The Measure of Time

Nicky watched the sand slide through her fingers and wondered how anyone could have imagined using it to measure time. How had a person known that the tiny grains could represent moments, passing cool and detached through the narrow opening of the hourglass?

She grabbed another handful and studied the three streams as they escaped her grip. That was easier to understand. She'd watched her life slip away, seeping from the top to the bottom, noiselessly and barely noticed.

The last grains trickled through her fingers and she became aware that the sun had begun to set. Sliding downward into the ocean it made its exit more slowly than the sand. The sun, a grain of sand in the vast universe would leave as quietly as Nicky thought the years had done.

She was a very young girl the first time she came to the beach. She remembered the same sand, sun, and water, but she remembered a sense of hope, a promise of life and accomplishments. Tomorrow she would turn sixty and that was her sole accomplishment—she had survived.

"Hi, can I sit with you?" The girl's voice startled her and Nicky climbed to her knees. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Do you want me to go away?"

"No, please don't, I'm afraid I was lost in thought. Go ahead and sit down. What's your name?" Nicky looked around the beach but didn't see anyone else. "Are you here alone?"

The girl looked confused. "I'm here with you."

"Yes, but I mean…" the girl seemed capable enough, and she probably lived nearby. "My name is Nicole, but most people call me Nicky. What's your name?"

She shrugged as if the question wasn't relevant. "You can call me, Sissy, if you like. What are you doing out here by yourself?"

"Just thinking about things, life, I guess. Take my advice, Sissy, and do everything you want to do. At least give it a try, or your life will be over and you'll have done nothing."

"What are you going to do with your life?"

"Me?" Nicky said, incredulously. "It's too late for me to do anything. I'm going to be sixty tomorrow."

"What if you live to be ninety? Will you go the next thirty years without doing what you want? I'm ten, but what if I was going to die at fifteen, should I just sit around for the next five years pouting?"

"You're not going to die at fifteen." Nicky was shocked at what the child said. She was also surprised at the wisdom in such a young girl.

"That doesn't matter, Nicky. None of us know when we're going to die, so how can we decide when it's time to stop living? What did you want to do when you were my age?"

Nicky looked at her and smiled. She'd asked herself that question many times. "I wanted to write books. I wanted to make up stories about people and places and make them real for others to share." Nicky saw Sissy open her mouth and held up her hand. "I know what you're going to ask. I didn't do it because stuff came up that I had to take care of and there wasn't time to follow my dream. There wasn't money, either."

"How much does it cost to write?" Sissy was sincere.

"Well, writing doesn't cost anything, but to publish something, unless you can find a publisher to pay for it." Nicky shrugged and thought about Sissy's comments. She was right. She had come up with excuses for not following her dream. Was she afraid to fail?  "You caught me, Sissy. I always had reasons not to start." She looked out and saw the last of the sun dipping into the ocean. She'd not even noticed that the darkness began to overtake them. "Sissy, you better go home. Your parents will wonder where you are."

Sissy had folded her bare feet under her when she sat, but now she stretched out her long thin legs. "How will you celebrate your birthday tomorrow?"

"I hadn't thought about it. Maybe I'll stay here a few minutes and reflect. Thanks for your advice, Sissy." She watched the girl hold up a handful of sand. The streams seemed impossibly thin and as slow and thick as molasses. The sight mesmerized Nicky and she watched until her hand emptied. "Who are you, Sissy?"

Again, she shrugged at the irrelevancy. "It's who you are that matters, Nicky. The sand will always be here for you to measure the length of your life, but it can’t measure the quality."

Nicky lay back and put her arm over her eyes to think about what the child had said. She knew she had only a short time to walk back to her car before it became completely dark, but she needed a minute.

"Hey, Lady." A voice sounded above her. "You can't sleep here all night. Do you have somewhere to go?"

