Tale Of The Aggressive Panhandler by Hobo Jim

TALE OF THE AGGRESSIVE PANHANDLER:by Hobo Jim Some bums push too hard for handouts. They know it. They’re curious partly, about what might happen if they cross the line. Usually what happens is they get beat up by the police, but not always. There was this one guy, Barry, who looked like he’d walked out of the Dark Ages, pale stained rags, crazy greasy black hair, that lost face, hilarity. Somehow he survived, but he was the opposite of me. He would chase grown men down the street with a plastic cup. He catcalled after women, pushed around street kids who loved to fight back. He had a strange vitality, was always on the move, and though I don’t think he ever ranged outside of Ontario, which is a fucked up suburb of LA, it seemed like he was never in the same place twice. I once saw him collecting broken glass—a shattered car window—on the shoulder of I-210. This was two-hundred feet off the ground, on one of those high-rise swerving on ramps. Still the cops never got him. I worked some of the same streets. I had a guitar with four strings and I played, and I made five, ten dollars a day. But what people really appreciated was me warning them that Barry was around. If I knew he was, I’d tell people. A lot of them didn’t listen or care, but the ones who knew did. Barry was freaky. Though I don’t think he ever hurt anyone, it always seemed like he was on the verge. Watching Barry pace the sidewalk was like watching mean thought in action. When would it occur to him, anyone might wonder, that if he picked up that two-by-four, he could beat the wallet out of the man who was cursing him? I’d thought of it. Barry would too, eventually. One woman who worked telemarketing, I think, passed by 8th and Valencia every day, same time. I guess she didn’t drive. Or maybe she parked and rode. She had big legs—I mean fat—but otherwise she was small on top and LA sexy. Sunglasses, styled hair. She tipped me a dollar everyday, and I’d give her the Barry update. She’d also ask about the crack heads and gang bangers. I’d weave it into the verse of a song. She even knew my name. So one day she came by, gave me the dollar—four quarters that day, plus a few cents extra—and I said Barry wasn’t around. Tra la la. She laughed, said great, what a relief. I said have a great day, and God bless. She was wearing a gray skirt and pumps. I did like to watch her walk. I think I’d already made my lunch money, I was getting up to go to the roach coach for tacos, when whoosh, there goes Barry, about a half block behind her and closing, cup thrust out. He looked like he’d locked in. If it was just some shmoe he was after, I don’t think I’d care. Everyone gets a piece of Barry. But I’d given her the all-clear, and she was sort of my reason for living at that time. At least I remember looking forward to 7:40 am every day, and she was always there. She didn’t cut around to avoid me. Not once. So I felt obligated. But I didn’t know what to do. Mexican housewives with laundry were parting out of his wake on the sidewalk. I remember he walked right through the overhang of a willow, getting raked by all those tiny leaves. I doubt he even closed his eyes. On the other side of the tree, I could see her, twenty feet away. She looked worried. She knew Barry was there. I got his attention. Hey Barry, how about a buck? Are you a bum or what? I shared a glance with her, as Barry paused and swiveled on his tattered shoes. I think she knew. I nodded to her, and she hurried away. I was prepared to deck him with the guitar. In Ontario, that would’ve been just any old day. Two bums hammering it out on the sidewalk. It was hot already, must’ve been June. You got a dollar for me, Jim? His was the true shit eating grin. I think what he meant by you got a dollar for me is that to him, there was not a dollar on earth you could give him that would be worth anything if he didn’t want to take it. Barry got his rocks off on scaring people out of change. He didn’t like to be approached like that. I never do violent things, but I knew it was the moment. Barry was going to strangle me, probably. Maybe he knew that I’d exploited him. He must’ve been annoyed that I was such a brownnoser. So I went ahead and smashed the guitar over his head. What a cheap piece of junk that was; it flew apart like a movie prop. Barry was twisting my arm behind my back, he could’ve broken it, in fact he probably meant to, but a Mexican lady ran him off with her garden hose. Agua ciudad. I think the Spanish scared him. She had a look of disdain for me as well, though she didn’t spray me. I was simply the loser of the fight, no less a bum. I felt bad about leaving a mess, but I did, pausing only to pick up the coins which had fallen out of my pockets. After that, the woman left me. She cut the block three days in a row, and I knew she wasn’t coming back. I guess she must’ve thought that I had worked something out with Barry; it was a double cross, or whatever. What I realized is that I entirely misinterpreted what passed between us, on the sidewalk by the willow, when we shared that glance. She must have seen grand betrayal, might have even been scared to death. I don’t know. But it’s like whatever scrap of goodness went out of me then just scattered into the void. It was like a law of physics failed. But that wasn’t all I saw of Barry. He’d gotten a hold of a shopping cart, and was pushing that around, though he kept nothing in it. He was able to move fast, and I saw him more than once drive people off the sidewalk with it. He got me when I was at the taco truck. How I missed the sound of those wheels rattling on the concrete I don’t know. But I was just getting the hot Styrofoam box in my hands, and kaboom. I was splattered. You want to know what your problem is Barry? I was in that lucid state of having been unjustly clobbered. Then I remembered I deserved it. I didn’t have a response, and neither did he. Barry either had no problem, or had them all. I don’t know. Barry was banging that plastic cup on the chrome counter. The grill guy resorted to the squeeze bottle of hot sauce. Barry was blinded, but before he stalked off he slammed his fist against the side of the truck, bending a sideview mirror backwards. I scooped up my lunch off the concrete and left town.

