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A Clean White Shirt

R. M. Kozan

    From the moment I woke up behind my dumpster, I knew it was going to be a good day. It had rained during the night but the gentle volume of that wetting and the angle of the building protected my nocturnal redoubt behind the Loraas bin. Now the streets were damp but not wet, just fresh. The dust which normally would be clinging to me by mid-morning was hereby settled on command of the rain. Plans to cake me in grit had been scuttled for today only. Now the Sun was coming out and everyone looked happier than usual. The bird song surrounding me knew no complaint.
    Last night had been a late one. An illegal after-hours punk club known as Below Grade operates half a drunken stagger down the alley from my boudoir. From about midnight until four in the gloaming, young people exit the inauspicious back alley entrance, laughing and discarding the stubs of their joints, casually seeding the ground with the financial instruments. It’s not really my thing but I understand an opportunity when I see it so every night, except Sunday and Mondays when the club does not seem to operate, I prospect the gravel and lumpen concrete, sifting through bottle caps and tobacco butts for the elusive ‘Oro Del Noche’, as my friend Speedy calls it. On a good night I can accumulate twenty or more secondhand spliffs in the dented chocolatier tin that acts as the strongbox for my savings.
    There is no shortage of people near the Mission who will give me a nip from their liquid reserves for the chance to fish through my stinky ash collection, as I sometimes refer to it when the comic in me overwhelms the tragic.
    Today is such a day. Today the weather cooperates, and the smell of good luck seems to hang over the whole city. As witless as this sounds, the promise so vaguely demonstrated soon produced tangible results. As I pause behind Marks and Spencer’s to jiggle my chocolatier tin and estimate my assets, a load of goodies are being egressed. Among the usual packing materials and unusable, broken plastic hangers, I catch a glimpse of something white and pure. As soon as the wardens of fashion retreat to their air conditioned dens, I move in to investigate.
    My eyesight and intuition did not fail me. They have discarded a strikingly brilliant white shirt. It lies near the top of the pile of refuse, a classy collared model, beckoning me. It is new, but someone has half removed it from the plastic wrapping and managed to spill coffee along one edge. I pull it free of the wrapping. The tag says the shirt is made of 100% silk, hails from Bangladesh and is named Solitude. I nod my head in approval. Solitude speaks to me. The coffee stain is on the back, only a few inches long and very low. Everything else appears workable: all the buttons are intact and there is no sign of seam rippage. I move quickly. I remove my stained and distressed plaid shirt. Its days are passed and I looked far too pedestrian in it anyway. The new shirt feels soft and clean as I slip it on. I tuck it into my jeans and the coffee stain disappears. I am a new man.
    When I reach the Mission, MJ is standing outside. Although the clock tower across the street indicates it is not yet eight in the morning, she appears angry. She is a participant in a special program which provides maintenance for alcoholics; if she agrees not to binge drink, she is fed one ounce of alcohol each hour of the day by the secular Samaritan bartenders of the street as I call them. She is angry because she was caught with a smell of booze on her breath that did not match the rations of the Samaritans. Now she is cut off. MJ is prone to screaming fits, but the sight of my white shirt seems to calm her. I feel refreshed, born anew almost. I tell her she will only have to wait a day and take some care her breath is clear of alcohol fumes before she again approaches the Samaritans. They will take her back. It is their nature.
    She looks like she is going to bawl for a second but then she laughs and agrees with me. She must have had a sizable portion last night because she does not shout as she tends to do when angry in the morning. Her humour is good. It can’t all be my new shirt remodeling her optimism but it has some effect certainly. She actually says ‘Nice shirt’ before she trundles off towards Market Street for a little early panhandling.
    Mario is also there and he buys a clump from my tin for a dollar seventy five. His friend Spaghetti is arguing with two crackhead teens who are new to the Mission. Spaghetti has somehow managed to hoard several ounces of rum in a bottle from last night. He is skinny, so skinny I think he can fit into places other people dare not go. Perhaps that is where he hides his overnight supplies. He is a unique and mostly agreeable guy, not prone to fighting, but now these two newbies are hassling him.
    It was two against two when Mario joined the discussion and the teens were not backing down, thinking their youth and health tilted the numbers to their advantage. I step up and say in a firm voice “You’re going to have to leave the Mission area if you continue to raise your voices”.
    They don’t know me from Adam, but they also don’t know who works at the Mission. With the authority of my pristine white shirt confronting them, and the adjustment of the fight calculation from two on two to three on two, they are convinced to abandon their aggression. They move down the street, not saying anything but looking back at us angrily over their shoulders occasionally as they slowly recede. They want to look tough but they are not.
    I conjure the notion that some more clients may be congregating in the park. I unconsciously touch the replenished chocolatier tin in my front pants pocket. It is full and I am needed elsewhere.
    The sidewalk is more crowded now. A gorgeous young woman dressed in a very short skirt has pulled a cellphone from her purse and started to babble into it. A small package of tissues now lies on the ground behind her, accidentally jettisoned when she extracted her cell phone. I scoop up the worthless package and present it to her. I think I called her “Ma’am”.
    She rewards me with a brilliant smile. She does not cringe. She does not avert her face. She looks into my eyes with gratitude. She says thank you and something about my kindness. I smile and continue to smile long after she has turned and strode away on her journey. She did not know I was homeless. She thought I was one of the hurrying mass, someone with a well paying job and loved ones to shuttle between.
    I watch her move away. Her body is powerful like a cheetah, coiled yet flowing and potentially explosive, a liquid dynamite. I would like to masturbate.
    Now it is almost nine. I am slightly late for the park. As I turn the corner and pass the front of Mark’s and Spencer I see my shirt in the window. It is on sale. The tag indicates it has been marked down seventy percent. Some people don’t know when they’ve got it good.

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