before I’m totally broke, when I’m up by fifty bucks that I really should save, and I tell myself again fuck it I can’t live like this, I’m tired of being bound by the almighty dollar and so I spend that dollar impulsively on comic books I’ve read by the time I get home, on a cinammon roll that I can’t finish, on a novel that makes me feel intelligent to hold but that I probably won’t finish.
“Hey, new paper today?” Her back’s to me.
She turns around, “Hey you!” smiles big, “Yeah, you want one?”
“Yup.” I hand her my dollar. “You were gone a bit, how you been?”
“Yeah I was doing thanksgiving. You do anything for the holiday?”
“Yeah, I went to see my dad,” I say, and I find myself telling her “we weren’t speaking for a while but we’re back in touch,” she’s nodding, I go on, “that was kinda weird honestly but also good to see him. Anyway. How about you? Thanksgiving?”
“They made us a turkey dinner at the shelter, I got into a new shelter so that’s okay.” She looks down.
“Oh, uh, good.” I tell myself not to be weird, there’s nothing weird about living in a shelter, and then I’m thinking about the condos going in next to my work building here on Michigan, the sign says they start at two million dollars and what the fuck is with that when she’s out here selling papers sleeping in a shelter, god damn right that’s weird, it’s definitely weird that people are living in shelters, weird’s not even the word for it but damn, and I’m blinking a lot trying to clear my head.
“Yeah it was good,” she cocks her head sideways, “except, well, I wanted to stay with my boyfriend but they won’t let us stay in the same - they make us sleep in different areas, it’s separated by sex. I don’t know. It’s not a big thing but just like for the holiday. I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” I’m nodding like I have some idea of what she’s talking about, “that really sucks, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks. I - um,” she wipes her eyes with the back of one hand, “I’m really sorry but can, could I hug you?”
“Uh,” I catch the impulse to take a step backward and I grab it by the neck of its t-shirt like my dad and shout at it to sit the fuck down or so help me god, “uh, yeah,” I raise my arms and add “yeah of course, yeah” like this is the most natural normal thing, like there’s no need to even ask, and she hugs me tight with both arms wrapped around me, rests her head on my collar bone. She takes a deep breath in and out slow and lets go.
“You are really my best friend,” she says, “You’re always so nice to me, no one else is nice to me like you are. I’m sorry to be weird, it’s just a hard time of year. The holidays are just rough.”
“I totally understand.”
“Thank you.”
“Any time, you’re welcome.”
We stand there a sec and I say “well, I should get going, good to see you back out here” and I think, good to see you back out here, what like it’s good she’s selling these papers what the fuck so I add “I mean it’s nice to see you, I missed you when you were gone.” She smiles big.
“Thank you again.” Before she turns to shout “Streetwise!” and I turn to walk into the marble floored lobby of my work building she looks down at her feet and takes another deep breath. I see my chance, I crane my neck, squint at her nametag. It definitely says Kathy. Or Katey.