A few years ago, as I was getting ready for work one morning, I wounded up leaving some stuff on my car while I ran back in to get something I had forgotten. What if this stuff isn’t here when I come back, was the thought that crossed my mind. It was kind of slow at some point during the day, and so I wrote the following:
“Hey Charlie, did you see tha?” asked Tony in an urgent voice.
“Huh? Wah? See what?” replied Charlie, in a halfway sleepy voice.
“Tha guy over t’ere he just lef some stuff on his car, and walked away” replied Tony.
“Per’aps he jus’ forgot somet’ing, an’ he’ll be right back,” Charlie said, trying to go back to sleep.
“I don’ care why he lef, its time for Rob’n Hood, to take from the rich, and give to us poor” said Tony excitedly.
He stood up, to cross the street when Charlie pulled on his old tattered coat. “Now jus’ hold’n,” Charlie started, “jus’ look at that old car. He don’ look that much bett’r off than us. Robin Hood, wouldn’t steel from some’ne who was j’st a lit’le bet’r off than us. He would go afte’ the pee-ple wif them fancy cars.”
Tony shot Charlie an angry look. “Jus’ ’cause you got all tha’ fancy book learning. Got all th’ way to your second yea’ of high school, you t’ink you can tell me wha’ someone wuld ‘ave dun?”
Across the street, the owner approached, his car opened it, and started putting the stuff in it.
“See wha’ you did now? He leav’n an’ we dun’ hav’ any of his stuff” growled Tony quietly, as the car started and drove off. “I nev’r can figger you out, you drag me to this corner, an’ then we don’t even get nuttin from a perf’ect stranger.”
Charlie pulls out a faded picture from his old tattered coat. Most of the color from the photo is gone, just mere outlines of what was there. A smile creeps to his weather worn mouth. Finally, he thinks to himself, I got to see my lil’ boy all grown up. He quietly puts the photo away, as his friend is still ranting about not stealing from the ‘stranger’.
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