The Homeless Man

I was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard coming back from the gym like I always do when I pass by this raggedly old man in a raincoat lying on the sidewalk against a bike rack. "Spare any change brother" he says to me and I normally walk on by but I notice on his dirt black hand he has the letters "D O N E" tattooed on each of his fingers.

So I says to him "where you from?" and he says through his spit sorta like Daffy Duck, "Olympia Washington can you help out some God bless".

By now I'm standing there facing him, he smells like rotten pee. I tell him "do you know who I am" and now he looks straight into my eyes and I know he knows. I know he knows but he says nothing. I says "I am your son, dad" and he stares back at me with those empty fucking eyes of his like he used to when I was eight.

Those white eyes stare back, he says "I don't have a son" and I wanna say bullshit you do but standing there he makes me feel eight again so I don't say shit. I just stand there and he puts out his hand now saying "come on man, help me out" and so I pull out some bills and put it in his hand. I hold his hand for a moment too long I guess because he pulls away like an ungrateful bastard. I go to hug him and he starts to run from me.

He starts yelling, "get away from me" and I follow him down the street. He runs pretty fast for a homeless guy down one of those tree lined streets and its real dark but I can hear him scream over and over "get away from me you sick fuck". Suddenly I hear the sirens and the blue and red lights out of the back of my eye.

"What seems to be the problem" the officer asks as he gets out of his car.

"This sick fuck is following me. I think he was trying to rob me" my dad says.

So I go up to the officer thinking that he'd believe me because who's going to believe my dad who looks like a homeless guy. But the officer says "don't move" before I can even take two steps toward him.

Officer asks for my identification and so I give it to him.

"What's your name?" he asks my dad.

"Keith Schlein" he says.

"Is that the only name you've gone by" says the officer.

"All my life, officer" he says.

I don't know what to believe now because I coulda swore that that was dad. The tattoo. The eyes. From Florida. The Daffy Duck spit.

"The both of you just stay outta trouble will ya?" the officer says as he pulls out right away not wanting to waste time. As I walk back up towards Santa Monica Boulevard embarrassed and defeated, I hear Keith yelling "what's your father's name?"

I turn back not sure whether to answer or not but he waddles up to me with that shit eating grin so I kinda mumble "Nathan Krashinsky" and then he waddles up to me and says "good luck with finding him son" as he shakes my hand.

For that moment, I think I made his day.