Money Is Not Important

A MEAL WITHOUT POTATOES IS JUST A SNACK by Gerald Bosacker Chapter Two: Money is not important. >One-eye= waved an almost fresh french-fry at Curly, who wanted to ignore Century Street=s resident philosopher and blabbermouth, but habit persisted, and he stopped his cart. dumpster. AHey, there=s an early bird, what=s cooking,@ he said, knowing that breakfast discards at their McDonalds would be at least two hours away. The one time Social Worker, had both eyes, but earned the sobriquet, 'One eye' because he always squinted, eliminating the struggle to focus divergent eyes whenever he made an important pronouncement. He closed one eye and spoke, AWhere in the City of Angels is there a function important enough to draw Curly out before breakfast? Whoa, and what social arbiter decreed that you trim your beard, and wash away the urban camouflage of grit and grime.

Who ever told you monocles are in fashion again, lied.

Don=t put on airs; you are still on list of the 4oo least desirable social butterflies. Are you in love, Curly or have you become a social climber, struggling to rise from the quagmire of lost...@ “Can it, One-eye.

I haven=t time for your dissertation.

I=m

on an important mission and you could blow my cover with your pithy, over-long observations and nosy questions.” Curly knew his tidied appearance would soon be reported and embellished to their mutual peers. One-eye must, have read his mind. “I broke my

glasses and I am now blind as a bat. One-eye, You have got to help me get glasses!@ AI=m without evil influences, like money, Curly. We live in an ugly world. Are you sure you want to improve your vision?” AI said, >Blind as a bat,’ and I=m as broke as you, if poverty can ever be relative. History is filled with gratuitous poverty but it is the fertilizer for invention and discovery. It could make you a genius, Curly.” “Well, my stroke of genius requires your help, One-eye.

I

need to know the closest Lion=s Club, eyeglass depository, and how to get there.” “Well, then, step into my Century Avenue office, almost next door to McDonalds.” and he led Curly into the Ace Car Cleaners. The frightened clerk retreated toward the not yet functional car wash conveyer area for help and One-eye reached over the chest high counter and expertly found and removed the regional phone book.

A sleeping watch dog, aroused and bristled and Curly and

One-eye quickly exited, and One-eye dumped the book in Curly=s cart. “You can return the directory on your way back,@ They proceeded to the parking area of an adjoining donut shop where One-eye judiciously studied the yellow pages, and then proclaimed, “Less than a mile, Curly. A fifteen minute walk, and a few minutes more, pushing your cart. Want me to keep it?” “Just read me the God Damned address, and point, One eye.@

AI love you like a brother, Curly but I don=t fancy walking before breakfast and I left my cart, back of Mac=s, so I will write the address down real big, so even with monocle, you will manage without me.@

Of all of his current friends, One-eye alone

always carried a stub of pencil with useable scraps of paper, to record his pithy observations for posterity. Curly had longed to read One-eye’s journal, but it was never shared. Curly covered the eight blocks briskly, pushing his constant companion grocery cart, which always accorded him status as a street person, leaving him in peaceful solitude, even through a crowd. Curly found the Lions Clubroom easily. The depository slot was easily discernible right next to the front door, and the office seemed unoccupied. “They should not have a watchman or guard dog to protect thrown out glasses,” thought Curly, and bravely stuck his hand and forearm into the slot.

Curly had lost weight since he

abandoned his personal physical trainer, one of his perks when he reigned at the agency. How much, he did not know but his arm slipped easily through the slot. His hand found the heap of discarded glasses overfilling what seemed to be a common five gallon plastic container, which probably had contained food for Lions.

His fingers felt a masculine and heavy frame, and just as

he began folding to extract them, something locked on his wrist, like a snapping trap. warmly human.

The trap did not have teeth and seemed

“Let go!” he screamed! The encircling hand seemed small, but determined. It did not release or relax.

AI will let go if you will stay right there

and explain what you were doing, stealing donated glasses meant for the poor and handicapped.@ The voice sounded feminine, and compassionate. Curly tried for sympathy. “Hey Lady, there is no one poorer or more handicapped than me. I used to donate generously to the Lions, and hoped, I had cast bread upon the waters.” Lady, don=t be an atheist, he prayed. The hand relaxed and Curly stood, and watched the door open. She was beautiful, in a matured and kindly fashion. Was it only the need of her compassion and forgiveness that made him like her so thoroughly despite the fact that he knew nothing about her? Are you the boss, lioness, or just a watch dog for the deposit bin?” Curly, mounting an incongruous grin, accenting his shabby clothes and dirty face. “Don=t get snide with me, Buster. I may be just a volunteer worker here but I can get you locked up, or is that what you want.

You do look gaunt and hungry, or is that your disguise.

You are stealing glasses, how original. Where do you sell them?@ Rhonda sighed, and thought the bum facing her was mysteriously different, or possibly part of a reality TV show.

