In Front of the Liquor Store

Homeless people have made a huge impact on my life, whether from buying me alcohol, or threatening to beat the s**t out of me.

I sat in front of the liquor store. The anodized iron chairs, coated in rust and other nastiness, were an eye sore when compared to the contemporary and aesthetically pleasing plaza. It was midday; the Southern California heat getting to all the fast paced college students who raced in to get their cold beverage of choice. I mad-dogged a lady who walked out with a hot coffee�"who the hell does that? Getting hot coffee in this heat? I took another sip of my energy drink, the tartness making me lick my lips.

Ray walked through the parking lot, from the center of the little plaza, with that stupid smile. I knew she had told him something.

“Well I heard, from a little birdie, that you are thinking of leaving your girlfriend,” he said, like an a*****e.

“So she is resorting to getting my own friends to ‘change my mind’?” I said, taking two little sips, before lifting a leg to cross it on the other, neatly showing my knee high socks, as they peaked past my slacks.

Ray took the seat across from me at the table, and we turned our heads to see a woman punch a guy in the face not too far into the parking lots center. He screamed, holding his palms against his eyes. The woman bolted for her car and peeled out.

“I’m gonna’ grab an energy drink too, gotta’ validate my parking homie,” said Ray, as we calmly went back to our own business.

He glided towards the doors of the liquor store, and I began entertaining myself with some people watching.

A security guard ran across the parking lot, from the plaza’s movie theatre, and started hollering at a homeless guy who was begging for change. The rent-a-cop got a little close to the homeless guy and kept up his hollering, saying that he’d already warned him that he couldn’t solicit in the plaza anymore. The bum spit in his face and ran. That spit looked ridiculous from my seat, about a hundred feet away from the action. Some woman that the bum had just tried getting change from giggled as the guard began gagging. He puked a little bit and sat on the curb, saying something in his radio.

Ray got back and took to his seat..

“Anyways, you need to rethink this, buddy. She is too good for you.”

“Listen,” I began, as I always do when I don’t give a f**k what someone is saying, “I simply don’t feel like being in a relationship anymore. There’s not much to it.”

“I don’t get you. She is perfect. You guys don’t fight, and she takes care of you.”

I rolled my eyes, “I don’t need someone, and I don’t need someone taking care of me. I’m my own person. I don’t need to explain anything to anyone.”

“She deserves an explanation, because she is so hung up on you its ridiculous.”

I grinned at that, like I was ready to fight a bear.

The RTA bus rolled to the side of the liquor store, and the people spilled out like innards. Still sipping on my drink, I watched each person step off and onto the sidewalk as I listened to Ray’s babbling. I really was in no mood to listen to him.

A man came off the bus in filthy gray tank top, holding a brown bag filled with random flowers. He had oversized women’s glasses on and a decent sized beard going on, and unkempt long gray and brown hair. He eyed us as soon as he walked towards the liquor store’s doors, and I knew he was going to be paying us a visit. I anxiously waved my propped up foot in small ovals. Ray saw the guy’s stares as well, but continued with his business of trying to convince me as to how wrong I was about my personal life. The grimy man disappeared into the shop.

“Mike, no matter what, you know I’m your homie, but I think you are making bad decisions.”

“Ray, I don’t give a s**t what anyone thinks. I can be a big boy and do my own thing. F**k you.”

The man came back out of the liquor store and started throwing his flowers around while spinning in circles.

“F**k authority and do what you do!” the man moaned at the sky, twirling amid his flowers. He pulled a chair to our table and slumped into it. We busted out laughing and suppressed it when he spoke again, “Listen, you know how many child molestations are being looked into in the Catholic church? I don’t f****n’ know, but I’m sayin’, just let ‘em do what they want! Let us all do what we want!” A girl walked out of the store during this rant, and gave him a disgusted look. He flipped her off and called her a cow.

Ray and I just looked at the floor, hoping he’d just vanish.

“You know these congressmen, exposing the sex freaks, are even worse. They want to f**k with their hoes and fetishes, but they want to regulate us even in porn. F**k that, topple the man! Smoke weed! Hydroponics!” his long winded rants released a wheezing sound in the middle of each thought, trying to catch up with his breath.

I wanted to egg him on, since I didn’t have s**t to do, and couldn’t give two squirts of piss for Ray’s attempts at saving my relationship.

“Do you believe in aliens?” I asked, pretending to give a s**t.

“F**k no! That’s just plain garbage. It’s the Scientologists, trying to make their cult have substance. Fashion is passion, and Jerry Garcia could’ve told you that,” said the guy, who pulled out a half-smoked cigarillo from his pocket, and lit it up.

He patted himself up and down, looked in his flower bag, and started murmuring to himself. I offered him my lighter and he gave me the most grateful and toothless smile I’ve ever seen in my twenty years of life. I felt good�"I’m the kind of guy that won’t give even a penny to a f****r asking to wash my windows as his four year old son asks if they will be able to eat that respective night, but I was nice enough to light up a hobo this particular day. I felt like I was important. I meant something. I made another human being’s day a little better than it would have been without me.

The security guard who was spat on briskly walked over to us, eyeing the colorful bum.

“I’ve warned you three times in the past two days. Get the f**k out of here!”

The bum took one puff of his cigarillo and cocked his head towards the guard, “You, my friend, can eat a fat dick. You are swine, and the emptiest vessel that God created.”

Ray and I laughed harder than I could remember.

The security guard lit up and reported to his radio that a disturbance needed tending to.

I stood up and threw my can at the guard. Ray did the same. The bum bit the stamen of a gardenia and growled.

All three of us ran across a street and a fourth of a mile. We reached a restaurants and bend over panting.

“You kids know the way”

“No, we just like to f**k with authority,” said Ray.

“I just like to assault people with can,” I said.

The bum gripped my right shoulder and whispered something into my ear. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t understand a word the b*****d said, but I shook my head. Tears poured from his eyes, and he fisted bumped his chest.

My feet were numb and I had a ringing in my ears. The excitement was trembling through my being. The bum held me in his arms, and it f*****g freaked me out, but it felt right. Ray laughed, and I flipped him off behind the bum’s back.

The RTA stop was only a few feet away, and the bum just walked over and sat.. I couldn’t stop staring, and the sorrow I felt for him was incredible. I hate feeling bad for people. I f*****g hate it. He sat there, tapping on his knees, and singing gibberish.

Ray laughed, but I didn’t.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Homeless people seem to gravitate towards me.

Reviews

[Paris Kim]

You give great descriptions, just enough but not overthrowing the other elements of the story like the dialogue. it's funny, straightforward and realistic. maybe a few grammatical errors overlooked, but you highlight the characters well, the flower hobo the kook, Ray easily-amused but caring, and the protagonist-- just there, indifferent. the ending is not much of an expected ending, but still wraps up the tale perfectly. good ideas :)