HE SAW HER KNEE

A Story by Hawksmoor

There were lights and sounds and smells and, oh f**k, there was THE COLD, too.

“Lookit that,” the tall man said, pointing a long, shaking finger.

The man was pointing at a box that sat in the doorway of an old unused storefront. The box, tall, wide, and thin, had black workshop tape across its top corners while its front bulged. Beside it, on three wheels, stood an old shopping cart filled with rubbish and trash. A single dirty sock hung over its right side.

“The homeless are so many, here,” said the beautiful woman who accompanied the tall man. In front of the beautiful woman and the tall man walked their group of people. Writers, bless their Collective Soul.

“I’ve never seen so many of them in one place,” said the woman.

“Me either,” said the man.

The group walked on, chattering and laughing, pointing here and there with gloved hands and excitement, but the man couldn’t get over the sight of the box and cart in the old doorway. He turned his head and looked back. And there, sticking out of the bottom of the box was a knee. Draped over the knee was what looked like the hem of a plaid skirt.

The man stopped, turned around, and walked back. He came to a stop in front of the box.

There was someone in there.

In New York City that night, the wind-chill factor made the wind vicious enough to cut through the layers of the heavy coat that the man wore. He couldn’t imagine what the wind and cold would feel like through a simple plaid skirt. He shivered and bit his tongue.

The wind picked up, kicking the woman’s golden hair into a whirlwind of light and darkness.

“Jesus,” the man said. He stuck his trembling hands into his coat pockets, but found nothing in either pocket to help him re-grasp his cheerful and curious demeanor. This was too much to bear, and his cigarettes were gone.

“F**k,” he said. “How can this be, in one of the greatest cities on Earth? How is this allowed, with all the cash that flows through here? This is Broadway, for God’s sake.”

The woman crossed her slender arms and walked back to the man, stopping at his side.

"Everywhere you look, there's another one of these people," he said, closing his eyes against the wind. "I mean, we've got them in North Carolina too, but the volume here is..."

“You’d never make it here,” the woman said, looking up into the man’s downcast eyes. “This city would tear you apart.”

And the woman took the man’s trembling right hand from his pocket, warming it with her own body heat and spirit.

She led the man down the sidewalk after their group and off of Broadway.
But the man, even with a mind that was normally as fleeting as his was, would never forget that he’d seen real horror that night. He would never forget that he’d seen her knee.