The Streets

“Get out of my tent, Hotch,” I say while looking into my tent where he’s lying in my sleeping bag.

“Come on. I’m freezing. We can warm each other up.”

I roll my eyes. “You have your own tent. Now leave. I’m tired.”

“But-.”

I pull a knife out of my boot and point it at him. “I swear to God, I will cut you.” He chuckles, gets out of my sleeping bag, and raises his hands in surrender.

“Alright, alright. You’re no fun.” He smiles before he leaves, making me roll my eyes again. Hotch is actually my best friend. I’m pretty sure he has a thing for me, but in no way am I hooking up with him. I don’t want to jeopardize our friendship. Plus, he’s simply not my type.

I crawl into my tent and zip it closed. Then I take off my boots and get into my sleeping bag before I zip it up. Not long after, I hear rustling outside, so I quickly take my knife and point it at the opening.

“Who’s there?” I ask. “It’s just me,” my friend, Jasmine, says.” I sigh because I’m so tired. This day has been a rough one, so I just want to sleep.

Getting out of my sleeping bag, I unzip the tent. “What’s up?” Jasmine is standing just outside, fidgeting with her fingers. “I was just wondering if... Do you have any food? I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

I sigh again, take the last can of food I have, and hand it to her. Her face lights up, and she takes the can before looking at me gratefully. “Thank you so much. I promise I’ll get you a new one when I can.”

I give her a tired smile and say, “it’s okay, Jasmine. Go get something to eat.” She returns my smile. “I will. Thank you again.”

I watch her walk over to one of the old oil drums with a small fire in it where a guy opens the can for her and puts it on a grate over the flames. Then I zip my tent closed again, crawl back into my sleeping bag, and get comfortable.

I live under a bridge with about fifty other people. It depends on what season of the year it is. A lot moves on in the summer, but they usually come back when it’s winter. I, on the other hand, stay here. I like it and I know everybody who lives here. I feel safe. Well, as safe as I can get.

I’m twenty-six years old now, but I got homeless when I was twenty-one. I lost my job and couldn’t find another one, so I had to move out of my apartment to go live on the streets and, trust me, no one hires a homeless person. Well, they don’t hire me.

I stopped looking for a job a long time ago and have grown accustomed to living on the streets. Yes, I can be dangerous, but I manage.

Well, I usually manage. I used to live in an old van, but that was taken from me by two other homeless people with guns. I sure as shit wasn’t going to hold on to that van and risk my life, so I got a tent from a homeless shelter and settled down under the bridge.

You might think that I can go live in a homeless shelter, but they’re all full. They do offer a free shower, though, and a place to do our laundry, so that’s good. They also offer us an old phone, but I have no one to call, so why should I get one?

When I got homeless, my parents didn’t want to have anything to do with me, and my friends slowly drifted away. I guess they were too ashamed of me, but now I have new friends who, honestly. are much better than my old ones. Most of us do what we can to help each other and share what we have. That’s why I gave my last can of food to Jasmine. I know she’ll pay me back or help me in another way at some point.

I sigh. That means I have to beg for money or food tomorrow. That’s not fun but it has to be done because it’s going to be a while before the food truck gets here. I could also go pick-pocketing but that’s only if I get desperate.

The food truck comes by once a month with food and water for us. Most of it is canned goods because we don’t exactly have a fridge here. We also have a doctor who comes by once a week. He’s a sweet, older man who comes by in his spare time to help us if he can.

