The Gray Lady Meets The Blanket Man

If you're homeless, hungry, destitute, penniless; down to your last pebble, you simply cannot get away with flashing a fashionable sign for aid. A perfectly squared, white masonite design, architecturally sound lettering, florescent illumination, simply won’t do. The work might get some wags, but you're surely to go hungry again tonight.

Your message needs to be conveyed on something experienced like a rough piece of alleyway cardboard a cat peed on. Make that two cats. A cat and a dog. The sign needs to be roughly asymetrical in shape as if it was ripped from an empty sodden Valencia Orange box at three in the morning - picked up somewhere outside the Fruit and Vegetable Mart Annex in a driving rain.

And the message on the cardboard needs to be laid down in regrettable handwriting, with just the right collection of misspellings. Don’t follow a straight line, now. Use a small stub of a pencil if at all possible. Remember, you want sympathy, you want sadness, you want the money.

Well, we’ve all seen our share of these type of ‘message boards’. But, I’ve never seen one etched out of a institutional plastic food tray. You got to give the bum credit. Flip your tray up, there’s the pitch. Flip your tray down, load up with fixins. 

The chalky black man, surrounded in a deep brown and green blanket, ambled onto the Red Rapid this afternoon around quitting time. His weak and wasted body took it’s time taking the three bus steps. The bus driver was looking for a fare.  “I git at my pocket when I sits,” said the bum. 

The fare must’ve completely slipped Blanket Man’s mind after he sat down. The diplomatic bus driver said nothing and we moved on down Wilshire.

As Blanket Man settled into his seat, I noticed the aged white hospital bracelet wrapped around his right wrist. He rubbed his pulpy face over and over as if he was trying to rub it off. He ran his hands over his stale hair and scratched the nape of his neck. He looked around the bus.

Then I saw the sign.

Old sign. Very old. Brown tray, red writing. All the good stuff: misspellings, crossed-out words, red ink. Some words running straight, some crooked, some in downright unexplainable directions.

Then I saw the Gray Lady.

When was the last time you saw a decent looking, bus-sitting citizen pick up a conversation with a bonafide sign carrying bum? But, hey, there it was.

She was black, fiftyish; long straight silver hair. Dressed in a rust velour lounge-around pantsuit. Large gold ball lodged above her left nostril. Talking like this was one of her regular transit events.

Then she got the bus operator in on her caffe-klatch. Driver, Blanket Man, Gray Lady. And that tray.

She reached into her purse and pulled out some silver, stretched across the aisle, and deposited her charity onto Blanket Man’s tray. Another use. I think he muttered “that all y’ got?” Then “well, if that all y’ got, that all y’ got. God bless y’” And finally “where y’ goin’?”

She said “goin’ to meet a few friends.” That was it. That was all of it.

The Gray Lady was not prepared for the Western Wilshire Transit Plaza – sort of snuck up on her. She quickly gathered up her things and moved to the bus’s front door. The bum simply said “hope y’ don’t miss y’ tran.” She signified and left the bus.

Blanket Man was next off. The courtesy-rich bus driver made no mention of the missing fare. Wished the bum a good day. The boy slowly and stiffly wandered off onto a busy Wilshire Boulevard.

I quickly bounded down the stairs behind him, scratching for all of today’s change in my pockets. As I rounded on Blanket Man, he must’ve sensed my philanthropy because he raised that tray to chest level and I spread my change out on it’s brown chipped real estate.

“Gd bless y’ f’ y’ kinness. Gd bless y’”

He angled the tray so that the coins slid into his palm, pocketing them. He tightened the dirty wool blanket around his body, tucked the tray under an arm, then disappeared into the crowd.