“I’m very sorry that this is what you have to settle for as a bed,” she said, though her face looked anything but sympathetic. At facing his initial resistance, her cheeks had started to blossom into muted reds. But now that he’d stood his ground after she had tried a second time, her whole face had turned a dark crimson.
Bruce could tell before she even got the words out that she was still going to insist that he leave.
“But I’d just really appreciate it if you could move along until we’re gone.”
Seeing him fight back a smile didn’t improve her mood in the slightest. He couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care either. It felt good, watching his predictions come true. It made him believe he could still read a situation, still forecast the results.
A sense of vindication pulsed through him, reinforcing his belief that he should’ve never been fired.
“I know you’re giving up a lot, stepping away from this park bench, but maybe it’ll give you a better perspective,” she said. Bemused, he turned to her, his silence imploring her to go on. Her eyes went wide when she realized he was putting her on the spot, waiting for her to provide more.
“You could…” she stammered for a moment, before regaining herself. “Maybe it’ll be good to stop wallowing in your own self-pity all day. Maybe you lose claim to this bench, but if you do, you’ll see it’s not that big a loss because it wasn’t that much to begin with.”
That cut deep. Bruce knew better than most of the vagrants who slept in the park how little the bench really was because he once had more than they ever did.
“Maybe you’ll see the reason you ended up on this bench was your own doing.”
That was where he drew the line.
“What could I have done differently?” he shot back at her.
“What?”
“What could I have done differently?” he repeated, more collected this time around, but his voice cooler.
“Well, I mean…I don’t…” she let her voice trail off as she glanced over her shoulder, looking to her colleagues for help. They were busy yapping with one another, still none of them intervening with the kids and the ducks.
She turned back to him. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you,” she admitted, but the way she spoke made it sound like she expected him to justify her point for her.
“That’s right, you don’t,” he said, before taking a swig of the whisky he kept in his paper bag. He frowned when he felt how light it was. Not so much an idea, but a high popped into his head. He’d gotten such a rush when he guessed correctly she’d still push for him to leave that he wanted to chase that feeling.
It was one of the few good thoughts he’d had since he’d taken up residence in the park.
“Tell you what, I’ll leave,” he saw, relishing the way she perked up before he dropped the ultimatum. “For twenty bucks.”
Her eyes dropped down to the bottle he kept in the brown paper bag. “You’ll just drink it all.”
Bruce shrugged. “What’ll you care? I’ll be gone.”
She glared at him for the longest time. He got the impression she regarded herself as a princess, expecting everything her heart desired the moment she asked for it. He almost barked out a laugh thinking she was the kind of girl he used to try to pick up in bars, drawn to that insatiable thirst of wanting, taking it up as a challenge to try to deliver their every demand for as long as he could.
When he refused to look away, she finally fished through her purse. “All I’ve got is a ten.” He snatched it from her and sprung from the bench in the same fluid motion.
Still got it.