40  Dollar  Bill  

                       

Forty Dollar Bill      

             

   

Sinmi  Araoye      

S.Araoye    

 I had seen him earlier, at the stoplight while waiting to cross the road. His shoulder

stooped low like the plastic bags in his hands dragged him down. Now he was seated

in the brown shed, his shoulder still stooped, with the bags sitting on the ground

between his legs. He looked up as I approached, then he looked down at his hands

resting on his thighs. I leaned across him trying to see the board. I still could not see

the board. I could smell the stench of alcohol emanating from his breathe.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I need to check the time the bus comes.” He scooted over

a bit to the left and looked up to the right to read the timetable mounted on the right

wall.

“Here, here,” he said, “the next one comes here,” as he pointed at a time long

gone.

“No, the bus comes here.” I tried to help him navigated timetable. I looked at

my watch, if I was right the bus should be here in another three minutes.

“Sit down.” He scooted a bit more to the left.

“I don’t need to sit down…but, thank you.”

“Okay.” He turned away from me and started rummaging through his bag. Out

came a light blue pouch with an Indian American feather headdress pictured on it and

a square can. He opened the can and lightly pulled out a white paper. He opened the

blue pouch and fingered brown stringy dried leaves. He kept picking at the leaves

until he had the right amount. He placed the brown leaves on the white paper. I

moved away from the shed to a low wall and perched. I put in ear-buds until I heard

him.

“Can I ask you a question?” he yelled at me from his place in the shed. The

rolled up cigarette was in his hands, unlit. “What is the difference between OB and

PB, anyway?”

“Heh…Did you say OB and PB?” I asked as I moved towards him. I stopped a

few feet away in case he decided to start smoking.

“Yeah, yeah, it seems to me like the same, right?”

“Well, OB is Ocean Beach and PB is Pacific Beach.”

“Yeah, but it is still the same water, right?”

“Hmm, yeah, they are on coast of the same ocean, in different spots.”

“You see my shirt?

40  Dollar  Bill  

     “I have seen your church? No…”

“No, no, my shirt” he said, standing up gingerly from the brown metal bench in

the shed and walking towards me. He began to open his beige bomber jacket. “My

shirt has Route 66 all over it,” he showed me the insignia and the reproduced map he

wore on his body.

“That is a lovely shirt. A really pretty shirt…”

“Yeah, VA gave it to me today. You know VA, dontcha?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, the fucking lady doctor I saw up there, she gone fucking pissed me off,

ya know?!”

“Well… I am sure she was just trying to help you. She was just trying to help

you.”

“Well, she don’t help me at all. She fucking refused to give me my lithium.

She said because I was .05 on the Breathalyzer. I only had one beer this morning, just

one beer.”

“Well… I am sure she was just trying to help you.”

“The goddamn woman…” he muttered out loud. “She said I was drunk. She

did not give me the lithium.” He walked back to the shed and picked up a lighter from

the bench. Then, he walked back towards me. “You want some cookies?”

“Nah, I am fine.”

“You sure? I have some good chocolate chip cookies.”

“Nah, I ate already. Can’t eat anymore today.”

“Why not? You only got a 40 dollar bill arse on you. Well, maybe an 80 dollar

bill.”

“Eh…thanks.”

“Don’t get offended. That’s a compliment in South Louisiana. I am from

there.”

“Well… thank you”

       

S.Araoye    

     He walked back to his bag and sat on the metal bench. He flicked his lighter and lit

the rolled-up cigarette in his hand. He took a long draw and blew out a steady stream

of grey smoke that tinted the darkening air.

“Here, here, come and sit down” he said as he patted the space next to him. He

put the cigarette in his mouth and took another long draw.

“No, I am fine here. Been sitting down all day. I have to sit down at work.”

“Where you work at?”

“Downtown, one of the offices there.”

“Damn, sounds like a fine job to me. God! Them people want me to work. But

I can’t get no job except in some shitty place like McDonald’s, Blockbuster or some of

those crazy places…”

“Hmm…”

“Well…” He said, as if resigned to the fact. “Me and my friend, Big Willy,

gonna make it. We don’t need no shitty job.” Then he took another draw of the

cigarette. “You know my friend, Big Willy, I ain’t seen him in almost six months.

Some people told me that he was dead already. Dead and gone.” He took a draw of the

cigarette and flicked the wilted butt into the black asphalt road in front of him.

“When I went to the hospital today, I saw Big Willy. The man was in a

hospital bed. He ain’t dead, yet. Nah. My man is still alive. We was talking and Big

Willy had to go to the bathroom. By the time he came back, some man had come and

eaten his food.”

“That is sad.” I said as I looked behind me. I could see cars coming around the

corner but no bus.

“Yeah, the bus here, they be running late all the time. And then when they

show up, all three buses show up at the same time.”

“It’s crazy.”

  “I  walk  everywhere.”  I  looked  at  his  feet  and  noticed  he  had  on  a  pair  of  

walking  shoes.  “I  walk  everywhere.  When  I  was  in  Louisiana,  I  was  225  pounds.  

Went  to  the  doctor.  The  man  told  me  I  had  to  lose  some  weight  or  I  would  die.    

     

40  Dollar  Bill  

     I am now 150. I used to walk around the track.”

He rested his head on his hands and seemed to scrub his eyes like he was

trying to clear a fog. I looked away. Two girls walked pass me and he raised his head

when he heard their flip-flops slap the ground. He looked at them. He kept looking

and his head swiveled slowly following their hips as they went pass the shed. His eyes

seem to move with their body like their hips was a pendulum hypnotizing him. As I

watched him watch the sashay of their backsides, he recovered.

