The California Kid

His blue eyes could barely stay open.  They were like two perfect lakes, mirroring the sky.  They would quickly disappear as his eyelids batted.  He mumbled to himself, but it looked like he was talking to someone.  “Hungry,” he muttered, looking straight ahead of him, past the sycamore trees and into the open road.  He stood in front of the local Ambassador’s Toys, where children were playing Jenga in the store.  He used to live in Austin, Texas where he worked at the original Wholefoods market.  “Texas is alright.  But I came straight back to California after the accident.”  The accident.  He looked like he could collapse at any given moment, so I wouldn’t dare ask about the accident.  “I knew I had to leave.  I’m a California Kid,” he said in a messy sentence.  Well, more so a jumbled assortment of words than a phrase.  His hair looked the same as Shaggy from Scooby-Doo.  He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to look at.  You’d look at him, and assure yourself he would just waste the money you gave him.  For a second, it felt like he broke character, and suddenly he was someone you talk to while waiting in line for coffee.  For a second, he stood up straight, his blue eyes stayed open, and made contact with ours instead of giving in to fatigue.  For a second, his mouth didn’t look like it was on the verge of drooling, and his hair didn’t look so reckless.  But only for a second.  When he talked, he looked through us, out into the open road.   

My Empty Cup

I looked down at my cup, still empty.  Looking down into the cup, I was staring into a bottomless pit.  Even if a dollar fell into it, I would never catch it.  It would go to waste.  What an ugly cup.  In front of it was a sign, OUT OF WORK.  As if it were a label, warning you not to go near it, warning you that your money would fall into the well and Lassie wouldn’t be able to save it.  I sat on the ledge of the hard stone bench in front of the ATM machines.  I was on the edge, as if I could stand up at any moment, convincing myself I didn’t need to sit behind that pathetic empty cup.  But it wouldn’t let me leave.  I had to sit, watching people pass by, slightly smiling at me out of pity, but not sympathy.  I looked down, but I could still see children staring at me, and I could feel my presence being ignored.  A man approached me, and a young girl trailed behind him.  He talked to me, and looked me in the eye too.  His daughter looked at me too, with eyes that listened.  Hers didn’t look too different from mine.  Big, brown, smiling eyes.  “Two weeks and four days,” I responded when asked how long I had been out of work.  A wave of sorrow went through me as I came to realize how sad it was.  I had counted the days, like a prisoner engraving tally bars into the wall of a prison cell.  Before I knew it, we finished talking.  He got up from the bench and was about to leave when I said “Thank you.  I really appreciate it,” and I shook his hand.  He smiled.  I smiled too.   
I looked down at my cup: one dollar.