Kid showed up at the river in the shadow of the High Bridge with a grin on his face, a bottle of Cutty in his hand, and a twenty-dollar bill in his pocket. Kid was usually in a good mood, but I'd never seen him quite so happy. Or so flush. And I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a bottle of good scotch.

It was going on dark. I had a pot of watery stew on the fire‹rice mostly, with some unidentifiable vegetables I'd pulled from the dumpster behind an Asian grocery store.

I held up the Cutty to the firelight and watched the reflection of the flames lick the glass. "Rob a bank?"

"Better." Kid bent over the pot and smelled the stew. "Got a job."

"Work? You?"

"There's this guy took me up on my offer."

Most days Kid stood at the top of the off-ramp on Marion Street and I-94 where a stoplight paused traffic for a while. He held up a handmade sign that read, "Will Work For Food." He got handouts, but he'd never had anyone actually take him up on his offer.

"What kind of work?"

"Chopping bushes out of his yard, putting new bushes in. This yard, Professor, I tell you, it's big as a goddamn park. And the house, Jesus."

He called me Professor because I have a small wire-bound notepad in which I scribble from time to time. Why that translated into Professor, I never knew.

I wanted badly to break the seal on the bottle, but it wasn't my move.

Kid sat down crossed-legged in the sand on the riverbank. He grinned up at me. "Something else, Professor. He's got a wife. A nice piece of work. The whole time I'm there, she's watching me from the window."

"Probably afraid you were going to steal something."

"No, I mean she's looking at me like I'm this stud horse and she's a . . . you know, a girl horse."

"Filly."

"That's it. Like she's a filly. A filly in heat."

I watched the gleam in Kid's eye, the fire that danced there. "You already have yourself a few shots of something?"

"It's the truth, swear to God. And get this. The guy wants me back tomorrow."

"Look, are we just going to admire this bottle?" I finally asked.

"Crack 'er open, Professor. Let's celebrate."

Kid and I weren't exactly friends, but we'd shared a campfire under the High Bridge for a while, and we trusted each other. Trust is important. Even if all you own can fit into an old gym bag, it's still all you own, and when you close your eyes at night, it's good to know the man on the other side of the fire isn't just waiting for you to fall asleep. Kid had his faults. For a bum, he thought a lot of himself. That came mostly from being young and believing that circumstance alone was to blame for his social station. I'd tried to wise him up, pointing out that lots of folks encounter adversity and don't end up squatting on the bank of a river, eating out of other people's garbage cans, wearing what other people throw away. He was good-looking, if a little empty in the attic, and had the kind of physique that would probably appeal to a bored rich woman. He was good companionship for me, always eager and smiling, kind of like a having a puppy around. I didn't know his real name. I just called him Kid.

The next evening when he came back from laboring in the rich man's yard, he explained to me about his plans for the guy's wife.

"She's got this long black hair, all shiny, hangs down to her hips, swishes real gentle over the top of her ass when she walks. Paints her nails red like little spots of blood at the end of her fingers and toes. Talks with this accent, I don't know what kind, but it's sexy. And she's hot for me, Professor. Christ, she's all over me."

Dinner that evening was fish, a big channel cat I'd managed to pull from the river with a chunk of moldy cheese as bait. I was frying it up in the pan I used for everything.

"If this woman is all you say she is, she could have any man she wants, Kid. What does she want with a bum?" That offended him.

"I'm not like you, Professor. The booze don't have me by the throat. One break and I'm outta here."

"Dallying with a bored rich woman? How's that going to change your luck?"

Kid peered up from watching the fish fry. "I got inside today, looked the place over. They got all this expensive crap lying around."

"And you're what, just going to waltz in and help yourself?"

His looked turned coy. "She let me inside today when her old man took off to get a bunch of bushes from the nursery. Asked if I wanted some cold lemonade. Starts talking kind of general, you know. Where I'm from, do I got family, that kind of thing. Then, get this, she tells me her husband's not a man for her. No lighting in the rod, you know? I tell her that's a damn shame, all her good looks going to waste. She says, 'You think I'm pretty?' I tell her she's the prettiest goddamn thing I've ever seen. Then you know what, Professor? She invites me back tonight. Her old man's going out of town and she's all alone. Doesn't want to be lonely. Know what I'm saying? When it's dark, I'm heading over."

"You're spending the night?"

"Not the whole night. She don't want me around in the morning for the neighbors to see sneaking off."

"You sure you're not on something?"

"Proof, Professor," he said with a sly grin. "I got proof."

From his pants pocket, he took a small ball of black fabric. He uncrumpled it and held it toward me with both hands, as if he were holding diamonds. "Her panties."

Thong panties, barely enough material to cover a canary.

"She gave you those?"

"Reached up under her skirt and slipped 'em off where she stood. Said they'd tide me over until tonight."

He went to his things and rolled the panties in his blanket.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"Naw. I'm going to the Y, slip inside and wash up. I want to smell good tonight. Don't wait up for me, Dad," he said with a grin, and he walked off whistling.

He didn't come back that night. I figured he'd got what he wanted from the rich man's wife and the rich man's house and I'd seen the last of him. What did I care? People come into your life and they go. You can't cry over them all. So why did I feel so low the next day? All I wanted was to get drunk. Finally, I headed to the plasma center on University, let them siphon off a little precious bodily fluid, and I walked out with cash. I headed to the Gopher Bar for an afternoon of scintillating conversation with whoever happened to be around. It was a place where Kid and I had sometimes hung out together, and I hoped he might be there.

Laci was tending bar. A hard, unpretty woman with a quick mind. She sized me up as I sat on a stool. "Starting the wake, Professor?"

"You lost me," I said. She threw a bar towel over her shoulder and came my way. "I figured you were planning to tip a few to the memory of your buddy. Not that a piece of crap like him deserves it."

"Kid? Piece of crap? What are you talking about?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

She turned, took a bottle of Old Grandad down from the shelf, and poured me a couple of fingers worth. "This one's on the house."

Then she told me about Kid. It was all over the news.

The night before, he'd been shot dead in the rich man's house, but not before he beat the guy's wife to death with a crowbar.

"Funny." She shook her head. "I never figured him to be the violent kind. But anybody beats a woman to death deserves what he gets. Sorry, Professor, that's how I see it."

I swallowed the whiskey she'd poured, but instead of sticking around to get drunk, I walked back to the river. That night I didn't bother putting together a fire, just sat on the riverbank below the High Bridge, listening to the sound of occasional traffic far above, thinking about Kid. At one point I pulled out my notepad, intending to write. I don't know what. Maybe a eulogy, something to mark his passing. Instead, I picked up a stick and scratched in the sand. A few minutes later a barge chugged past and the wake washed away what I'd written. I ended up crying a little, which almost never happens when I'm sober.

To continue reading "Bums" please purchase Twin Cities Noir available online from Akashic Books and at your local bookstore (June 2006).