Being on the Street

     Morning is a godsend, but it is so hard to earn when you are on the street. So much of life is the stretched out fever dream of night, when being out is forbidden.

     Josh could hear the birds, could smell the grass, and despite his terrible headache and overall body ache, he felt the calmness of having survived another night. No matter how many times he did it, survival never seemed completely assured.

     After a time to get himself together, he made the trek as he always did outside the 16th and Geary Market to beg for his breakfast. There wasn't much panhandling business that early, but if he got his spot, he was unlikely to be challenged for it when the begging got better in the afternoon and evening.

     The owner of the business was a terror, but he seemed to give up on controlling Josh as long as he was a small distance away from the storefront. Like all trash, he gave up away from the property line.

     Josh thought a lot these days about the family he had left behind in Kansas. It has been some years, and most of the wounds, he thought, had probably healed. He'd need to get a job, sure, but he could get a job anytime he wanted it at the mill, and, well, he was resigned to the work by now.

     But it was hard to make that call, to tell his parents where he had been and what he had done, and to tell them that he was sorry he had run off in the first place, stealing all their cash and some jewelry to make his escape. Of course, they could possibly have a warrant out for his arrest, and he could be returning to a state that would put him in prison/

     That thought really stopped him, but that seemed kind of unlikely to him.

     Days passed by like that, and weeks, and soon years, perhaps decades, he'd pass by thinking to himself, I'm going to make that call today. I'm going to make that call and escape this merry-go-round of alcohol and begging and finding a place to sleep.

     But, he never could, go ahead and do it.