July, Week 2, "Trash" --- THE VAGRANT
The woman drives in her minivan. She didn’t think what she was doing is bad. What she was doing was satisfying a need, a hunger, no worse than someone indulging in that extra slice of cake-junk food for the sweet tooth. No, this wasn’t bad; it was simply her way of dealing. But people like her don’t do this sort of thing, this act was an anomaly. And yet, the woman didn’t really know who she was, what niche of “people” that she was part of. She felt the circle among all the squares passing perfectly through the square holes.
No one was getting hurt, but there was potential. She was placing herself in a risky situation. The light ahead turns yellow. She slows to a stop, not because of the light but because of the familiarity of the street. It is eerily comforting and the darkness reassuring. It whispers to her and invites her to step out of the car, everything’s going to be alright, no one knows you here. The anonymous anomaly walks onto the street; this is the place.
At this hour, everyone is in the comforts of their homes, and so is she. A couple of yards ahead is her destination. She slips into the crack between two complexes (construction almost completed), a circle inside a circular hole. She walks along the alley, tracing the metallic outline of the dumpster to her left. The rusty odor wipes away the smell of the dish detergent she used no less than an hour ago, the pages of the bedtime story she read, all the traces of her life now simply afterthoughts. This is where he spends his nights, that vagrant she passes on her way back to that abyss of afterthoughts. The same man now lies before her curled in the fetal position.
She bends down to stroke his face, the grime gracing her newly manicured nails.
“Hey,” she whispers.
The vagrant stirs, his eyelids receding to reveal a pair of glazed eyes, beautiful, haunted eyes. She smiles and the man flinches away from her open palm.
“What do you want lady?” he grunts.
“You,” she cries as she kisses him. Their lips touch and an odd feeling surges through her body, not unlike the sensation she felt when she stroked the side of the dumpster, leaving an indelible residue on her senses.
He didn’t push her away, but kisses her back. Reaching into the tatters of his clothing, she realizes his arousal. The two embrace in that dark alley, their panting drowned by the hissing of steam seeping from the nearby storm drain. She could smell the city on him. The stench of urban life perfumed on his body, she inhales and takes the vagrant in.
The man owned nothing but the rags on his back, but for those transient moments, she was all his.