It’s Okay to Say No
by Jeannette Garrett
They were walking home from a retrospective film festival, around 8:30 at night when Mary Alice saw up ahead what looked to be a homeless guy. Which was not unusual. Which was, in fact, quite usual. They were everywhere these days: in tents, under freeway overpasses, parking lots, libraries, church steps. All men. This one was sitting on a concrete block. They kept their eyes lowered. It was dark and they were careful of their footing on the cracked sidewalk.
“Good evening,” the man said as they approached. “Spare a quarter?” All the signs at the freeways, advised “It’s ok to say no to panhandlers. Give instead to agencies that help those in need” and Mary Alice tended to agree so they kept walking, not picking up their pace, but not dawdling either.
They had gone maybe 10 feet further when he called out, “It’s my birthday.”
They walked half a block more before they turned back.
“Is it really your birthday?” Arms crossed, Mary Alice was a skeptical inquisitor.
“I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”
“You have a driver’s license?”
“I’m car-less, man.” He half-turned and pointed to the empty parking lot behind him.
“How old are you today?”
“Thirty.”
“You’re a Pisces. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, I have a desire to escape reality and I like visual media. Also, I was born on a Saturday. ‘Saturday’s child works hard for a living.’”
“So much for that,” Mary Alice said. “Whaddaya wanna do?”
“A threesome?”
“Get real.”
“A drink and a meal? But if I have to eat another chicken nugget, it’ll be the end of me.”
“I hear ya. We’re sympatico. No chicken nuggets, I can promise you that.”
There was an Italian restaurant two blocks east and the three of them headed there.
“What’s your name, birthday boy?”
“Edward. What’s yours?”
“Mary Alice.”
“And the one who doesn’t speak? What’s yours?”
“Katie.”
“Is that short for Katharine?”
“It’s not short for anything. It’s just Katie.”
“Just Katie, what have you two been up to tonight? Belly dancing, pole vaulting, cabaret singing, telling fortunes?”
The women giggled. They were both 27, and they still giggled when they felt like it.
“We saw a Fellini. ‘La Dolce Vita.’
“Ah, the sweet life.”
“So what’s your story, Edward?”
“It’s a tale oft told of love, revenge, banishment, arrogance, greed.”
“Sounds like Shakespeare,” Mary Alice said.
“Without the royalty,” Katie added. “Your voice sounds familiar.”
When they finally saw him in the light of a street lamp, Katie recognized him as a guy she dated two years ago. “What’s with the ‘Edward’? Why’d you change your name?”
“’Bentley.’ You think that works on the streets?”
“So what’s a good day for you?”
“When there’s no rain. And the sun doesn’t blister my fair skin.”
“All well and good, but I meant, how much money do you make on a good day?”
“Five bucks is a really good day. No obvious disabilities and no claim to being a vet. It’s usually much less.”
“Remember when you told me I should smile more?”
“I said that to all the women I dated.”
“That’s my advice to you. It might help with the cash flow.”
“Does this mean there’s no birthday celebration?”
“That’s the truth,” the women said in unison before they left him under the street lamp.
A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Jeannette Garrett has been published in Convergence and Eclectica Magazine. She has participated in numerous writing workshops at Inprint and Writespace in Houston, Texas, where she resides. Her email address is garrettcj@comcast.net.