“I’m a recovering alcoholic with three dollars to my name. I slept on my glasses and broke them, and don=t know any optometrists doing pro bono fittings for street bums, do you.@ “Well, Mr.disadvantaged Street bum, My name=s Rhonda and I am here, borrowing the office facilities to fax out some bulletins to my voting constituency. Let’s sort through our inventory, and see if we can find a matching prescription. Are you into jeweled rims?” Rhonda loved words and odd-ball conversations, hoped for a clever answer from the strange man with a cultured voice unlike his appearance. “The men, who favor jeweled rims, seldom end up living homeless on the streets.

I guess I am more at home on the street

than one of the fastest growing minority groups, now so much in foppish fashion.” “Oh my! Former drunk and destitute, yet you are judgmental, and homophobic.

What prompts your superiority?” She was looking

at a handsome man, who lacked hair, and grooming. He had an air, of the unwashed, but he did seem out of place in rags. AI certainly don=t feel superior to anyone, and I can only speak of my own sexual proclivities, non-existent during this long and wasted year on the streets. I find myself just bug splat on the highway of life, so I don=t ever get smug. You soon forget when you=re drunk, to your friends dismay you sadly display all the social skills of a skunk. What sane woman would have interest in me?”

“Obviously, just a very desperate, lonely matured woman, maybe like me, still quixotic enough to buy an ugly frog=s potential for becoming royal prince!@ said Rhonda, while wistfully twisting the wedding band parked on her right hand for the last year. She asked herself; could this man be her reward for volunteering? Rhonda was tired of being a political pawn, and target of vilifications for her dedicated service as a Los Angeles council woman. She needed a fresh challenge, and wondered whether this scruffy bum was worth chipping away the rough and odoriferous exterior, for the rare possibility of a diamond, of undiscovered luster? “Well, I would tell my warning for desperate or trusting women; Men stay the same, and aren't mutated so frogs that you kiss, though promising bliss don't turn Prince when osculated!@ “For some weird reason, I am glad, you are not into rhinestones, my poetic friend. Is the verses spontaneous or remembered?@ “For years I spoke in rhyme...for clever advertising jingles, and don=t totally abandon the practice. It once paid well, but it sure don=t now. Now good food is a rare luxury!@ Rhonda pulled a set of glasses, heavily framed with once classy keratin-like plastic. AHow about these horn rims, quite appropriate for a down and out poet. about seeing?@

Or are you only concerned

“They are appropriate, Rhonda.

I really was a successful

writer and poet, who migrated up the corporate ladder propelled by quick wit and outrageous imagination to become VP and creative director of the West Coast=s top Ad agency.” “So what brought you down from such a lofty perch, HumptyDumpty?@ Rhonda teased, and hoped to provoke more confession. AI ran out of marketable rhymes and slogans, and thought liquor primed the intellectual pump.” “So you became a dumb drunk? Isn’t that a comfortable status, any longer?” Rhonda listened and felt herself slipping into empathetic tolerance of a misfit man, again. The same compassionate weakness had propelled her into four horrible marriages.

Maybe this bum, like a frog, was really a prince in

disguise. AI lost my job and my family because I thought I was more creative when I drank. Back then, I was Charles Edmunds, the third.

Now my fellow drunks and street explorers call me Curly,

satirically, of course because of my lack of them. They call me bald, it isn’t fair, although I agree, my locks you can=t see since I=m much taller than my hair.@ “Try these, my clever Curly.

Bald men are supposed to be

more virile, you know.” and she bent to fit them, exposing fascinating décolletage that Curly focused on and appreciated.

AI can see, but everyone thing is too small. Smaller like far-off,@ Curly said and watched his benefactor blush. She could tell exactly where his lascivious eyes were focused. “So, even a street bum feels privileged to judge a woman=s appeal by the size of their boobs.@ Rhonda waited for an answer, fearful she had nailed her new interest as just another lascivious chauvinistic male pig. Curly hesitated long before answering. He was horribly reminded of his last impetuous answer, speaking before his brain edited content, and the total loss of status, his rushed response had caused. It was almost exactly one year ago the prime cause to send Curly living on the streets.

Then, as a hot-shot

advertising executive, with August Anderberg, CEO of Oat Millers, who was the first grain miller to transform a nickel=s worth of that particular grain along with sugar and artificial chocolate flavoring into three dollar’s worth of marketing success, Curly had thought the serious manner of Anderberg was insider sarcasm, so chose a flippant spoof based on his first impression of the treats. Curly had impulsively related to his daily cleaning of the cage of his pet rabbit, Mica when he was a chore resistant eleven years old farm boy. Oat Miller=s new and as yet unnamed cereal closely resembled the droppings left by his long departed, dew-lap rabbit. “I think your Ralphy Rabbit and his friends should follow a trail of bunny droppings to a giant cereal moth, trotting off

with a package of ‘Bunny Trails’ that is marking out a tell-tale trail of bunny droppings.” Anderberg dropped his glass of celebratory champagne, and not from laughter. Curly discovered everyone in the board room had been waiting for his response.

