3.

Alex was awoken the next day by a cop shining a light in his face in the predawn shadows. He checked Alex’s pupils then told him to stare cross-eyed at his finger as he brought it to the tip of Alex’s nose. Alex had tossed the pint of cheap tequila into the trash next to them once they’d finished it the night before. When the cop was satisfied that Alex wasn’t on any drugs he asked for his ID, which Alex gave him. He was so surprised that a bum should carry an ID at all that he just looked at the rectangular photo of blond Alex looking much less scruffy and obviously at that time housed, then handed it back without even running him for warrants. There was a plaintive tone to his voice after that--when he told Alex they’d better be off the mall by the time the shoppers would be coming--as if he’d just suddenly realized that there was a time when this bum had had a job and a home. Marty slept next to them through the whole thing, curled up on the green metal mesh of the bench.

Alex lay down and closed his eyes at the adjoining bench after the cop was gone, but could not fall back asleep. He was a little dizzy from last night’s drinking--he never experienced hangovers these days but sometimes he woke up still a little drunk--and his mind dwelt on the square look of that cop’s face, the thick hair of his cliché cop mustache. He somehow felt happy to have been checked for doing wrong and come up clean--as if he had something to be proud of in not carrying, doing, or being anything that was untoward in the eyes of the Law.

When Marty awoke the sun was up and passersby were filling the mall. Alex had seen panhandlers work this mall like mad, but by his own experience in two hours here you were lucky to get a dollar in quarters, and you got a lot of scorn in the meantime.

When they made their way back toward Broadway they saw a young man being treated by paramedics, with a bleeding gash in the back of his head and an injured leg. He’d been hit by a mall shuttle, something that happened often since this was a pedestrian mall and yet some idiot architect--or was it engineer?--whoever designs that shit had free mall shuttles speeding down the middle of the street a little in from the walkway. To look at the mall you’d assume there was no engine traffic at all, and there wasn’t except for those fucking mall shuttles that sped by every five minutes at 25 miles an hour, hitting someone at least once a month.

They stared at the accident scene as they walked by but didn’t stop.

“Have you ever been to a mental hospital?” Alex asked Marty. But Marty just said, “Hit by the shuttle,” and didn’t answer Alex’s question.

Sixteen years earlier Alex had been in a drug rehab which he’d been sent to by his parents after his drug tests showed pot one too many times. It was called St. Luke’s. He regarded this as a mental hospital and never really learned that it wasn’t--it was a drug program devoid of psychiatric medication and physical takedowns and leather restraints. There was a young man there perhaps fifteen years old whose mother had died when he was nine. This man had been to mental hospitals--which St. Luke’s wasn’t--but he always talked about his mother dying and how much it had hurt him. One day in group therapy someone asked how his mother had died, and he said, “She was hit by a bus;” and a little wave of restrained laughter spread over the room. Alex hadn’t laughed but he’d smiled a little and he didn’t really feel bad about it. There was something funny about getting hit by a bus but he really didn’t know what it was. This was why he thought of St. Luke’s just now, seeing that young man with the bandages being pressed into the back of his bleeding head.

They got to the Denver Rescue Mission just too late for breakfast. The line was long and all the oatmeal and eggs were gone by the time it was their turn. They got a little toast--no butter available to put on it--that was about all that was left when they reached the front.

They stood outside on the street corner and ate the black burnt triangles of toast without a word for five minutes.

Marty was feeling bad about 10,000 PSI again--Alex could tell--and didn’t complain about the fact that they’d missed breakfast, but said, “Fall is coming. Maybe next time we get some cash we should buy some knit caps.”

“Knit caps?” said Alex. “Why not gloves or scarves?”

“Knit caps,” repeated Marty. “The cheapest way to keep the warmest.”

“We should go to that thrift store on Colfax for retards.”

“The ARC?” said Marty. The ARC was a Catholic charity thrift store that benefited retarded folks in some way or another that really wasn’t clear to them.

“You can get knit caps and gloves and scarves there for chump change,” said Alex.

“We should wait till it actually gets cold I guess,” said Marty now. “No use lugging that stuff around through the warm month that’s left. What do you say we panhandle for some McDonalds?”

“You’re right,” said Alex. He yawned. The dreams he didn’t remember were still leaving off from his mind with heavy weariness.