Nicky looked up a young police officer. She realized she must have fallen asleep and climbed to her feet, brushing the sand off her clothes. "Oh, yes, I do officer. I live nearby. I must have dozed off. Where did Sissy go? The blond girl?"

"I didn't see any kids. Is she yours?"

"No, I thought…." She looked around and didn't see any lights on neighboring houses. "Her parents must have come for her. I'll be fine officer, but could you walk me back to my car please?" As they followed the beam of his flashlight, Nicky saw a set of smaller footprints along the edge of the ocean. She shook her head and wondered if it had been a dream.

"You sure you're going to be okay?" He pushed her car door shut.

"Yes, I'm sure. Tomorrow is my sixtieth birthday and I plan to have one hell of a being born celebration. Thanks officer." She turned to the beach and saw someone waving. "Thanks, Sissy." She waved back and avoided the officer's look as she drove off. With one last glance at the beach, she merged onto the highway. "What a birthday present. She not only gave me the incentive, but she gave me my first short story. Thanks, Sissy."

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out

Jodie packed up her guitar and searched for Mario, the club’s owner. Reasonably certain that she had played her last gig, she wanted to make sure he paid her. She found him in a dark corner talking to a scrawny blond in a dress Jodie figured she applied with a roller rather than pulled on over her head. A roller that ran dry before it completely covered her thong.

"Hey, Mario, I’m finished. You owe me $120 for tonight."

"I don’t know if I should pay you for that last set. You were shitty."

"Yeah, I get that way when I have to dodge beer bottles."

"It was only one, and you could have ignored the jerk. I bet he wouldn’t a thrown it if you didn’t flip him off."

"Can you pay me?" While he went to the cash register, Jodie looked around at the crowd. In the few years she’d been playing there, stiletto heels and sequence dresses had replaced jeans and tennis shoes. The style of music the crowd wanted changed, too. Not just in Mario’s club, but all around Chicago. Acoustic guitars, banjos, harmonicas, and stand up bass fiddles faced fierce competition from electric bands and screaming groupies.

The rest of Jodie’s band had already seen the future and made the switch to hard rock instead of the traditional folk and blues they’d played. Jodie could listen to rock, but she had no desire to play it. When they asked her to stay with the band, she told them no, and they went on without her. It might have been professional suicide, but she thought giving up the music she loved would have been a suicide of the soul. Now, she wondered if she might have blown it. At forty, going back to school to start a new career wasn’t likely. All she wanted was to play her music, but if bars and clubs no longer wanted acoustic music, they no longer wanted her.

"Here." Mario handed her six twenties. "I’ll call you when I need you again."

"Right." She slid the money in the back pocket of her jeans and left.

The temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees since she arrived three hours earlier. As Jodie turned toward the bus stop, she saw that a light snow had covered everything in a thin white blanket. She looked over her shoulder and laughed at the lone footprints that followed her. If I had a camera, I’d take a picture and call it ‘Portrait of a musician out of step with the times’. When she turned back, her foot slipped on the icy covering and she hit the sidewalk.

"Ouch." Jodie laid her hand on the back of her head and looked around to see if anyone saw the down and out musician fall on her ass. She struggled to her knees, leaned on the guitar case, and pushed herself up to a standing position. As she finished brushing off the snow, she looked up to see the bus arriving.

Her big box Guild guitar and the hard shell case weighed almost twenty pounds and it took a little effort to lift it and climb the stairs. She ran her pass through the fare box and watched the silent red light on the top turn green, to urge her along. The satisfying ‘kchink’ of quarters dropping through the slot met the same fate as her music.

She turned from the driver and saw only one other passenger. A large African American woman sat on the first side seat. She filled a large part of the bench and looked up as Jodie boarded. "Ah, a musician. You any good or you just carry that thing around for show?"