His first realization that

Charles Edmunds, III was an alcoholic and his third full goblet of champagne had not made him clever. Rhonda, the pretty lady patiently waited, curious at Curly=s long silent pause. She prompted, “Struck dumb by my beauty. Those glasses must be a real mis-fit.” Now with his brain engaged, Curly said, “Sweet Rhonda, I did not mean you or your equipment, I meant, smaller, like far-off. The prescription, I meant. If we were a thing, I=d give you my monologue on the blessing of flatter chests.

Sure would be my

preference for a lover.” AI will never be desperate enough to be a thing to you. But do your monologue. I love sarcastic wit, and your appearance sure disprove you are a participant in current fashion.@ “A woman=s mammary glands are as essential too her lovemaking, as peacock=s tail feathers. A Peacock deprived of his caudal display must use superior intelligence, charm and compassion to successfully win a mate. Scientists say small busts contain the same number of nerve endings as large ones, which then are more spread out and less sensitive then small breasts,

where the congested concentration of endorphin creators made them more sensitive and appreciative. My first mate was over-endowed and that remained her only attribute.

Never again will I be

impressed by bra size.” “In your previous, sober life, you must have been a real smooth talker.

Were you mostly salesman or just a common

swindler?” “I said I was an important executive at an advertising agency. You undoubtedly have seen my creations, in magazines, newspapers and on television” “And I asked, were you a salesman or swindler. Did you believe your own baloney?” AI never lied, but I did manipulate the facts, but often, just to get a slogan to rhyme.” “If you are truly in to truth, I have to ask.

When did you

last take a bath or a shower.@ Rhonda smiled disarmingly, but the question was still accusingly blunt. “Apart from sitting imprudently nude outside my secret hut in frequent rains, I showered last in the drunk tank, downtown Los Angeles almost one year ago. I guess I have become immune or desensitized to my personal aura. I=m sorry I stink. “Curly, would you like to have a hot shower at my condo. I=m going home in a few minutes, and you can come along. I will

fix you a home-radiated, T-V lunch and drive you to your humble hut.@ Ashamed of his shelter, Curly said, AI can=t do that Rhonda. I=m such a loser, and though we only met, I already want to love you. Put your telephone number inside a sealed envelope, and when I am not all loser, I will open the envelope and call you.” “Gee Curly, you are such a romantic soul! Don=t be too long at rejoining society.

I think I like you! Yes, I think I want to

bring you back to our decadent civilization. Here=s the deal. Come back in one week, clean and functional, with a job that utilizes your vocabulary, and we’ll become lovers or friends!” She handed Curly her personal card, and watched Curly blush and inch to the door, eager to escape what he longed so much for. Curly could not remember cuddling close to a woman, and dared not try repulsing Rhonda with the hug that cried to be expressed. His wife, either frigid or totally fulfilled after birthing one boy, had not been emotionally inspired by Curly for years, and Curly assumed he was responsible, even before failing miserably at his work. She had their fancy house and savings, and Curly must deserve his life on the street. Curly could not remember his parting words but he whistled as he walked down Century Avenue, Rhonda=s card safely tucked unread in his innermost pocket, toward his humble cardboard shack. He still had his homeless friends from his neighborhood, but their appeal was gone.

Rhonda was truly nice, but far too trusting.

She sure

deserved better than a has been hot shot and drunk, now sober from One Eye=s guidance and because he lacked money to enable getting soused on the high buck booze he still felt was his due. No rot gut liquor, yet. Maybe his expensive taste was curing his alcoholism. Curly whistled for the first time in over a year, as he walked tall and proud. He had retained his gift of gab during his long hermitage on the streets. He picked up his pace, his shopping cart wobbled, unused to such speed. The purloined phone book rode precariously on the top of Curly=s cart, nagging him. As he neared Ace Carwash for his dutiful, conscience driven return of the phone book, Curly saw a small crowd gathered in front of the office door.

There was a

plain looking sedan, with a secreted flashing blue light, blocking the idle car wash conveyor=s exit. unmarked Los Angeles police car.

This had to be an

Curly shuddered with fear and

guilt, and raced to return the phone book. Extending the book in his hand, Curly approached the small crown surrounding the patrolman standing in the office doorway. He said, “Here=s the book, we didn’t mean to keep it, but the big dog scared us away.” The uniformed cop said, “Beat it, bum! There has been a crime committed here...No, wait.

Do you mean this dog?” He

pointed to the Doberman Pincher lying motionless on the floor, just inside the door.

AI was here two hours ago, to borrow a phone directory, and the dog growled at me like he was very healthy, but angry and protective.” The previously frightened clerk spoke out, “That=s him, he came in right after we opened at eight. I went for help, the minute he and the other bum came in, and when I came back with manager, they were gone.

An hour later, our guard dog began

shaking with convulsions. They have fed him poison, I’m sure!” The modishly elegant gentlemen standing with the patrolman, shouted. “Mr. Borman, did you hear what your clerk, Miss Howe, accused this fellow of?” Fritz Borman, one of those gathered in the crowd, spoke up, “Miss Ellis told me they were responsible for doping my dog. If that is an indictable crime I want them both charged.” “I did not come near that dog,” Curly shouted, but no one listened.