Sounds funny, considering what I look like now. I will admit that I am a scary looking bastard. But I wasn’t always. And in a town where everybody is balls deep in everyone else’s shit two seconds after it happens, if you’re a nerdy looking kid who’d rather hang out in a Radio Shack or- God fucking forbid- a bookstore instead of tossing a football back and forth or running around the track like a little bitch, you have to either get very big or learn to get punched in the face.

I was never real good at learning to get punched in the face. So I went with the other option.

Leaning against a light pole, I rummage in my pocket for a lighter and a cigarette. A few quick motions and the smoke is rolling on my tongue, a fucking lot warmer than the weather out here. It’s too cold to even snow, which might add some shred of value to the fact that it’s been gray outside for the last month and a half. Grayer than usual for Jersey, anyway. I stopped going out in the day because it was just getting way too depressing.

Then again, depressing might be an improvement over so fucking crowded you have to swim through them. People shoving each other and shit, dragging children around so they can get their precious shopping done as fast as they can, cursing and snarling at each other and at me for walking slow so I can enjoy the colored lights strung up in dirty windows. Happy fucking Holidays.

Much as they bitch, their expressions change and they apologize as soon as they see me. I half regret that, not out of some fucked up guilt complex but because it’s getting too easy. Six months ago, I’d have had to break some bones and draw some blood to get the proper respect, because six months ago nobody knew who the fuck I was. Now, they still don’t know who the fuck I am, but they know not to mess with me anyway.

It’s boring.

Colored lights only hold their appeal for so long. Maybe I can go home, watch the Breakfast Club and be marginally content. It’s as close as I’m getting. I should call Mom, but I wouldn’t get an answer so I won’t bother. Her non-fuckup children will be there; she doesn’t need to be bothered by the one she had to summarily toss out.

Great. More depression. Forget being content, I’m going to get off-my-ass-drunk.

I pull out of the way of some woman trying to drag a toddler in one arm and a stroller in the other, then turn on my heel and-

Trip.

Only a brick wall and my reflexes keep me from falling on my face. I turn, half snarling and ready to hit, to glare at the leg stretched out from the alley, and the bundle of clothes attached to that leg. I wait for the stammered apology.

Finally, a dirty pale hand emerges from the clothes and reaches up to tug back the hood, exposing an equally dirty face. A kid, skinny and hard-eyed and no more than fifteen, at the most, glares at me. His voice is rough from smoke and cold when he snaps, “Watch where yer fucking stepping, lardass!”

For a few seconds, I’m not sure whether to kick him or laugh. Finally, I settle on taking a step back, out of the flow of traffic. In one quick motion he’s up on his feet, all nervous tension and bravado in the set of his mouth. His clothes can’t be enough to keep out the cold. His fingers are white and his lips are almost blue. “The fuck you looking at, bitch? You wanna start something? Just ‘cause you’re all big and shit. I can take you. C’mon, motherfucker!”

Apparently I don’t have to go home to be entertained. Leaning against the wall, I narrow my eyes at him and keep enjoying my cigarette without making a move or saying a word.

And as expected, it throws him off.

Relaxing enough that he stops bouncing on his toes, he tilts his head and squints at me, so bewildered that he holds still for a moment. I had a kitten that looked at me like that whenever the status quo, such as sitting down meant scritches or human contact meant incoming pain, was shaken up. Then his expression tightens into something close to resignation. “Quit looking at me like you wanna get in my ass.” There’s an edge in his voice that makes him sound older than he looks. “I don’t do that shit. The best you’re getting is a twenty for head, and bitch, that better be up front.”

The look of disgusted horror on my face makes him ease down and step back out of reach, clutching the tattered jacket over his stomach. His hands are bony. I wonder when he last ate. I wonder why I care.

“You ain’t one of those religious fucks, are ya?” Taking silence as an answer, he makes an explosive hand gesture and nearly yells in frustration, “I told you people-“

It’s a good thing I waited to move. Just straightening makes his teeth click shut, his eyes wide and wary. I move forward one step, wait for him to stop trying to back through the wall, and point at the coffee shop across the street.

He blinks, then demands distrustfully, “What?”

Okay. Let’s try that again. I point at him, then at myself, then at the coffee shop again.

Something shifts slightly, behind his eyes. “You wanna buy me coffee.”

I nod.

“Why the fuck do you want to buy me coffee?”

I shrug.

