———–

She crossed the street and walked in a straight line that terminated at my body. Her cream colored T-shirt was tucked into her black jeans and she shook her head as she saw me, but lacked any sort of smile or grin. Slowing the closer she got, eventually she reached me and stood right in front of me. Her hand slid out of her jeans back pocket where it had been resting and moved right between us, holding something. The knife blade flicked out of its handle with a slight metallic snap, blade pointing directly at my stomach.

“Just so we understand each other,” she said with no hint of humor at all. This was off to a great start.

This was, in the immortal words of someone back in the 60’s I’m sure, the most uncool vibe, dude. I refused to back off, no way was she going to intimidate me. I was too smooth for that, too on the ball and too cool. Alright, so I took a step backwards but it was only one step and it wasn’t even that big. More like a half-step really. She laughed when I did it, damn her, and closed the knife replacing it in her back pocket.

“Lighten up, Wit Boy, I just ain’t taking chances with you right now. Got the cash?”

“What is this, Hunt for Red October? I give you the cash you, won’t kill me and I can keep the microfiche and defect?” She sighed and shook her head when I said that, maybe she just wasn’t a Clancy fan. Hell, I’m not a Clancy fan, but when in Rome and all that.

“For the last fucking time, cut the crap, Wit Boy.”

“Will you stop calling me Wit Boy? My name is Thomas”

“It’s Wit Boy or Fuckface.”

“Wit Boy it is.”

“I thought so. The cash?” What was it with her?

“What is it with you?” I asked softly, hoping my sheer honesty would disarm her, figuratively if not literally.

“I just don’t have the time for this ok? Look,” she reached into her back pocket again and I braced for round two of West Side Story but all she did was pull out my ID, “here’s your card, ok?” It was my turn to shake my head as I reached out and snapped the ID out of her hand. I shoved it into my pocket and came back with the cash which I offered out to her. She took it slowly from me and smiled.

“That wasn’t so hard now was it?” She looked off into space for a second, “So where to now?”

“What? What do you mean where to now?”

“Dinner? A bar? Where are we going?”

“What the fuck are you on about, woman?”

“Oh, this was probably your last sixty wasn’t it? Alright, I’ll buy dinner.”

“You are completely bug-fuck aren’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

“You have so far, in the last few minutes only, pulled a knife on me, insulted me and threatened me. Now you want to buy me dinner?”

“Oh, well when you put it like that…”

“There are other ways to put it?”

“Well, maybe?” I was utterly baffled now. I mean what was she on? This woman was hardcore gone. Hard. Core. To think, I was still attracted to this loon. I had to be just as insane, but less MPD, to even be considering this shit. I suddenly felt the need to reexamine my priorities, even as I started to think of decent places to go for a drink with her. I needed to find a woman named Chartrine or something, anything but this. I had to just say no, cut my losses and run the fuck home so she couldn’t follow me. Hell she probably had my address memorized and would find me in the middle of the night and stab me 58 times in the face before washing in my blood and calling it a night. I had to just cut my losses here and tell her no, gently. Very gently, lest she go all stabbity on me again.

“Well, I’ve always been fond of Sidewalk. I can introduce you around to some of my friends.” Why had that come out of my mouth? She smiled at me and pocketed the cash. We went to Sidewalk.

At Sidewalk we found Carlos, who then explained my life story to her, much to my dismay, including his part in lending me the money. It was, though, an easy time. Relaxing and enjoyable, aside from the spine creep I had wondering when her personality would shift again. It did briefly, I think, during a round of pool. She scowled at me and started with the “Wit Boy” shit again, but it passed just as fast as it had come on. All of us hung out till about 3am. Carlos even called Ben and got him to join us near the end of the evening.

Around 3am we all split up and she wrote her number on my arm in ink, after a painful and aborted attempt with a mechanical pencil, and made me promise to call her soon. On the way home, Ben quizzed me about her and I explained the odd personality shifts but he brushed them off as ‘hormones’. No, sorry, that was all a show of pure psychosis if there ever was one. Still, there was something right about the whole thing to me. Maybe a relationship with someone as scattered and random as the City itself was would be good for me. I was in love with my City, it was my first true love and always would be. Then again maybe, like the City, it would incur casualties and calls to the Police. Life would bring me something utterly unexpected, that much I knew. It always did, in this town.

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Never Bite the Homeless is copyright Adam P. Knave.