The Tale of the Whore and the Pimp Trucker by Hobo Jim

THE TALE OF THE WHORE AND THE PIMP TRUCKER If you go hoboing long enough, you’ll wind up at a truck stop sooner or later, or hitch a ride in some old guy’s Peterbilt. I was hiking the highway near here, actually, up near the Weed airport, heading north when it started snowing like it is now, and I caught an old guy putting on chains at the foot of a pass. Nine times out of ten a trucker will just blow you off; time is money to them so they’ve always got a reason not to pay you any mind. But this guy offered to give me a ride if I wanted; he’d drop me off at the Petro in Medford if that’s what I wanted. I didn’t have any plans for once I got there of course, but just getting up into that heated cab for a few hours sounded good. I helped him put on the drag chains, then we got going. The truck driver talked while he drove, and I soon realized that that was the only reason why I was getting a lift: I was an available ear. That was fine with me. I can listen with the best of them. He said he had a friend who bummed around. It’s true that to some extent it’s all lifestyle choices. You can be a truck driver and still bum around. Homelessness is in the heart, or lack thereof. You can have a roof over your head and be a mean son of a bitch with no loyalty or compassion or anything. Not that every hobo is a saint, mind you. Well, we got up into Medford—it took about four and half hours—and when we hit the fuel lanes at the Petro the guy gave me ten bucks and I thanked him and went my way, thinking I’d head into town and find a bridge. It was cold but dry. I decided to get some coffee at the truck stop store. Some Wendy’s sounded good too. Up at the convenience store there was a woman—God, she couldn’t have been much older than the both of you—and she was in a miniskirt and all that, and rough looking, tattoos, and her mouth looking like mine but I’m forty five. This was a kid and it was clear she was a pro, but it was odd that she was just standing by the entrance like that, and not working the trucks. My guess was that something had happened between her and her guy; he must have dumped her there, and she was anxious about finding a new hookup. There’s not much a bum can do for a whore. We looked at each other out there in the cold and I guess we saw eye to eye on the fact that we were both pretty much objectively despicable, in different ways. We sort of met on that level. I told her I had ten bucks, if she wanted to eat. She didn’t say yes or no, but she did follow me in. While we sat and ate burgers and drank coffee, she confirmed what I had thought. Some people just amaze me with their capacity to exploit others. I know truck driving isn’t a swell job—it doesn’t pay as much as everyone thinks—but what would lead a man to use a person like her I don’t know. I guess that sounds judgmental. She said there had been two of them, living and working out of the same truck. They made a lot of money walking the rows of trucks, sometimes thousands of dollars, though much of it went to him. She didn’t say exactly what had crossed them up, but you never know in those situations, who had screwed who. Anyway, she was on her own now, and a little worried about finding her way back into a livable relationship. I didn’t have to say that I couldn’t help her there. She said she had some speed, if I wanted to do some. I guess I felt bad for her. We snorted it out back of the truck stop, and we sat under a light and watched the trucks come in while she got motivated. She knew she’d have to hustle her way into another rig, but I don’t think she was looking forward to it. One thing I could do was set her at ease about men. Getting ripped off by the last guy was still fresh in her mind, so just chatting for a little while would be encouraging. And like I said, that one time out of ten… I said maybe she’d find some old trucker who just liked to pay money to hear girls talk. She found this fantasy scenario amusing. I had my sleeping bag out and we sat in it and huddled. She named off all the different company trucks she’d been in. So she and I are just sitting there under that light, it being maybe thirty degrees that night, when around the corner here comes that pimp trucker of hers, tall Texan looking guy in tight jeans and boots. He says what the fuck, where you been, you were supposed to wait inside like I told you, bitch. Then he gave her a quick ultimatum, she could ride or walk, but he sure as hell was just about finished being kind to her. Well she’s up and out of there. She gave me a half wave as they rounded the corner, and that I figured would be the last I’d see of her. It wasn’t a rosy situation, but at least in a way she’d been taken care of. I sat against that brick wall for a while, sleeping bag around my shoulders. I had that song they’d been playing inside in my head. I think it was Swinging Doors by Merle Haggard. The only reason I recognized their truck was because she’d named it when she’d been counting them off before. It was a fancy chromed up piece of work, a shiny baby blue Western. An artistic statement about trucking itself. It would’ve been a challenge to find a single scratch anywhere on it. They were headed north—I saw them pull up onto the ramp—and then the truck stopped for a minute, flashers running. Maybe he was just filling in his logbook. Then they went on their way. I went inside to use the toilet. At this truck stop they had wooden doors and narrow tile stalls. On the back of the john was a few page spread of hardcore smut, something I guess that was just used once and left. I looked at it while I sat in there, my pack against the door. There was something about the expression of the centerfold that was fascinating, the way she leered right at the camera. It was incredibly baffling. The fact that she was so fully exposed made her inscrutable. I couldn’t make up my mind about it, so I kept the pictures. I thought maybe it would make sense later. By the time I was outside again, there was a highway patrol up on that ramp, lights going, and the ambulance was just pulling in. The shoulders dropped off pretty steep, and I guess she was down there. I looked around inside the store, but it didn’t seem like anyone noticed. Most of the trucks were shut down and idling, guys sleeping or watching movies. Probably there was some talk about it on the CB. I guess maybe it was wrong never to have said anything. I don’t know if someone at that truck stop ever came forward about that driver. But I remember at the time feeling like it wouldn’t have mattered. Probably it was something much more banal than murder. He probably just threw her out again, and she’d fallen down that bank on accident. When he left he’d probably thought she’d be fine, the truck stop being right there.