New Year Steve

‘The problem is you don’t want to work,’ Eddie slurred, zipping up his flies. ‘Here, here, here…I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you this dollar,’ he unrolled one from a gold clip, ‘if you can tell me why you don’t have a job, eh?’ He waved it back and forth slowly in front of the man’s unflinching eyes.

Eddie pulled the collar on his Burberry trench coat up further around his ears, a barrier against the harsh bite of the winter sleet falling steadily onto him. And the man sat silently at his feet. He held a cardboard sign, on it was handwritten:

My name is Steve. I am a veteran. Please give as little as you can. Thank you and God Bless.’

Eddie took a pull on a silver hip flask, newly engraved with ‘Salesman of the Year 1999’. He proffered it downwards towards Steve.

‘No? Trying to give up, eh? Good man, good man,’ Eddie said.

The Times Square clock flickered between 01:00 and -12 Degrees. A faint hint of fireworks hung in the air, a whiff of sulphur frozen in the mizzle. Ticker tape was stranded in gutters and formed tentative bridges over the bars of the drains studding the centre of the alley off Broadway. Steve’s beard held tiny jewels of frost, gems adorning a face devoid of any wealth, skinny with lack of any sustenance or substance.

‘Yes, the war was horrible. Well, boo hoo, I was away two weeks out of every four this year, flying across twenty states. Sometimes the room wasn’t cleaned for days, the same filthy sheets night after night. And I had to share them some nights, know what I mean, eh, eh?’ Eddie said, nudging an elbow in the air, laughing at the memory of drunken fumbles under the motel duvet, sometimes free, sometimes on expenses.

The salesman pulled a battered pack of Marlborough Lights from his fur lined pocket, tapped one into the crook between his finger and thumb, then pushed it clumsily into his mouth.

‘You want one? No, giving up, eh? Good man, good man,’ Eddie said, impressed with Steve’s stoicism. ‘No, no, no….wait, let me finish. I know it’s hard.’ He bent over at the waist now, speaking more softly. ‘I know it’s hard, but you should get out there, put yourself about, you know, be useful.’

Eddie moved his hand to pat Steve’s shoulder but missed and stumbled, twisting to one side, left shoulder coming over the top of his right. He caught himself at the last moment, missed Steve, and pulled himself upright.

The snow fell harder, drifting on the lids of bins against brick walls, like sea foam from a warmer place. Discarded flyers eddied along the corridor, sweeping in circles along it’s length before they were trapped, flat out against the mesh of the wire fence at the far end. Voices drifted down from the entrance to the alley, high pitched screams against the wind, directions shouted for the next bar. The blast of air would be felt from the vents above the doors, pins and needles emerging with the change in temperature. There was no such comfort in the passage, where Eddie persisted in his interrogation.

‘Nothing to say, eh, cat got your tongue?’ Eddie said, and put the dollar back in his pocket. ‘Well, you’re not getting this. Scum.’ Eddie spat, and walked away, meandering back up the alley, haloed by the lights of Broadway.

The veteran’s eyes remained frozen open. His hand remained outstretched. He’d been like that for an hour now. Since his heart slowed. Slowed, slowed. Stuttered and stopped.