I rub my hands and feet together to get warmer and fall asleep, dreaming of a big, juicy steak.

~~~~

I’m sitting in my corner of the park with my cardboard sign and my old baseball cap, begging people who are walking by for money. Most of them scrunches their faces like I’m some kind of bad smell when they walk by but, luckily, some give a small amount of money.

There isn’t even enough for me to buy something to eat yet, so I might as well stay here for the rest of the day and see if I get lucky.

Just then, I hear a large crowd of people cheering across the street, so I stretch my neck to see if I can see what’s going on. I can’t see a damn thing, though.

My curiosity gets the better of me, so I take the money out of my baseball cap, put it in my pocket, and stuff the cap in my backpack before I get up and head towards the large crowd. When I get there, I stand up on my toes to see what’s going on. A well-dressed man is standing on a small podium, talking into a microphone, saying that they’re opening a new youth center.

I take the money I have out of my pocket and count them. There still isn’t enough for me to buy food, which makes me sigh. I guess I have to pick some pockets today and this crowd is perfect for that but I don’t like doing it.

Still, I work my way through the crowd, but no one here looks like they have a lot of money. Then I get an idea. I look at the guy on the podium and slightly narrow my eyes. If I could get close enough to him, I might have a chance to score some money.

I wait until he’s finished speaking and watch which way he goes. Lucky for me, he walks through the crowd while shaking hands here and there, so when I see my moment, I bump into him and deftly fish his wallet out of his pocket.

“Excuse me,” I say before I walk away like everything is normal. After a moment, I look over my shoulder to see if he suspects something but, luckily, he hasn’t, so when I’m around the corner, I run into a back alley. I open the wallet and look for cash and when I see them, my eyes widen. Jesus, this guy has a lot of them.

I count them and there are over three hundred dollars in there. That can buy me and my friends canned food for a while. I look around and quickly put some money in my pocket and the rest in my boot. Then I go out on the street and over to a café that sells a sandwich I’ve always wanted to try.

When I get inside, I go up to the counter and say, “hey, I found this wallet just outside.” I give it to the young guy behind the counter and smile. He smiles back at me and says, “okay. I’ll see if I can contact the owner.”

“Thank you. Now, I’d like a BLT sandwich.” He smiles again. “Coming right up.” Moments later, he comes back with it and I pay him with the money I just stole. I feel guilty but at least I gave the well-dressed guy’s wallet to someone who can contact him and give it back to him.

The moment I get outside, I rip the wrapper off the sandwich, take a big bite of it, and moan. Damn it’s good and my stomach definitely agrees with me.

I go back to the park and sit down on a bench to eat and, just then, Hotch sits down next to me. “Hey, Angel.”

“Hi, Hotch. Have you eaten today?”

He shakes his head, so I split the rest of the sandwich in two and give the other half to him. He raises his eyebrows but quickly takes it and chomps it down. “Damn. You did good today. This sandwich is really good.”

“Right?”

He takes the last bite and licks his fingers. “Yeah. How much did you get today?” I shrug. “There was a big-shot just across the street. I stole his wallet and there were three hundred bucks in it.” His eyes widen again. “Seriously?”

“Mm hm. So, we have to go shopping for food.”

He quickly nods and says, “definitely. I’ll gather some of the others so we can carry it all.” I take the last bite of my sandwich and pat my stomach. “Cool. Let’s meet at the grocery store in what, two hours?”

“Deal.” He gets off the bench and waves goodbye.

The next two hours, I watch all the people walking by. I wonder what they eat for breakfast and for dinner. What their homes look like. If they have families.

Of course, I get jealous. What I wouldn’t give for a steady supply of food and a nice bed to sleep in and having my own shower. But there’s nothing I can do about it, so I shake it off and head towards the grocery store where the others are already waiting for me.

We go inside and take some carts because we’re going to buy a lot of canned food.

Then one of the girls calls a guy she knows has a car and asks him to come help us get our food back under our bridge.

I decide to buy a deodorant for myself. I haven’t had one of those for weeks now. The things that can’t be in the car, we stuff into all of our backpacks and start the long walk home.

When we get there, all the people gather around us with big smiles on their faces, and we divide the food between us.

That night there’s a food party. Everybody, except me, warms a can over the fires and starts to eat. Looking at all of them, I smile. It’s good to see that everybody gets something to eat tonight.

Hotch comes over and sits down on the flat cardboard box I’m sitting on. “We have enough food for the next week, Angel. All thanks to you.” I shrug as I say, “I’m just lucky I got away with it. It could’ve gone the other way.” He slowly nods. “Yeah, but I’m glad it didn’t. It would suck if you went to jail.”

Sighing, I say, “that’s one of the reasons why I hate to pick pockets. The risk is too high.” He nudges my shoulder with his. “Sometimes we don’t have a choice.” I sigh again. “I know.”

We sit for a while, just watching the others. Since Hotch and I had half a sandwich today, we’re both full. Maybe not all that full but we’re not that hungry, so we just sit and watch the others.

Then Hotch looks at me with a smirk. “It’s cold tonight.” I quirk a brow, “So?”

“So, maybe we should keep each other warm tonight.”

I roll my eyes. “Not this again. You know that it’s never going to happen.” He nudges my shoulder with his own again. “You can’t blame a man for trying.”

Jasmine comes over with a flat cardboard box in one hand and some kind of canned meat in the other. She puts the cardboard box on the ground and sits down before she asks, “who was your mark today?” I shrug. “Some well-dressed guy that held a speech about the new youth center.”

“Cool. Great job. Now we’re guaranteed food for a while.”

“Yeah. And we have money for more. We couldn’t carry more today but the food truck comes next week, so we have plenty of food for now.”

She smiles from ear to ear. “That’s so great. Then we don’t have to go to bed hungry.” I smile a little. “No, we don’t. How did the two of you do yesterday?” I ask. “Not too bad,” Hotch says. “I got about fifty bucks.”

Jasmine looks down. “I only got about five.” I give her a soft smile. “That’s better than nothing. If you want to, we can switch places in the park tomorrow and see if that helps?”

She lifts her head to look at me. “Yeah?”

“Of course.”

She gives me a small, grateful smile. “Thanks, Angel.” I give her another soft smile. “No problem.”

We all sit in comfortable silence just watching our friends until it gets colder, and people start to get into their tents, preparing for the snowstorm that’s coming tonight.

Hotch looks at me with a serious look as he asks, “are you sure we shouldn’t bunk together tonight? The three of us can sleep in my tent. I’ll sleep on the other side of Jasmine.” She smiles and nods.

It isn’t a big deal for Jasmine because her and Hotch are like brother and sister, and I actually think that sharing a tent tonight would be a good idea because it’s starting to get really cold. As long as I don’t have to sleep alone with Hotch.

“Okay. Let me get my sleeping bag,” I say. We all get up, get our stuff, and meet up at Hotch’s tent.

There’s no way that the three of us can bunk in my tent because it only fits one person but his tent fits two and if we lie really close, it should be manageable.

We all gather at his tent, crawl inside, and get as comfortable as we can get in our sleeping bags.