He shrugs. "I thought it was funny. And you should've seen all the guys checking out your ass when you were bent over that trash can."
"Great." I roll my eyes. "Just what I need." I adjust my backpack and continue down the busy street.
It's almost one and the office crowd is heading back to work after their lunch hour. Noon to one is the best time to scavenge for food. People buy too much and never have time to finish it. On most days, I fish out enough leftovers from the trash to cover lunch and dinner for both Gladys and me. Well, it's not always enough for me but it's enough for Gladys.
"You need to get yourself a boyfriend," Levi says, swinging his cane. "Some little rich boy who'll buy you pretty things."
"I don't want pretty things," I snap. "And if I did, I wouldn't sell my body to get them."
He shoves my shoulder, pushing me into the lady beside me. The lady's wearing a black suit and sunglasses, her blond hair freshly highlighted and smelling like flowers. She turns and gives me a disgusted look. She'll probably go sanitize her suit jacket now that it’s contaminated by the brief touch of my arm.
"Stop shoving me," I say to Levi in a hushed tone.
He holds his head up, making his long lean body seem even taller. "You deserved it."
I shake my head, having no clue what he's talking about.
He grabs my arm, stopping me. "You think you're better than me?"
"What?" I glance around at all the suits going by. They see our ratty clothes and dirty appearance and veer away from us, as far as they possibly can, then rejoin the crowd once they're past us.
"I do what I gotta do," Levi says. "And how do you know I don't got something going on with one of them boys?"
I sigh. "Levi, I really don't care what you do, but just because you do it doesn't mean it's right for me."
"You don't get what I'm saying. I'm not talking about a night. I'm talking about forever." He looks me up and down. "Pretty girl like you? You could get yourself a man. A man who'd take care of you. Get you out of here."
"I don't want to be taken care of," I say, trying to free my arm from his grasp. "Let go of me."
He releases his grip on my arm and his hand moves to my shoulder as he turns me toward the crowd. "Guy in the navy suit. The one with the red hipster glasses."
"What about him?"
"That's the kind of guy you need. That designer suit says he comes from money and the glasses say he's got a rebel side."
I turn back to Levi. "And by rebel you mean he'd date a homeless girl to piss off his parents."
"Exactly!" He smiles. "You're finally getting it."
"Not interested." I start walking, hoping Levi will go back to his begging corner and leave me alone. But he doesn't.
"So what?" he says. "You just want to live out here forever?"
"No. It's not going to be that much longer. I have a plan."
"Which is what?"
"None of your business."
"You don't have a plan," he says.
He's right. I don't, but I'm working on it. If I could just get some clean clothes and a haircut, I could maybe start looking for jobs. I've worked in restaurants before. There's got to be a restaurant that would hire me.
"Would you just leave me alone?" I say. "Why'd you show up and bother me today anyway?"
"I was checking out my new spot."
"You're seriously moving here?" I ask, sounding annoyed, although it wouldn't really affect me. I scavenge trash cans for food. I don't beg for money, so I really wouldn't be competing with Levi. I just don't like the guy and don't want him around. He's always picking on me, making fun of me. I avoid him whenever possible but if he's on my street, that'll be harder to do.
"I'm staying where I'm at," he says. "I don't like the energy on this street."
"Energy?" I look at him, confused. "The street doesn't have an energy."
"You don't feel nothing, girl, do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means someone did you wrong so bad you're too closed up to feel the energy around you. I bet you don't feel anything anymore."
I keep walking, ignoring him. What he's saying might be true but it's true for a lot of people living on the streets. We've all been hurt, and that hurt is usually what got us here.
"It was a guy, wasn't it?"
I stop and turn to Levi. "Seriously, what is your deal today? Why are you suddenly so interested in me?"
"I wasn't, until I saw your ass sticking out of that trash can." He laughs. "Girl, you'd really eat some nasty candy bar that'd been sticking to the bottom of the can? There's dog shit in there. You know that, right?"
I do, but I try not to think about it. Usually the dog poop is in a bag but sometimes it leaks out. Maybe that's what my hand touched earlier.
"Some of us don't have money to buy food," I remind him. "In fact, most of us don't."
"Only the people stupid enough not to beg." He looks around at all the suits passing by. "You know how much money these people make? They see us and feel guilty about all that money." He smiles. "And I'm here to relieve that guilt."
"I'm not asking for handouts," I say, my voice lowered. "I can take care of myself."
"By eating dog-shit-covered food from the trash." He laughs.
I sigh. "Would you please just leave me alone? I was having a halfway decent day until you showed up."
He smiles. "You know I'm your ray of sunshine. You only pretend not to like me because you know you can't have me."
I walk off, and this time he doesn't follow me.
"Raine!" he yells as I'm about to round the corner.
Reluctantly, I stop and turn around. "What?"
He takes something from his pocket and tosses it at me. Afraid of what it might be, I step back and let it land on the ground. I look down and see it's a candy bar. One that hasn't even been opened. And it's a big one, twice the size of a regular candy bar.
"What's this for?" I ask, picking it up. But when I look up, Levi is gone.
I don't understand that guy. He's almost always a jerk, but then he has these rare moments where he does something nice.
When I get back to the alley next to the coffee shop, Gladys is sitting on her lawn chair, sipping what I'm guessing is a cup of coffee. Zoe, one of the managers at the coffee shop, always gives Gladys free coffee. She only works at this location on Tuesdays, which makes Tuesday Gladys' favorite day of the week.
"Did Zoe bring you coffee?" I ask, sitting on the plastic crate next to Gladys. We only have one chair and I always let Gladys have it because she's old and should have the better chair.
"Pumpkin spice!" Gladys says, her tired brown eyes lighting up. "It's new for fall."
"Do you like it?"
"My goodness, it's heavenly." She takes a big sniff of it through the hole in the lid. Her wrinkled hands are wrapped tightly around the paper cup, making sure she doesn't drop it. Last summer, she dropped her coffee and cried for ten minutes straight. It was a day Zoe wasn't working so Gladys used the change she'd saved up to splurge on a cup of coffee. And then it slipped from her hands and spilled all over the ground.