Kim Jongin

 

Mornings are cold and dreary when you live on the streets, if recognizable as mornings at all. Sometimes, time of day is so indistinguishable that the days blend together like watercolor paint. Morning can have any array of colors splashed against the sky; shades of pale yellow and heavenly light blue bleed against the emerging sun. The night had been a deep violet having yellowish specks dashed upon its dark canvas. An occasional beige specimen waltzes past my station. Having been left alone with my thoughts for too long, it’s nice people-watching, even if only for a moment before I retreat back into the alleyway.

I look down; my palms are caked in dust and dirt. Most of my nails are short, ragged from scraping against walls or pavement, or from scratching anxiously at skin—a nasty habit I had picked up a few years back. The red blanket in which I cradle my body is warm, but not warm enough for the cold, early-spring morning that is plaguing us street dwellers. We have experienced a very uncharacteristically dreadful winter, a very unwanted thing--or so said the shivering, nearly-purple bodies of the others like me-- and the transition into springtime hasn’t given us any hint of warm weather to come.

The sun is peeking out from behind the tall buildings of the cityscape. Some light hits my forehead and for once I feel relief from the cold: just for a moment. Gradually, the sun retreats back to behind the clouds, mocking my frozen situation from a distance. I wait patiently for the day to begin for the others. Through people-watching, I can experience fragments of the real-people life. This helps me to escape the unhappiness of the day to day struggle; if I clean myself up well, I can pass for an ordinary person.

For the last month, I’ve had one morning routine. I meander over to the Black Cat Cafe and hunch over on the bench just outside to watch the people move about. The neighborhoods surrounding the Black Cat Cafe are quirky and characterful, bright colors and personalities abound. Plucky youth dart in and out of the corners of my eyes, and old married couples giggle at years of experiences. Sometimes, there’s a specific boy on whom I train my eyes. He seems my age, maybe not. He searches around for something, typically for an hour or two, looking lost and uncertain. After a while, he retreats, defeated. He sulks away in the opposite direction, awkwardly waddling away.

I find him to be the most amusing of the people I watch. Sometimes, he comes to me in my dreams. erted thoughts aside, his presence in my dreams is often mythical. He floats in and out of my thoughts, poking and prodding at my sides before resigning back into the darkness. He seems rather ordinary, yet he haunts me.

When he retreats, typically so do I. The Black Cat Cafe neighborhood is only interesting for so long before it becomes critically researched canvas with nothing left to give. I huff and return the way I came, kicking up dust with my torn up shoes and traipsing on back to ‘home.’

Sometimes, I manage to find Sehun lurking in the darkness of the alleyways. He sits with the strays, meditating for hours in the sooty corners of the neighborhood. His hair is long and black, cascading past his eyes, his nose, and just hitting his lips. He’s only been out here for about a year, but he’s become so accustomed to the life of a stray. He intimidates many with the presence of his dogs. They bite at most everyone who approaches, and Sehun uses that for protection. He is a wary kid, as he should be.

Today, Sehun eerily lurks nearby, occasionally glancing towards me suspiciously, and somewhat territorially. Often, he is one with the strays. Out here, everyone remains very much to his or herself. When Sehun had arrived, he’d been desperate for nurturing and a sense of family. He’d sought friendship with the skinny, mentally unstable kid who resided down the block; nobody knows his name. The boy had welcomed Sehun, but, after a few days, he’d turned. While they had been sleeping, he had pulled out his knife and masochistically drawn a gash down the length of Sehun’s right arm: from his shoulder, down just below his elbow. Then, he had stolen Sehun’s wallet and disappeared.

In the middle of the night, Sehun had come to me to help him bandage his wound. I had done it reluctantly, but I had also hastened to remind him that I am a lone wolf, and that he should adopt the same lifestyle. And, so he had. He had become one with the strays, untrusting of everyone following his one interaction with that street rat. He’d become alike everyone else on these blocks.