He turned to me, “they only have ass like a 20 dollar bill.”

I smiled at him.

“Do you have a boyfriend or a husband?”

“Yeah. I am going to my boyfriend’s.”

“Ha. You have girlfriends?”

“Yeah. I live with my girlfriends.”

“Are they single?”

“No, I don’t think anyone of us is.”

“That is the thing I hate about this fucking place. All the good women are

taken…” he said, getting agitated with each syllable.

“All the good ones are taken until you find yours.” I tried to soothe him.

“You just end up with a fucking whore of a woman who has venom in her

mouth and wants to kill you with it,” he said, almost shuddering in the spite of his

words.

“Hmm…”

“What’s your name?”

“Me…I am Sara.”

“My name is Kenneth Lee.”

“Is that a Southern name?”

“Yeah. My papa named me after Jerry Lee Lewis. I am from Louisiana, you

know. I make good Cajun food.

         

S.Araoye    

     “Oh...”

“Yeah, I make good jambalaya.”

“I had that a couple of times.”

“Man!” He shook his head in lament, “I used to own a small restaurant down in

Louisiana.”

“How are you here now?”

“ I couldn’t take it anymore. It was like fighting day in and day out after

Katrina.” He looked away from me and stared straight ahead into the night. The cars

driving past in front of him broke his gaze. “My boy and his mother, they died in

Katrina.”

“I am so sorry to hear that,” I said feeling guilty I had started this line of

conversation.

“I used to call him my 7/7 boy because he was born on July 7th. It was just

after his 17th birthday. That boy used to love to play ball. We played ball all the time

and he used to walk with me. We used to go around and around the track.” He looked

at me, “I got tired of fighting. It seems like that all there ever was. No, I couldn’t do it

again. I couldn’t.”

“I am sorry.”

He blinked. “Maybe I'mma call my lawyer tomorrow. He hasn’t sent me my insurance

money yet. I want to open a small restaurant, here. A little food, a little music. I’mma

call it Kenneth’s Cajun Kitchen. All with a K.”

“That sounds good.”

“In fact, I think I'mma call my cousin tomorrow. Maybe he can loan me some

money so that I can start my own place.”

I nodded my head. I looked at the man. I doubted him; I doubted his

intentions. I was not sure this man could do it anymore. He looked like a shell. He

was disheveled but clean. His hair was almost snowy white and wiry. He carried a ton

within him. That ton, not the bag, seemed to be what pushed him closer to the ground.

         

40  Dollar  Bill  

     

“I play six instruments. You should come and watch me. I play with a jazz

band on Tuesday nights at this place in Pacific Beach. I am trying to remember…” he

snapped his fingers, willing his memory to function. “Damn, I can’t remember.”

“You’ll. Soon…”

“Anyway, one time, I went to Vegas. I went to this club and I was

gonna perform. I signed up and before me, this woman got on stage. Her mouth was

filthy. I know I say bad words but she was saying some bad bad words. I mean I can’t

repeat them in front of a woman like you. But I must say that she had them laughing.

Those people there had a good time.” He stood up and got animated. He had arms

lifted and his right hand fisted like he held a microphone in front of his mouth. “I said

‘look, I know you guys just listened to this lady. I don’t know how I'mma light you

people up after her.’” Then he pointed into the night like he had an audience in the

yonder, “she started to heckle me. She was sitting in the crowd”. He shook his head

and pointed into the night with his left hand, “she was using some bad bad words.

She was shouting ‘get off the stage, you sissy.’ I was angry but that woman she was

bad. She was very bad.”

He sat down gingerly on the metal bench. He bent down and reached into his

bag. He pulled out a round glass bottle of apple juice. He put his head back and

poured a bit in his mouth. He screwed the cap back on the bottle and put the bottle in

the bag.

“Do you live around here?” he asked me. I nodded my head.

“Why do you live here when you work downtown?”

“It is fast to get there by bus. I go early in the morning and come back early in

the afternoon.”

“When you gonna buy a car?”

“I don’t think so. I mean if I need a car, I rent one. Besides, gas is too

expensive.”

“Well, price of gas went down a bit today.”

“Well, even with that, it did not go below three dollars a gallon.”

“Well, I don’t think it is ever gonna go below three,” he said to me.

 

S.Araoye    

     

“Yeah, I know. Good thing I like riding the bus and I don’t really enjoy driving

anyway. People around here in San Diego don’t really know how to drive.” I looked

back to see if the bus was coming. I could see the headlights of the bus. It was here,

thirty minutes later than I had expected.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said.

I looked at him surprised. He had me question after question. Why the sudden

shyness?

“I know you are not really suppose to ask a lady. But, how old are you?”

I thought about it. Do I want to seem older or younger than my actual age. I

walked towards the bus that had just stopped. People climbed down the stairs as I

waited at the base to ascend.

“Twenty-two” I said. I don’t know if he heard me. I could not see him. I got on

the bus and found an open space. Someone sat next to me.

The bus driver closed the door and then opened it again. Kenneth struggled up

the stairs and opened his wallet. Out came a bundle of cash, he paid his fares and

walked further into the bus. He sat down in a seat facing a window. I could see his

profile. He seemed to crumble into the plastic blue chair and hugged his bag. The

person sitting next to him moved away, trying not to touch him. I watched him…