It was late day. The sun was looming down upon the horizon as two men exited the tall building on Broadway St. Each carried a bag on their backs, one with loose flying pamphlets escaping from his satchel bag while the other held a mostly empty backpack with a tightly twisted close bottle on its side. Laughter erupted in the air as each one pushed the other, jesting about some sort of activity that happened prior in the brick building that was now being painted in hues of reds and orange. A gust of wind blew by the men, signalling the ending of something, and the beginning of another. It could have been the day, or it could have been the start of fall. A lone figure slumped on one of the decorative street trees, hidden in the shadows of the sun, alone. The man with the satchel stopped his jesting and slowed his pace.
“Do you see that?”
“Do I see what haha.”
“Over there under the smoking tree.”
“Probably just some bloke smoking ‘er pipe or something.”
“She’s shivering...”
“She’s got a jacket.”
“She needs help...”
“She looks fine.”
“Have a heart!”
“I ‘ave lines to learn. No time for the poor.”
“Shuddap.”
“No, you shut up.”
“She needs help!”
“Leave the girl alone!”
The figure slumped down to the floor. Her hair falling up against gravity. Her face hidden in the darkness of the sun. Her jacket old, worn out, too big, covered with numerous holes. Her shoes cleaned and pristine, not a scratch on them, to go along with her perfectly clean white tights. There was no can near her feet. Nor was there a dirty smell about her, but here she was. Alone, sitting under the smoking tree and no one to be found. The man with the satchel walked over to her and sat down next to her, crossing his legs.
“‘Scuse me miss?”
No answer.
“Are you okay?”
Silence.
“Leave the girl alone.” Ordered the other man.
“Do you need help? I have food and water underneath my papers,... would you like some?”
“God dammit you never listen...”
“If you listened for once maybe you would have more people that liked you.”
“God, It’s getting dark, this street gets bad at night.”
“That’s why we need to help her...”
The man with the satchel scootched closer to the girl and extended his hand gently to brush away the locks of hair hiding her face. They were wet. Her face was streaming with tears and her large blue eyes were wide open and taking over most of her face. She was shaking uncontrollably and quiet whimpers escaped her mouth. The girl immediately pushed herself closer to the tree, hiding her face back into darkness. She slapped the man with the satchel’s hand to the ground before she extended her scraped hands with perfect nails to further cover her face.
“See, she doesn’t want help.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 22.” the other man replied sarcastically.
“Not you the girl… Where are your parents? What school do you go to?... Do you even go to school? We can bring you home.”
“She isn’t going to listen to you for godsakes!”
“Please, just hear me out, good ole Broadway Street turns dark at night. It isn’t a place to stay, especially for you,”
“Let ‘er stay, maybe she’ll become a strumpet.”
“We can bring you into the Broadway theater if you need a place to sleep, I’m sure no one would mind if you slept in our bed- it’s just a prop.”
“Dammit, Broadway isn't a charity, it only takes the best, not street rats!”
“Please, I’m here to help.”
The girl looked out from behind her hand, her jacket falling down her arm to reveal cuts and bruises. Her jacket having little droplets of blood coating the rims of the sleeves and near the buttons. She extended her hand and pointed down the street towards a sign that had fallen off of its stand, it was rusty and bent as it gleamed in the bask of red filling Broadway street. Stop. It read.
“She wants you to leave.” The other man said as he began to walk towards the sunset.
The girl moved her hand, and gestured a vulgar hand signal down the street before she shoved her hand down the collar of her jacket to retrieve a crumpled up piece of paper. She carefully unfolded it, making sure none of the edges were to rip, and handed it to the man with the satchel, her hands shaking. On it was a flier with a dulled picture showing the theater located on 106 Broadway Street where they were right now. Below it was a picture of the man with the satchel as a young boy performing in the Sound of Music with a few other cast members from long ago. There was a gentleman next to the man with the satchel in the picture who was circled cleanly in black ink. He was young, smiling, happy,... there was a twinkle in his eye. The man with the satchel looked at the girl again, her wide blue eyes matching the gentleman’s. There was a twinkle in her eye hidden under the tears and smeared makeup. She pulled out another paper from underneath her, this one with fresh black and white ink with mostly writing on it. The girl hastily handed it to the man with the satchel, a small rip ruining the perfection of the paper. He looked down at the paper and the picture of a dull eyed man, aged in more years than he could count. After a brief pause he looked up at the girl and hugged her under the smoking tree on Broadway Street.
No comments:
Post a Comment