He paces back and forth, marching in and out of the slight piece of morning light that’s found its way into the alley. He’s seemingly weakened in spirit by the absence of his dogs; his body hunches and his eyebrows furrow in thought. Abruptly, he halts and squats next to my blanket. “You hate it here.” He assumes, focused intently on my expression, “You despise it.”

Shifting uncomfortably in my spot, I mutter quietly, “No , Sherlock. Anyone left with an ounce of sanity would detest the conditions we live in.” Honestly, to know someone happy on the streets is to know someone who will never escape this life. It’s the people who find the joy and happiness in sitting, waiting, wishing that stay longest. I’ve discovered anything in my three years, it’s that you should not be happy on the streets; people do not pity happy beggars.

“Do you have anyone else?” I grunt in dismissal but he presses on, “Do you have anyone left to live for?”

“Myself.” I refuse to give up information about my past to Sehun. Street rats are not to be trusted. “What? Is that not enough?” I raise my voice, the reaction to which is a defeated boy slumping even further over. He looks away, long hair falling into his face, concealing his cloudying eyes.

Then, he whimpers. “Jongin, how do you maintain your sanity? I contemplate suicide every single hour of every single day. How can we go on when it’s the same thing day in and day out, with no end in sight? Where’s the point in waking up? Where’s the point in living?” Tears suddenly begin to stream down his cheeks. His eyes turn red. His lower lip quivers.

I pity him. His tears rip through the dirt smudged across his face. Hesitantly, I pat the ground next to me, signaling for him to sit. Without those dogs lurking around, he’s entirely lacking in intimidation. “Don’t call me your friend, but I’ll try to help you. If you kill yourself, who’s going to have to clean up the mess?” It’s a poor attempt at humoring the boy, but it seems to momentarily calm his sobbing. “I can teach you a few tricks, at least so that you don’t totally hate life. To start, please stop crying. It’ll get you nowhere.” He inhales sharply, focusing hard on cheering up. “Am I going to have to slap you?” He panics and pulls back, vigorously shaking his head. “Okay. Stand up. We’re going to the river. You’re an absolute mess.”

    He talks to me about nonsensical things. He focuses on the sights and smells out of the alleyway, as if he’s always lived there, and marvels at the tedious life of the people walking past. The smell of street food briefly invigorates him, the fragrances of kimchi and onion drifting through the air. Busy city folk rush forward towards the city, running late for their jobs. When we arrive at the babbling waterway, I’m tempted to push him in with how unkempt and muddy he is, but I do not. He’s in a vulnerable state; shoving him into the river could unleash a whole other set of emotions for him. And, there’s always the chance of hypothermia.

Further down the road, away from passing pedestrians, I motion for him to kneel in front, cautioning him about the temperature of the water.     In another attempt to lighten his mood, I ask, “What ever happened to your dogs? You had a whole pack of them following you around not too long ago. Where’d they all disappear to?”

    “I pissed one of them off and they all me. I stepped on the big black one’s tail...” He rolls back his sleeves and tentatively grabs at the water in the river, splashing it haphazardly across his face. The muddied water slowly drips off his face, onto the ground in front of Sehun, and some semblance of a clean face begins to emerge. However, the boy is biting his lower lip in pain and shivering as a result of the wintery water temperature. Eventually, when his hands and clothes are presentable, I knock him in the back and beckon for us to move on towards the center of the city, to my favorite place: the Black Cat Cafe.

    I am worried about showing him this place because it is special to me, but I can see that this boy needs some guidance and a sense of livelihood again. I question why I am being nice to him; is it because I see flickers of my former, innocent self in his eyes? Three years ago, I was him, although with more nerve and gumption. Neither of us have been involved with drugs, alcohol or any other influences that might’ve landed us out here. Rather, we were both dealt a hand of bad luck. In that way, we are similar, and I feel some small pull to help him as a result. The streets have worn me in somewhat, but not completely; somewhere buried, I might still have a heart.

