One Bench-Three Stories
Written by: BandE
“Mom, I’m doing great. They really like me here and gave me this neat office overlooking Mad. Ave. Yep, got a plant and a secretary, too, Miss Pidgeon. No, don’t try to call me at work, they don’t like us getting personal calls. I’ll call you. Listen, gotta go now, got to get back to work. Love you too, say hi to Dad.”
Sighing, he put away his cell phone and looked at his surroundings. The uncomfortable bench he had occupied for the last few months was planted in a dusty little patch of earth underneath the highway overpass. A few shrubs struggled to exist and a single pigeon hopefully fluttered down from above every day when he appeared with his brown bag lunch and the help wanted ads.
This was not the life that he had envisioned for himself when he came to the Big Apple straight out of college. The homeless shelter was at least a roof over his head, but he spent as little time there as possible, crossing the street to sit in what passed here for a little park. At least the guy he had just met had some work for him. Just keep an eye on the package, he had said, putting it on the bench beside him. A friend would pick it up.
The cops’ arrival took him by surprise. They quickly cuffed him, saying that a full kilo of the stuff in the bag would buy him some long time away.
Watching the pigeon peck at a cast-off brown lunch bag wedged in the scraggly shrubs opposite the dusty bench on which he sat, he called his wife to say that he would be late getting home. “I know, I know, I was looking forward to the concert. But this thing came up and I can’t get away. Tell the kids I love ‘em and will miss hearing them sing. Gotta go, bye.”
As he said this, a large male hand lightly brushed his left shoulder , reached into his shirt, and squeezed his nipple. Breasts brushed against the back of his head. A high voice whispered into his ear.”It’s party time, Sugar. Business before pleasure, Sugar.”
The hand not busy with his nipple reached for the envelope of money being offered. “You know Tranny always likes to get paid before the real fun begins, Sugar.”
The two moved away from the bench and into the shadows of the overpass.
Sister Mary Magdalene checked to see if the girl was still there. Heading for the soup kitchen earlier, she had noticed her slumped on the bench, holding tight to a battered cardboard suitcase. Peering through the chain link fencing on her return, Sr. Mary saw that she hadn’t moved.
Same story, different girl, sighed Sr. Mary to herself. After all. she had ended up on that very bench some years ago after fleeing the nearby bus station and it’s eager pimps always on the lookout for naive young flesh. She had escaped that degrading sort of life and had found refuge with the Catholic Charities nuns who gently helped her find her calling.
Granted, she didn’t look like the stereotype the word nun conjured up. Sr. Mary wore jeans ripped at the knees, a sweatshirt that said “Nuns Do It Better” ["Prayer"] underneath a scuffed leather jacket. The only hint that she might be something other than a tough, streetwise woman was the little gold dove pin on her jacket.
Entering the dusty little park, she avoided the used condom on the ground that a pigeon was examining and sat down beside the girl.
“You look beat, sweetie, hungry too. Probably could use a shower after that all night bus ride, right?”
“But…but how did you know…?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention that I’m a mind-reader?” Sr. Mary gazed into the girl’s tear-stained face. “Here’s some more. You fought with your parents, and took off late last night. You were gonna show them! Now you’re here, scared shitless, and wished you’d never done it. Right?”
Fresh tears spilled from her red-rimmed eyes while wrenching sobs made her shoulders heave as she clutched her pathetic suitcase.
“Tell you what,” said Sister Mary Magdalene, “here’s my cellphone. Call your mom and dad and tell ‘em you’re allright. Then we’ll get you fed and cleaned up, and ready for that ride back home.”
