The Trouble Way (36 page)

“
I guess we’ll be able to sleep in after all,” Bella said, absently walking over to the gutter and retrieving the still smoking butt, snuffed it, and put it into her pocket. “Waste not, want not. Now, we just have to be here by ten-thirty.”

“
Ten-thirty, sharp. I still ain’t sleeping my entire life away,” Don said. “We still got our rounds to do.”

“
Yeah, I’ll give you that,” Bella said. “No rest for the ugly.”

They continued around the building and saw leaning against the wall a soiled twin mattress set, which was useless to them, but to their good fortune for the second time that morning, there were the two blankets tucked in between the mattresses. Next to a decent pair of shoes, blankets were gold to a couple of gimpy old hobos, especially with the promise of cold weather not far off.

Bella took the ratty yellow one, covered in cat hair and smelling like cat piss. Don got the one with the unmistakable odor of dog crap and had the stains as evidence. Regardless, each took their trophy and slung it around their shoulders and pranced for several feet, like the high society women do when they attend the opera downtown.

They carried their loot around to the front of the store where they slid their returnables into the machine and collected eighty cents.
” Bella handed Don his share and pocketed the remainder.

They wandered their route of habit along the streets, collecting cans and bottles along the way from the additional city trashcans on the sidewalks, putting them in Bella
’s eco-friendly shopping bag. They settled near the library where they laid out their picnic on the concrete bench. Bella reached inside her loose fitting jean’s pocket and pulled out a cigarette butt before remembering they both had two full cigarettes. She tossed a matchbook in Don’s direction.

There were two children, a little girl, and what may have been her brother, a little bigger, splashing in the fountain across the lawn of the library. The girl appeared to be about three or four years old and the boy a year or two older.

Don looked up from his leftover Happy Meal French fries and saw that Bella had tears running down her cheeks, the unlit cigarette dangling in her fingers. She was watching the little girl, who was screaming and splashing water on her brother.

“
Aw, jeez, Bella, you couldn’t have done nothin’. It wasn’t your fault. You were just seven years old.”

“
I didn’t want to take swimming lessons like my Daddy wanted me to. I’m so afraid of the water.” Bella said. “If I knew how to swim I could have saved her. She was so close and she kept screaming my name. Sometimes I wake up at night hearing little Gracie screaming my name over and over. Then, after she stopped, my daddy was screaming my name.”

“
Bella, it wasn’t your fault, you were just a little kid.” Don slid a bit closer and patted her shoulder.

“
Say, did I ever tell you I worked in one of those big retail stores, Bella?”

“
Yeah, only a half dozen times but not yet today.” She took a big sniff and looked at Don with a shadow of a smile. “You got anything new to tell me about it. So, you were a door greeter. I was a checker for a couple of years and was a waitress for a bunch more, big deal.” She lit her new cigarette and took a long drag. “Now we’re a couple of nobodies.”

“
It was out on the west coast, Seattle. I was a big deal, I had a lot of responsibility, I took it real serious. I watched out for shoplifters, and there were a butt-load of them, that’s for damn sure,” Don said. “I caught my share, and that’s no lie. I damn near caught a manager. That was my one regret, not catching that guy. It was my bum leg. I worked there till they canned my ass. My wife was sick and I had to take care of her. The manager said I didn’t have any sick leave. I had no option but to take care of her. They canned me. You believe that. Canned my ass. A couple months later they shut the place down. I heard they had so much theft, they couldn’t make a profit and went tits-up. They say most of it was employee theft. Everyone lost their jobs, I shit you not, except management, they transferred them, even that thief.”

“
What did you do after that?” Bella said.

“
I tried to get a job at some of the other stores but they wouldn’t hire me. My leg,” Don said. “They wouldn’t say so, but I know damn well that was it, discrimination. I can tell you for a fact that I never patronize those big stores anymore. They treat their people no better than a sick dog on a short chain.

“
You don’t patronize them ‘cause you ain’t got no money. Got nothing to do with discrimination or anything else, especially not because of your high moral standards,” Bella said. “Trying to steal my cigarettes shows me your high falutin’ standards, you old thief.”

“
Lost the wife not long after that store closed. Cancer,” Don said. “I got unemployment for a while but after that dried up, I just sort of gave up. Lost the house and been on the streets ever since. Without any money, I took some lessons from those shoplifters and stuck it to
The Man
every chance I got. Never did get caught. I see now why all those employees stole the place blind. As far as I can tell, minimum wage workers are still sticking it to him. I used to catch them, those shoplifters, and now I’m one of them. Management hasn’t learned a goddamned thing in fifty years as far as I’m concerned.”

“
The rain got me down so much I got the hell out of Seattle. Smartest move I ever made. Thumbed a ride across country, mostly got rides with those long-haul truckers. I been damn near everyplace, Spokane, Missoula, Boise, Salt Lake, you name it, now I’m the King of Mud Flats, here in Des Moines. Best job I ever had. “You didn’t have no goddamn cigarettes to steal. Least ways, none that I could find.”

“
Oh yeah, real smart move, now you have two feet of snow and twenty below to worry about,” Bella said. “And it ain’t long in coming either. If you haven’t noticed, some of the nights have been turning a bit nippy lately. That’s just a hint of what’s coming. Snow ain’t far off. If I make it through another winter, I’m considering heading south, maybe Florida or New Orleans. They got nice weather in them places, year ’round.”

“
Ain’t nothing worse than that Seattle rain, and that’s a fact,” Don said. “That shit never stops. Every day for months at a time. Your goddamn underwear get moldy.”

