Shelter

Robert was a good kid, a little misguided maybe, so just a product of a bad system. Joshua did nothing to really help him, just as he could really do nothing to help himself. Their relationship was mutually destructive, tearing each other down to leave a seemingly better version of the self in his place.

Joshua was sitting down, away from the cold, under the lights of the bus terminal's covered bike rack. He had a red mark on his face, to the left of his nose, that seemed basically fresh, unattended. He smelled of cheap beer and had short grey hair dampened by the rain, and a wild look that got worse as he tried to persist in eye contact.

He would say things like you know what I mean? when I in fact did not. That's why I was listening, to see if maybe I could. But he didn't want to be understood. As he put it, most people didn't speak his language. 

He did say that he was kicked out on Valentine's Day, after arriving with flowers and beer. I did get a sense that I was not getting the whole story. I asked how long, Joshua, have you been in Bellingham? and he said off and on since 91.

He owns a boat in Kelso, has a train ticket for 8:30 today.

Robert was sixteen; he told us so when Joshua asked him point plank. Joshua asked me as well, to which I also gave my untarnished number. I believe we still don't know Joshua's age, but if I had to guess I'd say 43.

I had come to the bike shelter to smoke my third to last cigarette till the next pack, with what I thought a 50/50 chance this guy would ask me for one. He did, but apparently not because he wanted it. I handed him my second to last smoke, upon his open palm, parallel to his fingers, filter towards me. He did not light it.

Sixteen year old Robert approaches and asks me, the one with the obvious cigarette, if I have another, and I reply that I do not. I did, but not for him. Probably for nobody but myself. My last cigarette. My lucky cigarette. Obviously different, always a milestone, the other one that the whole pack was made for, with eighteen bonus little obligations along the way.

Joshua gave this guy the cigarette I had just given him.

Then, without asking, Robert gave Joshua five dollars. All of a sudden, nobody wanted that five dollars. Not me, not Robert, and not even Joshua.

He did have recourse after failing with his ladyfriend earlier, Joshua explained. He would go to the AA meeting over there as he pointed and talk to this girl that said she wanted to talk to him. He would coax her into letting him stay at hers, I guess presuming she has one of her own. 

Then, Joshua forced Robert to listen to "Legend of John Henry's Hammer" by Johnny Cash from the butt end of his cracked black smartphone. The subtle clanging I heard in the short distance reminded me of chain link fence. He suggested I too hear this song, as well as a Grateful Dead song brought to his mind by some unwitting cliche I uttered, some four word phrase. I'm probably not going to go out of my way for either of them, though.