The Prince and I - 5

My usual hangout, if you want to call it that, when I’m not on the Mall looking for handouts, was along Cherry Creek. It’s a nice place during the day with its paths for walkers and bike riders. Safe as aces as my dad used to say. Night is another story. Then the street people and the dealers descend. Lots of kids do meth or softer drugs when they can afford them. It takes them away from their troubles. I’m not one of those but I do crash there. There’s plenty of drainage pipes and other nooks and crannies where I’m pretty safe if I’m careful.

I used to do the rooftop thing but too many others found out they were relatively safe places to spend the night and I’m not big on sharing my space. The same with alley doorways and behind dumpsters. Besides the cops will hassle you, or the do-gooders, because they know about them. Not that they don’t know about the creek paths too, but it’s easier to find a good place along it to hide and catch a bit of sleep if I go far enough away from the downtown area.

So anyway, a few nights after my thing with Arthur I was along the creek by Sixth Avenue, having stopped as usual to check out the dumpsters behind the restaurants in an open-air food court nearby. It was late evening and most of the real people had vacated the path, leaving it to me and mine. I was sitting on a rock by the side of the creek, soaking my feet in the cool water and watching a couple of mallards looking for something to eat, when someone coughed behind me to let me know they were there.

I turned to see an old dude I sort of knew. He looked at the spot beside me and I nodded. After he dropped down on the ground next to me we started talking in the meaningless way you do with someone you see around only occasionally. Comparing notes on how things are going in the exciting—yeah I’m being sarcastic—world of trying to keep it together on the streets.

Then he popped out with, “Heard you come into some money,” looking at my new jacket laying over my backpack and then back at me.

I shrugged. “Maybe I fucking stole it.” I patted the jacket.

“Naw. Casey saw you in the thrift store, paying for it.”

“Okay, so yeah a guy gets lucky sometimes. Some old man caught me shoplifting…” I told him a bit of the story. “Anyway he gave me some cash and I figured I’d need a warmer fucking jacket.”

He nodded his head slowly, eyeing me. “What’s this kid look like? Maybe I seen him somewhere.”

I took out the pictures to show him. He studied them a long time before nodding. “Yeah, maybe I seen him, maybe I didn’t.”

Chuckling because he was being so obvious, I took a couple of wrinkled ones from my pocket. He eyed them before nodding. “Not gonna swear it was him but there’s a kid who hangs out kinda regular on Stout downtown.”

“By the Spot?”

“Eh, not there but a few blocks away.” He shrugged then got up, pocketing the ones when I gave them to him. A minute later he was ambling away, stopping to check a trashcan before heading up to the street.

I got up too, snagging my stuff, putting on my new jacket since it was getting colder, and started down the path towards Larimer.