This one is not really a story but I wrote it so you get to read it. The inspiration for it was a trip home at 4 AM after cleaning my father in law's bar after it closed. While stopped at a stop light I saw a person laying in a doorway and seemed to be trying to cover themselves with the old sport coat that they were wearing. I went home and wrote this down.

THE STREET

Raindrops make a pattering sound on the sidewalk in front of an abandoned doorway. A steel door that once provided an entrance to the old hardware building has been permanently bolted so that no entrance or exit is any longer possible. The brick walls that make up three sides of the alcove protecting the door are dirty with the dust that has attached itself to urine stains that start waist high and then run down the walls to the concrete porch. All of this has become the habitat of a lonely creature wearing an old sport coat, black work pants and a tattered pair of tennis shoes who lies sleeping in that portion of the opening that he has designated as his bedroom. But for the occupant of the small man made cave there would be no need for this opening or for the building that surrounds it for that matter. The current owner has talked about tearing it down but that doesn't make economic sense because there is no demand for a new one on the site and razing it would be cost prohibitive. Besides there is still a little bit of depreciation left in it.

A car makes a whooshing sound as it travels through the water on Burnside Street a block away. During the day you wouldn't hear a single car that far away but there isn't a lot of sound in the city at 3 O’clock in the morning. If you listen closely you do hear a lot of little noises. A train whistles from the east side somewhere, some people arguing a couple of blocks away and the occasional automobile on one of the main streets. The bundle in the doorway doesn't care though, his two sedative bottles lay empty on the sidewalk just outside his abode. One is a quart of Thunderbird the other’s label simply says; 'wine'. He moves a little bit trying to put his hand under his head in order to use it for a pillow. But, alas, he can't pull it up far enough; the old sport coat is caught under his hip and is restricting the movement of his shoulder. He tries one more time and then the movement stops.

A lone figure walks out of the adult book store across the street, stopping just long enough to see if anyone is watching, then, satisfied that he has not been seen he walks down the street, with his head down, to his waiting car. He drives down the deserted side street to a main avenue that will take him to his home and his warm, dry bed. His visit to the dark side is over.

The neon sign on the front of the store, the street lights at every second telephone pole and a security light from the furniture warehouse a half a block away provide the illusion that it is still day. The street, however, is empty of traffic and of parked cars, leaving the unused parking meters standing in a uniform row along each side of the street. A motorist would salivate at the sight of an empty ninety minute space if it were daytime, but now no one cares. Certainly not the creature in the cave, but then he doesn't care during the day.

He, there isn't any indication that the pronoun fits, but if one were to analyze the unmoving bundle in the doorway there likely would be no need to assign a name to it no matter how general it might be. There are hundreds of these 'street people' visible during the day. So what happens to them at night? The lady with the Safeway shopping cart walks to the Morrison bridge ramp and pushes her cart between the concrete abutment and the loose wire of the fence designed to keep her out. She carefully parks it at the far side of the enclosure so that no one can steal her prize possessions. She carefully pulls some folded plastic material from the bottom rack of the cart and spreads it out on the ground, taking care that nothing is left under it, and then places a half a dozen paper grocery bags end to end on top of it. The completion of this task constitutes the turning down of her bed. She doesn't need the wine sedative of the doorway person. All she needs is a lullaby, which she provides herself. A few soft choruses of a tune that she used to sing to her children barely gurgles from her throat, a lump forms and a single tear provides the only emotion left in her. And then; sleep.

The man known as 'chief' simply lies on his side next to the foundation of a building nearest to the spot where he gets tired. The other street people call him chief because he is obviously an Indian. No one knows what kind, or really cares. Chief may not remember himself. A sixteen year old boy finds refuge behind the shrubs of the downtown library, a group of men walk down the stairway on the East side of the bridge to lay on the dry dirt under it, and two fellows who have known each other for some time walk down a trail through some blackberry vines in Sullivan’s gulch to their cottage; a conglomeration of boards, cardboard, plastic and paper that they have built surreptitiously over time and under the cover of the brush.

The rain is falling harder now, washing the streets. Streets that have not had a sweeper on them for a week. Rinsing the urine from the doorways and sidewalks, washing the dirt, paper, leaves and excrement down the drains, making them clean again.

Rain, it is the only clean thing that happens to this part of town, the only cleansing that these people can get. But they're missing it, they are hiding from it. Under their bridges, and in their doorways, in their makeshift shelters and under their bushes, they're missing it. They're missing the shower that could make them clean. Well, they don't have towels anyway, how would they get dry? I guess that they'll just stay dirty, on the dirty streets, under the dirty bridges, in the dirty doorways, in this dirty part of town.

So who really cares about them anyway???????

By Everett Ede

I have been silent for too long. So now I will inundate you with my previously written short stories and when I run out of them I will start making up new ones.

The first one was written many years ago when I was taking creative writing in college. I got an A and it was included in the school publication. No money though.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

BY

EVERETT D. EDE

It's two A.M. on a Sunday morning. The state of the world is of no concern to me because I am sleeping soundly in my very comfortable bed.

"Ring. Ring. Ring!" I roll over and instinctively turn off the alarm. "Ring! Ring!" Its the telephone. I sit up on the bed and reach the distance across the night stand for the receiver. Lifting it to my ear; "This better be good!" I say into the receiver.

"Uh, Dad?" A meek voice on the other end sounding vaguely familiar.

"There are two possibilities of that being a correct statement. Either one of them will spell disaster for the person on the other end of this line." I say angrily

"I know I'm in trouble, but I need a ride home."

"Home? But, Ethan you are home. You're in your bed right now."

"Come on dad, I'm having enough trouble without dealing with your sarcasm. Will you come and get me?" The stress in his voice relieves my anger and replaces it with concern.