“
You ain’t seen the river flood yet. You’ll be praying for a little of that Seattle fog, your tent will be relocated to the low branches of one of them cottonwood trees down by the river, once it rises, Mr. King Mud Flat. I seen it happen, more than a few times. And that, King Mud, is a fact. Another fact, the rain ain’t the reason your skivvies are moldy, you gotta’ change ‘em every month or so.”

“
That old John was a pretty nice fella, wasn’t he,” Don said.

“
Yeah, a real polite fellow. You could stand to take a few lessons from him, that’s for sure,” Bella said. “Help you to elevate your sagging moral standards.”

“
You folks ain’t supposed to be down around here. There’s cameras all over the place and they’re watching,” the old lady said.

“
Who’s watching,” Priscilla said.

“
The authorities. They have surveillance cameras everywhere. The police will come down here and arrest you. You’re not supposed to be here,” she said. “It’s illegal.” She looked over her shoulder when she heard a car passing on the bridge over the river. She pulled her collar up to hide her face from what might have been a police cruiser.

“
Hi, my name is Priscilla. This is Jake.” Priscilla approached the woman who was standing about ten yards away on the grassy knoll. “Do you live down there?” Priscilla pointed to the cluster of tents near the river.

“
I live over there.” The lady flipped her hand in the direction of the river.

“
Would you like some food? We have some sandwiches and you are welcome to them,” Priscilla said. “What’s your name?”

“
My name’s Bella,” the woman said. “I ain’t giving you my last name. Ain’t nobody’s beeswax.”

“
Well, it’s really nice to meet you, Bella.” Priscilla held the Styrofoam plate of sandwiches wrapped in saran wrap out to the woman as she walked toward Bella.

“
We can’t take no food from you people.” Bella said taking several steps backwards. “The police will come here and arrest anybody talking to us … probably arrest me too.” She leaned a walking stick against her shoulder and took a butt from her pocket and a matchbook from another, looking up to keep the two do-gooders under surveillance, like a squirrel popping upright every other second, watching for hawks. When she pulled the match from the book and struck it, a puff of wind extinguished it. On her second attempt, she succeeded and her first drag induced a convulsive hack.

Jake
pulled on Priscilla’s coat sleeve and turned her away from Bella and spoke softly. “Maybe we should just leave the sandwiches and let her alone. She obviously has some issues and we are just causing her stress.”

“
It’s nice to meet you Bella,” Priscilla said again loud enough for Bella to hear. “I’m just going to put the sandwiches here on the ground and if you like, you can come over and get them. If you like. I just made them.” She gave her a goodbye wave and started back down the grassy knoll, away from the lady with the scraggly grey-brown hair, over-size Navy pea coat, soiled blue jeans, and worn pink sneakers. “Come on Jake, I think it will be okay just to leave them here and Bella can come get them if she likes.”

“
You people should stay away from here. The police are watching all the time.” Bella pointed her walking stick in the direction of the overpasses. “They have cameras and they’ll arrest anyone who brings stuff down here. It’s illegal.” Bella turned toward town and walked across the field away from the tent village, looking like a member of Robin Hood’s band with her walking stick and oversized coat weighing on her narrow shoulders. When she reached the road, an old man limped up beside her and they stopped and looked back at Jake and Priscilla. Bella raised her walking stick and pointed it at them, then toward the bridges, then lowered it and the two continued toward town.

“
That’s interesting,” Jake said. “That old man must be another member of the tent city there. I wonder how many people live in those tents.”

Jake walked toward the river and saw several tents, no two alike, erected beneath the tall trees along the river along with several makeshift lean-tos fashioned with blue, green, and orange tarps slung over ropes stretched between trees. When he got closer, he could see that all the tents and lean-tos were empty. There were blankets and sleeping bags crumpled inside of each and the flaps were fluttering in the wind. Makeshift tables made of random lengths of boards or plywood were placed near the campfires pits. Stumps or logs were the chairs. A few of the coals were still grey with heat in a few of the fire pits. He took the remaining cello wrapped platter of sandwiches and placed it on one of the makeshift tables and walked away toward Priscilla waiting on the grassy knoll.

“I didn’t see anybody,” Jake said when he reached the top of the knoll. “There’s lots of blankets and sleeping bags in the tents I could see in. They’re pretty trusting to leave all that stuff.”

“
What else are they going to do with it, put padlocks on the tent flaps,” Priscilla said. “They can’t take all that stuff with them when they go out.”

“
Yeah, I guess you’re right. It looks like quite a few people spend their nights here all right. I wonder where they are. It’s like a tent ghost town.”

“
It sure is creepy,” Priscilla said. “These poor people at least have tents. I wonder what they do during the day.”

“
I have no idea. Probably look for food.”

“
It’s really strange that Bella wouldn’t take the sandwiches,” Priscilla said. “She appears to be hungry. Did you see how skinny her face was? Her skin is grey. She obviously has a mental problem.”

“
I wonder if the police do hassle these homeless people down here,” Jake said. “Sometimes you hear about homeless people getting rousted out of places like this.”

“
Well, something makes her think she is being watched,” Priscilla said. “I wonder where she got the idea that there were cameras all over the place.”

“
I know she is homeless and obviously has problems but she gives me the willies just the same,” Jake said. “They’re probably all harmless. But I still wouldn’t want to come down here at night.”

“
It makes you wonder when you see little kids like our little sweetheart,” Priscilla said. “And to know that some of those tiny, sweet kids are going to live in homes with mommies and daddies and at some point they no longer do. To think they will end up being old and smoke Camels butts and have grey skin and pink tennis shoes and live in a tent along a river like this. It makes me want to cry. Or worse still, no tent.”

“
What do they do in the winter?” Jake said.

“
I’ve seen the tents here when there is ice on the river,” Priscilla said. “It’s terrible to think people are here when it is below zero.”