Thursday, December 17, 2015

First Impressions

I was waiting at the bus stop and a jalopy pulled into the strip mall's parking lot. A small grubby man rolled down the window and opened the car door from the outside. His pants sagged a little, and he held an extinguished cigarette in his hand as he limped slowly past with a weary air like that of many of the homeless guys on the Square--he'd have fit in fine. He slowly walked over to the door of the auto repair shop and unlocked it--and two tall men with full tool belts quickly stepped up and followed him in.

Oops. But if he's bumming rides from a friend, hasn't he offered to fix his car door?

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I used to love be at the convenience store when little old John, stonemason to the rich suburbs, came in in his beat-up truck, wearing a visor cap, green zipped jacket, and black boots. He would be clean shaven and wearing an ancient skinny tie over his soiled shirt, as if in mockery of dressing up to go to work. The young clerks, girls with badly-dyed hair or boys with black t-shirts seldom recognised him, and you could see their snickers. I would wait until he had just exited: "Richest guy in town," nodding meaningfully when they looked amazed.