Bruce’s eyes had started to grow bleary eyed from the whisky he hadn’t even noticed the teacher approach him until she had pulled up alongside the bench.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said tentatively, and he recognized she was doing her best to be overly polite while she spoke to him because the way her eyes scanned him over told him she viewed him as lower than dirt.
At that moment, for the first time in (…weeks?…months?) he felt sheepish for drinking out of a bottle this early in the day. It felt heavy in his hand, but he didn’t want to let it go either.
It was one of his few worldly possessions.
She cleared her throat. “Sir,” she said a little louder, even though they both knew he’d heard her the first time. Bruce knew she wasn’t going to just walk away, and turned his head as slightly as he could. She understood it at as the only acknowledgement she was going to get.
“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to leave for a little while,” she said. “You’re frightening the children.”
Bruce’s bleary eyes drifted back across the park. The kids that weren’t still trying to feed the ducks were playing tag, or eating their lunches. The few that were facing his direction were too absorbed in their own worlds to notice he was there.
“They don’t look scared,” he said, not bringing his eyes back to her.
The teacher sighed so deeply Bruce would’ve thought she leaned over to exhale directly into his ear. His skin crawled as he felt her eyes examining him, and the bugs that had nested in his scraggly beard a couple weeks ago felt like they were gnawing on his chin again.
“Well, you’re scaring me.”
Bruce pursed his lips. It both felt ages ago and not that long ago that he would’ve been approaching a woman like her at a bar on a Friday during happy hour. She would have gone out with a couple friends from work not looking to meet anyone, just to “unwind.” It felt like bragging now thinking he could have picked her up, gotten her number. Even if she turned him down, it had always been thrilling going for it when someone caught her eye.
His barhopping days had been back when he had an intoxicating confidence about him after long hours at the office. Now he couldn’t get out in and out of the liquor store fast enough, especially if there was more than just the cashier in there.
“I scared you into coming all the way over to tell me I’m scaring you?” he challenged.
He could feel her whole body stiffen in frustration that he wasn’t complying with what she thought was a very reasonable request, and his own frustrations started to surface. Bruce finally turned to face her, fighting the urge to look away from her eyes.
It’d been a while since he’d looked someone directly in the eyes.
“This is where I live now lady,” he growled at her. “It’s not my choice, but it’s what I got. This bench,” he patted the rumpled newspapers, “is what I have to settle for as a bed. If I get up and leave, there’s a good chance it’s claimed by someone else by the time I get back. If I’m lucky, it’s someone who just wanted to come to the park for the day, but then I have to wait for them to leave until I can get it back. But it might be taken by someone else who’s also looking for a place to use as a bed for the night. So realize what you’re asking. You want me to clear out while the kids are here, but you’re acting like I’ve got another place to go. And you’re not just asking me to stay on my feet until it suits you, but possibly give up a bed for the night.
“So, if you were in my shoes,” and he involuntarily wriggled his toes to see how deteriorated his footwear had become, recognizing he’d have to fish through the garbage for another pair soon, “would you risk all of that just because you were scaring someone?”