Designer Trash Bags

I often see a homeless man on my way to work wearing a trash bag. It’s a nice trash bag but not a high end designer trash bag. It is a sensible trash bag and the type of trash bag I would wear if I wore trash bags.

His hair and beard are tangled together with the muddy glue of time and perspiration and in the strong summer heat flies orbit his head like tiny satellites. When I sit at a stoplight near the railroad station he is often there pacing back and forth with ten or fifteen newspapers in his arms—obviously lifted from sidewalks and doorways of regular subscribers. “God likes bacon,” he repeats over and over again.

Today I took the highway to work because I had to stop at the shoe repair store. As I slowed to take my exit down Second Street I saw him. He was walking on the cement divider in the middle of the highway, newspapers in hand. His balance was exquisite, his concentration unbreakable. The cars and trucks rushing by him did nothing to impede his progress. Suddenly he stopped and balancing on one leg he set the newspapers down on the divider one on top of the other. If I weren’t driving and needing both hands to steer my car I would have applauded him.

Traffic was horrible and my car slowed to a stop next to him. I fought the impulse to quickly roll up my window.

“Good morning,” I said.

He nodded, picked up one of his newspapers and handed it to me. I took it. “Thanks?”

His hand was still outstretched and it was then that I realized how he paid for such fine trash bags…