Looking cagey, he eyes me, then glances across the street. I can see the hunger battling with the suspicion on his face. He’s miraculously quiet for a few moments, lips drawn into a thin line. Then he sighs, his shoulders slumping for a spit second before he seems to force himself back up and look at me. There’s a desperate sort of mask written on his face as he shrugs one narrow shoulder and informs me with shaky dignity, “Hell. Fine. But you ain’t giving me no hot beef injection, coffee or no.”
***
As it turns out, I buy him a lot more than coffee. Something about the way he was moving like an old man across the street, stiff with the cold and edgy with hunger, convinced me to tell the waitress to bring half the menu. I settle for a sandwich I’m not going to eat, instead watching him wolf down the bowl of soup. He eats like he’s afraid someone is going to take it away, his eyes darting up every time I move to put a fry in my mouth. I pretend I don’t see him flinching.

He looks like he’s been on the street for a while. His cheekbones are too sharp, and he’s filthy. I’m not sure what color his hair was originally, but it’s lank and greasy now, dangling limply around his face. He has a fresh cut on one cheek, and the remains of a black eye. The smell on him makes the waitress keep a wide berth.

One bowl of soup, two hot sandwiches and a plate of fries later, and he shoves the plates out of reach, his hands folded over his stomach. With the edge of hunger off him, he looks even younger. Tired dark eyes glance at me, then away, out the window. The crowds on the streets are thinning out, finally. “Bum a smoke off you?”

I light one and hand it over without a word, both of us ignoring the dirty look it gets from the waitress. He doesn’t thank me, just draws on it for a while. When he suddenly jerks into motion, it makes me start half up in the booth. “You can fucking talk to me, you know. I ain’t stupid or contagious. You can’t make yourself homeless by association.”

“I don’t talk. As a general rule.” I pick up a fry and bite it in half. It tastes cold and greasy. “Nothing personal.”

“Oh.” The kid looks down at the scratched table, then back up at me. “Well. Mind if I ask who the fuck you are, then?”

“Bob.” The coffee’s cold, too. Damn, the things I have to do for dramatic effect.

“Bob.” His nose wrinkles, which is alarmingly cute. “Man, to hell with that. How’re people supposed to tell you from every other tubby bitch named Bob on the street?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Bob.”

“Yeah, if you like having a fucking lawyer’s name. Sounds like you got a business degree or some shit like that. You need a new one-“

“I don’t need a new name-“

“And I don’t need your goddamned charity, Godboy, didja think about that?” The kid glares at me, this raw look in his eyes, then turns his head away to stare out the window at a stray cat loping between cars to cross the street. “I don’t want you thinking I owe you or nothing. ‘Cause I don’t. This was your fucking idea, not mine.”

I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing to say. Wasting words on this situation would probably only make it worse.

Flicking his eyes away from the window, he considers me for a moment. Then his lips twist into something close to a smile. He grinds the cigarette out on the plastic tabletop, then tosses the butt into my coffee. “Silent Bob. There. You get your name, I get my food, everybody’s fucking happy.”

I wait long enough to let him fix his coat around him so none of the tears are sitting over bare skin, then ask, “Where are you going?”

“Ain’t none of your business, bitch.” Combing his fingers through his hair, he makes a face when they come away greasy. He looks at his hand for a moment, the grime and the grease, and pain flicks through his eyes for a split second. It’s gone when he raises his head, but it was there. It was there. “And stop fucking staring at me! I told you, I ain’t gonna let you up my ass-“ His attention turns from me to the guy in the booth behind him. “Yeah, the fuck you looking at, huh?”

In about two seconds, he’s going to start something. Well-fed or not, the guy in the booth could take him. So I stand up myself, making his head jerk back around so he can watch me. Kid’s got the attention span of a ferret on speed. I ask the first thing that comes to mind, and wince. There’s a reason I don’t fucking talk. “Is it my business to ask what your name is?”

The kid eyes me hard, shifting back and forth restlessly from one foot to the other. “No. It ain’t. But seeing as it’s Christmas and all,” and his smirk is somewhere between bitter and genuine, “I’ll tell you anyway.” Fussing with the ski-cap shoved down almost to his eyes, he walks backwards to the door decorated with cracked glass and a paper snowflake. “People call me Jay.”

Jay. Same as the noisy, raucous birds that used to tempt Mom’s cats close and then fly away, laughing. Yeah. That fits.

His back hits the glass. He leans against the door for a moment, blocking the way, and offers me a lazy grin. “Merry Christmas, Silent Bob.”

The door swings open, and he steps back out into the cold without tripping. It started to snow, somehow, whiting out the windows and carried by the harsh winds that make Jay stagger on the sidewalk. He hunches his shoulders, his back to me, buries his hands in his pockets, and starts walking for parts unknown. I sit in the warmth and watch him go, not really sure why, until I can’t see him anymore.

The way he smiled…

Yeah. No way in hell he’s going to survive the winter. Hell, I doubt he’ll survive the week. I won’t be seeing that one again.

I don’t wanna think about how much that thought bothers me. So I don’t.

Merry fucking Christmas, indeed.