Benjamin Corcoran was a born hustler.
He was adept at the short-con.
He cheated at cards, he carried a set of
fixed-dice and a double-sided coin; he played the shell game with tourists in
the red-light district.
He always kicked up to the street-boss.
Tonight,
it was raining hard, and the only action to be had was honest work delivering
brown paper bags to the cars that pulled up to the curb looking for a score,
holding doors open for the dames jumping into the back seats of sedans, going
out to turn a trick.
On
a lucky night, some big-spender might hand Ben a tip for his troubles, or he
might get an offer to turn a trick himself.
He
was happy to make a dollar anyway he could; because he knew that if he wasn’t
earning, he was spending, and he was always a day away from being broke.
Ben
watched a group of college kids park and go into the Round-up, they were all
his age, and neatly dressed. He figured they were stupid as hell and would be easy
to fleece if the storm would let up and the street dry out.
Ben
kept his eye on the Round-up, in case they should leave and go somewhere else;
if it looked like the weather was clearing he would follow them and see what
might come of it.
Down
the block there was a skinny blonde girl, shivering and soaking wet;
theoretically she was trying to turn a trick, but she was standing out of the
way in the shadow of an awning.
She
was young and new to Lake Street, she looked hungry and sick, sick enough to
die right there on the corner.
It
won’t be long, Ben thought. The poor in St. Anthony weren’t just the great
unwashed, they were the great unloved. She’ll be forgotten when she’s gone,
along with the few people who might know her name.
From
where he was posted Ben recognized someone else he knew, Johnny Holiday, a fellow
from the Washburn Home for Boys. They had lived in the same dorm for a time.
Ben
recognized him right away but didn’t want to let on, or be the first one to say
hello; when the moment came that they made eye contact, Johnny looked right
through him like he was invisible.
They
had both came up through the orphanage, they had been on the streets together.
Johnny hustled newspapers, while Ben hustled anyone and anything he could, and
Ben was bothered by the fact that his old pal had not given him a nod of the
head or even a hello.
Ben
didn’t think Johnny was being rude or anything, he thought perhaps he had
changed too much from his years of grifting, while Johnny looked like he had
only became more of himself. He considered the disappearing girl on the corner
and had a moment of self-doubt.
He
watched Johnny buy a flask of whiskey in the drug store and take a long shaky
pull off the bottle.
Johnny
has his demons too, Ben thought, with a little bit of satisfaction. He’s
a drunk, He’s my age and he’s a drunk…
He made a mental note of it, like scratching NB
in the margins of a book.
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