"Where Are you?"

"I'm at the intersection of 148th and Stark."

"Okay". I say with just a little disgust. "I'll be right there."

"I don't know what I'm going to do with that kid. First he skips a grade because he is so bright and now that he is a senior in high school he seems to have turned into a moron. From a 4.0 GPA to a 2.0 in one year." I am mumbling to myself since there is no one else here to listen to me. "A single parent raising a teenage son should get combat pay." I say with a little disgust.

"My son went into combat when he was a teenager."

The voice startles me. I turn on the light and am ready to defend my household to this intruder, but.... There isn't anyone in the room. I must have been dreaming.

"You're not going to listen to me now either are you?" the disembodied voice says.

"What in the hell is going on here? Who's there?" I wonder if I am talking to myself.

"You know, Everett it's actually kind of fun watching you deal with the problems that Ethan is having. It's kind of like deja vu, but not quite because, I'm dead so the term doesn't fit."

Now I see the image of my father sitting on my bed, his right hand stroking his van dyke beard and the light shining off of his bald head. He is thin but not as thin as the last time I saw him in the hospital. He was dying of cancer and had no substance to his body at all then.

"Did you miss me?" He asks in his normal satirical manner.

"Uh, This isn't happening."

"Well actually it is, but you won't acknowledge it now or later. But let’s cut the bull shit and get down to the problem. My grandson sneaked out of the house and took your spitfire for a joy ride."

"Is he all right?" What am I saying? This isn't real so how would he know if Ethan is all right.

"He's just fine", he says. "Are you going to get dressed so that we can go get him or are you going to go like that?"

"Well since I am naked I guess it would be a good idea to get dressed."

My father has been dead for six years and I'm talking to him in the middle of the night, I think that I've finally gone off the deep end. I continue to look at the bed as I get dressed hoping that I won't see anything, but he is still sitting there looking just like I remember him. He has even retained the ornery gleam in his eye.

"Okay let's go." I say to him and then wonder why I am talking to him at all. Maybe it's the stress that Ethan has just put on me. It must have done something to my psyche.

In the car now and driving toward the appointed intersection.

"What are you going to do to him?" He says.

"Well he is going to be grounded for the rest of the year and I am going to take his drivers license away from him."

"Ooh, that's original. Do you think it will work?"

"It better work or he'll be sorry."

"Did it work when I did it to you?"

"What?"

"I said did it work when I did the same thing to you for doing exactly the same thing to me?"

"This isn't a dream is it?"

"Answer my question first."

"No it didn't." I say remembering now of the time that I sneaked out of the house when I was a junior in high school and took my fathers car out for a joy ride. "Is this something that Ethan is going to have to deal with when his son is in high school?"

"Maybe not the same incident, but yes he will. You see son Ethan has reached an age where it has become important for him to become a man, and since he isn't allowed to be a man yet he has to sneak out to do the things that men do."

"But I am letting him grow up." I say sincerely.

"No your not, you only think that you are."

"Are you telling me that I am treating him in just the same way that I was treated when I was his age?"

"For the most part you are. You do some things different due to conscious thought and others because you didn't think that I was right in what I did."

"Well then what do you think that I should do about this incident?" As long as he's here I might as well get some advice.

"I think that you should talk to him, without yelling at him and let him know that you know that he is becoming a man that he needs to be more responsible in order to get some of the privileges that he wants to have as a man."

"You mean just like you used to talk to me?"

"God! I don't know where you got that sarcastic tongue." He reacts to my jab.

"Then it must have been from mom right." My mother is the most passive and gentle person on the face of the earth and he knows it.

"No doubt," He says, trying to skirt the subtle attack.

"Okay I'll talk to him and I won't yell at him. Say since you knew that Ethan was in trouble you probably know other things too. Right?"

"Yes I can see the future. Why?"

"Who's going to win the super bowl?"

"Good bye son."

"Don't want to tell me huh? Well that’s okay I'll think of something else. Dad? Dad?" He's gone. Right out of the car. What am I talking about he was never here. I was just imagining everything.

I turn the corner from Stark street onto 148th and see my spitfire in the closed service station parked next to the gas pumps as though waiting for gasoline and the hood is up indicating engine trouble. Ethan is sitting in it, arms folded across his chest and his head down as if in prayer. His hair is messed and his jacket is beside him on the seat as though he has been having a rough time with the car. He doesn't move even as I get out of the car and walk over to him.

"Nice night?" I say with just a touch of sharpness in my voice.

He looks up at me without saying a word and then gets out of the car.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I don't know! It just quit." His defenses are up as high as he can get them.

"You have to put gas in these things to get them to run."

"I know that. Do you think that I'm stupid?"

"No Ethan I don't think that you are stupid. I think that you are extremely intelligent and that's why I find this incident as well as some other recent problems that we have had so puzzling."

"What do you mean?"

"I know that you are growing up and I know that you want to get out of high school and on with your life but logic should tell you that you can't avoid the rest of your teenage years just because you want to."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I went thought exactly the same things that you are going through. I survived them and so did my dad. You will get through it and so will I and then you can do the same thing with your son. And through all of the arguments and disagreements we can all still love each other."

"You mean that you're not mad at me?"

"I am madder than hell at you. But I still love you."

"Am I grounded?"

"No. but you have to come back here in the morning, get my car, get it home and then you have to fix it."

"Yeah. Okay". He says excitedly. And then... "Are you all right dad?"

"Yes Ethan I am just fine. Let's go home. I'm tired."

As we get in the car to leave I notice a man standing at the bus stop, which seems strange since the buses quit running about two hours ago. I glance over at him as we drive past and I see my father smiling at me. I look at Ethan and when he looks back at me I pass the smile along.