The City(2)

“I’m hungry,” Ben says, rubbing his eyes. “Hey, Naz, do you have any money on you?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Of course I don’t. We’ve been walking for days without work or money in return for it. And when you have somewhere to be, you can’t just sit around with a jingling cup for a day or two and hope that you’ll still get there on schedule.

“Ugh. Well, do you want to steal something?”

“No.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“That’s rhetorical,” I say, because I can’t imagine Ben, for all his gruffness, stealing anything. And my knees are too stiff for running today.

Ben taps his staff on the ground- knock- and raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure?” knock.

I nod.

“‘Gods, I could eat you right now,” he muses. “ You’d probably taste a little stringy, no offense.... Naz, would you mind if I ate you?”

I nod again, smiling a little now. My hair, which is thin and yellow, falls over my face, and I tuck it back behind my shoulder.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure.”

The alleyway we’re walking down now opens into a small square, already starting to trickle with early risers, bordering the edges. Figures in dull, tar-stained clothing unraveling equally dirty tarps and scraps of tin for tables. Wares wrapped in spare bits of cloth and string. Dead squirrels and rats, the odd fox, hanging by bound legs, eyes open and watching the ground, unwaveringly, like gods.

I point to an old woman, who’s have trouble setting up her tent, and I head in that direction. Ben hurries in front of me--with a subtle knock on the back of my legs. He just likes being in front of me. It’s okay now, though, because he’s better at talking.

“Excuse me, ma’am, could you use some help with that?” He says, both hands politely folded around his staff. The woman looks up. She’s frail and small, with concave cheeks, a wide forehead, and an oversize nose and ears. One of her eyes is dull with cataracts, but the other, amber, assesses us sharply.

“Ack.” she says. “You tramps.” She waves us away with a knobby hand, and bends over stiffly, reaching for the sack that carries her makeshift tent… and promptly falls, letting out a weak grunt. Ben’s staff knocks in time with the collision of her head to the ground. Far from cordial now, he looks stonily amused, motionless.

I offer my hand to the woman, but she bats it away and scrambles with difficulty to her feet. “Tramp,” she repeats. She cracks her neck loudly. “I don’t have cash--” Ben and I look at each other, dubious, but she continues, “ but it’s a wet day and my bones ache. I can spare some you food, if that’s what you’re after. Not much, but you’re the kind that looks like you’ll take what you can get, eh. Get that pole over there?” She points to a pole poking from the tent-bag, and I, the empty stomach churning with anticipation, move to grab it.

“Not you,” she says to me, flashing a yellow smirk. “You’ll break a bone. Skinny thing, you are.”

Figures.

Ben shrugs, and picks up the the pole, one handed, with ease. It’s odd how sturdy he appears, even though he eats just as much-- as little-- as I do-- and I can feel a sharp outline of my ribs beneath my skin.

I’ve always been like this, a runt, and in more than one sense of the word. I didn’t talk until I was five years old.

I stagnate, observe. The square is still dim, the sunlight overhead just skimming the tops of the buildings framing it. There’s a grimy fountain in the middle, a large and ugly one with flowering weeds growing out of the cracks. Water has not come out of it in a long, long time.

“Not like that,” The woman barks at Ben, about the way he’s handling the construction. “You turn it the other way. It’s up-and-down… idiot. The thinner sticks go sideways.”

Ben knocks irritably.