Cedar

I am a fraud. We are all frauds on this street corner, standing out in the late October wind holding cardboard signs that advertise good Christian girls and clean-and-sober men who don’t exist. This is how we spend our Sundays: sluggish, hungover, feigning a weary optimism as we vie to con the church hypocrites into opening their hearts and their wallets. We have a system. Rand stays watch on the curb while I run the lights, calling out police cars as he sees them and cleaning up the traffic that I miss. This goes on every Sunday at eleven until the sun dips low in the sky and the traffic becomes irritated and unwilling to heed our pleas of “homeless and hungry” and “please help, God bless.”

At least we know that we’re frauds. Or at least I do. I can’t speak for Rand, who swears up and down that he won’t take his hundred and thirty-something dollars at the end of the night and smoke his pupils into oblivion. That he won’t get blackout, shitfaced drunk and wake up tomorrow just before noon with a little goth girl on one arm and a red-haired army brat on the other. Bitching about a hangover, in typical Rand fashion, while smoothing the wrinkles from a crumpled sheet of burnt aluminum foil and all but gnawing on the pink plastic straw between his teeth. We’ve done this routine dozens of times before. It always ends the same.

“Let me run a few lights,” Rand says as I limp back up the sidewalk with a ten dollar bill and some loose change weighing down my wallet. “I need to get something to eat.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine, you’ve got me.” He shrugs and brushes the bleach-blonde fringe from his eyes. “I need a hit. Sue me.”

We clasp hands, and Rand takes my place in the bike lane. He glances up and down the street for cops as the light changes to yellow, then reaches into his back pocket and produces a small cardboard sign. A practiced frown overtakes his features. He lowers his chin just so, sticks out his rosy bottom lip, looks up hopefully, and steps into the street.

Rand must know that he’s a fraud.

At least he’s a likeable fraud—not like the tired old alcoholics down the road who scream obscenities at passersby between sips of lukewarm piss beer. Rand smiles at strangers, when he’s not too tweaked out of his mind to fake cordial. Rand gives his spare change and unwanted food to the other grimy homeless of London. As far as frauds go, Rand is alright.

The light turns green. Slowly, the cars start moving.

“Fifteen bucks and a gift card,” Rand says, grinning, as he makes his way back. He slips the bills beneath his beige binder straps and holds a Wal-Mart gift card out in silent offering.

I guess I could always use a new pair of pants.

“Two more.” He holds up two fingers. “Just let me get to twenty.”

“Yeah.” I pocket the card for later. “You have an extra cigarette?”

“I have a cigarette,” Rand says. He produces a pack of menthol Marlboros from his sweatshirt pocket, flips it open, and hands me one. “There’s no such thing as extra.”

“Right. Whatever.”

The light turns red again. Rand holds his sign at the ready and wills his good-natured smile away.

“Watch my back for me,” he says, as though it doesn’t already go without saying.

“Of course.”

I hope he gets his twenty dollars. Even more than that, I hope he has an uncharacteristic change of heart and spends his money on food or clothes or maybe a hotel room. Something productive. Something that won’t course through his veins like poison and strain his already overworked heart. I hope that Rand makes it out of here one day, even if the voice in the back of my head tells me that my hopes are just that: the wishful thinking of a jaded idiot with one too many dead homies in his cigarette pack.

Not that I have a pack of cigarettes to begin with.

I need to make some money.

I take the cig that Rand gave me and put it to my lips. Flick the spark wheel of my weathered blue lighter a few times until a little butane flame springs to life and laps hungrily at the paper and tobacco. A few cars down the light, a gaudy black sports car rolls down its passenger side window for Rand. A pale hand and a flash of purple dart out of the shadows as he approaches. That makes twenty-five, although knowing Rand, he’ll take the next light that I’d promised him anyway. I envy his short stature and soft, round visage; even with the two years he has on me, his childlike appearance secures him more cash than I could ever hope to make with my bloodshot eyes and mud-stained cheeks. Who could say no to a brown-eyed young boy begging for the funds to buy dinner?

Rand always says that he’s twenty-one going on twelve. It’s not hard to see why.

Another car rolls down their window and passes him a clear plastic cup of change. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of black and white.

“Cop!” I call. Rand looks up, grimaces, and darts out of the street.

“Still a good light,” he says. “I think that Toyota was about to give me something though.”

“Don’t get too greedy.”

“I know, I know.” He pouts and takes the cigarettes back out. “I just need a little more money.”

“You said that last light,” I point out. “Go get your fix. The cars will still be here when you get back.”

He looks like he wants to argue. He pulls a cigarette out with his teeth and flips the collar of his denim vest up against the wind. For a moment, his carefree façade falters. His shoulders slump forward in defeat. He is tired and broken and fiending for the chemical stench of methamphetamine. He takes a long, slow drag and exhales shakily.

“Maybe,” he says doubtfully.

“There’s no maybe about it.”

“I don’t wanna bother Shortstop over twenty bucks,” he says. Another drag. Another shuddering breath. He glances nervously at the police car stopped a few meters away.

“Just go,” I say. “I’m taking the next light anyway; you got your twenty.”

Something that looks like relief passes over Rand’s face. Slowly, he nods. His hands tremble as he stoops to pick his backpack up off the sidewalk. Rand wouldn’t make it much longer anyway, between the bitter cold and the meth withdrawal. At least this way, he won’t embarrass himself in front of Shortstop with his shaking and stuttering and tearing up in sheer desperation. At least this way, he’s in decent enough shape to ride his bike.

“I’ll see you later?” he asks. “At Joe Kool’s?”

“I’ll see you later,” I agree.

The trembling subsides as he mounts his bright green bicycle and kicks the stand out of the way. He keeps the cigarette between his lips all the while, talking and breathing around it like a true addict. His eyelids droop wearily. It takes him a minute to find his balance; when he does, he rides a few circles around the crosswalk light before nodding in satisfaction.

“Alright,” he says, turning to ride away. “Stay safe.”

“You too,” I call after him. I know that he won’t stay safe, and I’m sure he knows that I won’t, either.

There’s no such thing as safe out here.