We become one with the flurry of people frantically pacing to work, women in intimidatingly high heels and sharp blazers, men carrying seemingly important briefcases and wearing uniform black ties. All bring with them an air of confidence that Sehun and I presumably lack, as eyes suspiciously glance at the two of us in the crowd. I hold my breath; people don’t look at me like this at the square over at the Black Cat Cafe. I have to wait for the relief that comes when I’m not seen as a crook, a criminal, or socially-excluded.

    “Where are we going?” Sehun asks after a period of following me unquestionably. Suddenly, he grabs his stomach and it gurgles in protest of exercise and starvation, “I think I need to find food.”

I pause, letting the crowd pass us, wondering where the closest Soup Kitchen might be. As it is obviously morning, I realize that only some of them serve breakfast. “I think there’s a Soup Kitchen a couple of blocks east. I went there for dinner a few times. Maybe it’ll have breakfast.” I take a sharp turn at the corner, changing route for the Soup Kitchen as my stomach also starts to growl. I try to avoid day dreaming about food in fear that the Soup Kitchen won’t be open.

As we turn the corner, both Sehun and I breathe large sigh of relief as we witness several people moving in and out of the Soup Kitchen a few doors down. This is life, hoping and praying that we will be able to eat something without begging on the streets. As a very prideful person, the feeling of begging is the worst thing imaginable.

The room is basic in design and cold in feeling. Very few people converse as they scarf down their meals. Sehun and I silently step into line, eyeing each other awkwardly. A few of the older men in the room scan us cautiously before returning to their food. Sehun and I are handed plates of rice, meat, some type of bland soup and a few side dishes.

    While the soup is bland, and the Kimchi side dishes maybe too spicy, the meat tastes exactly how my grandmother made it years ago. Orphaned at an early age by my parents in an unfortunate accident, I had lived with her into my early teens. She had been old, but spunky, and had made some of the best food I will ever eat. Yet, eventually she too succumbed to death and left me permanently without a guardian. From that moment on, I had been on my own. The foster system hadn’t been kind to me and at age eighteen, I’d been gracelessly kicked out into the world on my own with no prospects and a lack of a High School diploma.

    Sehun’s particularly quiet, smiling in between bites of side dishes. It’s incredible that the little things like like food bring him this much happiness. “I see you.” He catches me staring at him from across the table and then he chuckles. He begins to speak softly, yet energetically nonetheless, “I used to be fairly good at cooking; I wanted to be a chef for the longest time. But, now I’m here.” He says it emotionlessly, eyes focused on the food in front of him, “Once upon a time all I wanted was to work in a five star restaurant. You know, one of those that serve foam foods or whatever. Now, honestly, I think it would be great to work or volunteer for a Soup Kitchen or something. Feed the masses, not the 1%, you know?”

    “I guess.” I play with the spoon and my soup, “Do what you want.” I believe I see him retreat into himself at my suddenly cold behaviour. It’s a purposeful reminder that we aren’t friends, merely allies in our current situation.

    Mindlessly glancing across the room, my eyes dart to a young man, about my age, maybe older, wearing an apron. He’s scanning the room curiously until he sees me staring at him. Immediately, he breaks his curious peering and scampers back to work in the kitchen. Before he pushes through the kitchen doors, he peeks just once more with a heavy expression of pity painted on his face. Everyone tends to be surprised as how young I am-- how young we are-- especially those of the same age. I get a lot of those looks during the few times when I sit on the busier streets and beg.

    Sehun follows my line of sight and also watches the retreating boy with intrigue. He quietly murmurs, “It’s weird to think that, with a little luck, I could have been him.” I nod silently in agreement. Although our circumstances are unique, we have both been dealt a bad hand. Perhaps when we are older, we’ll forget about this unfortunate, albeit strengthening time in our lives, but for now it is a very true and testing reality, of which we have to make sense each day, and from which Sehun and I are both desperate to escape.