Jodie sat on the bench seat opposite her and slid her guitar underneath. The woman had knitting needles in her hands and a colorful piece of fabric in her lap. Jodie’s first thought was of Madame DeFarge from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. That makes sense. Blues and folk music will soon join Madame at the guillotine. "I think I’m good." She told her. "Although the rock band they hired for the second half of the night had a bigger following."

"Oh, I hear you, honey. What kind of music do you play?"

"Blues and folk mostly. I play some contemporary stuff to get work."

"My name’s Rosie and I sing the blues, too. I left the Delta and came to Chicago in 1945, right after the end of the Second World War. Back then, you could walk up and down the storefronts on Maxwell Street and sit in with musicians from all over the country, and ‘til all hours of the morning."

"Glad to meet you Rosie, I’m Jodie."

"So tell me, girl, why are you so mournful?"

It surprised Jodie that Rosie knew how rotten she felt. "I guess I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve. I knew it would happen eventually, but most of the clubs I’ve played in are switching to rock bands and putting in dance floors. Acoustic music isn’t much in demand."

"So you’re givin' up?" She dropped her knitting in her lap and smiled. Jodie saw her eyes sparkle as if she meant the words as a challenge. "Why don’t you bring your axe out and we’ll see if you can do anything worth saving." She did mean them as a challenge.

As she reached for her guitar case, Jodie glanced at the driver who watched in the mirror. He smiled and nodded. She adjusted the strap and checked the tuning then looked across at the woman who had returned to her knitting.

Rosie began humming a song Jodie recognized that Jim Cox wrote in 1929—Nobody Knows you When You’re Down and Out. Without taking her eyes off the woman, Jodie’s fingers squeezed the bronze strings against the rosewood neck and followed along.

Her hum soon became words.

Nobody knows you when you’re down and out
In your pocket, not one penny
And your friends, you haven't any
And as soon as you get on your feet again
Everybody is your long lost friend
It's mighty strange, without a doubt, but
Nobody wants you when you're down and out

It was a challenge, but Jodie kept up with Rosie’s deep and powerful voice, and in fact, she could not remember playing better. She and the bus driver added harmonies, though Rosie needed little backup. Jodie even played a twelve-bar riff or two when the remarkable woman paused for a breath. She didn't just sing the notes. They burst from her lungs, delivered with a phenomenal range that stretched octaves like rubber bands.

The woman sang a few more songs and Jodie’s confidence grew. With each song, she tried mimicking her voice, but when Rosie stopped singing, she shook her head. "You’re pretty good, but use your own voice. You got a fine one and your music won’t be real unless you’re the one singing it. So, you plan on givin’ up? Thinking of gettin’ into another kind of work, like night shifts at a convenience store. That ought to give you good reason to sing the blues."

Before Jodie could answer, the driver yelled, "Hang on." There was a loud noise and Jodie thought the bus slammed into something. She tried grabbing the bar but instead her head flew back into the window.

"Hey, are you all right?" Jodie heard a voice and found herself lying on the sidewalk in the snow. "Can you hear me?"

She looked at the man who knelt next to her. "What happened? Where’s the bus?"

"What bus?"

"The bus I was riding. I think it hit something and I slammed my head against the window." She looked frantically at her guitar case. "Where’s my guitar?"

"I better call an ambulance." He pulled out a cell phone. "I saw you fall when I was leaving Mario’s and when you didn’t get right up I came running. Did you hit your head on the sidewalk?"

"No, I thought I hit it on the window." She put her hand on the tender spot on the back of her head. "How long was I laying here?"

"Only a few seconds. Your eyes were open when I got to you. Do you want me to call?" He held the phone so she could see it.

"No, thanks." Jodie climbed to her knees and held on to the guitar case for support. Her rescuer stood and grabbed her elbow. "I think I might wave down a cab, though. I’m not sure I’m ready for another bus ride."

When Jodie arrived at her apartment, she leaned her guitar against the wall and turned on the laptop. She had spent the entire cab ride examining what happened. Nothing made sense. She thought she recognized Rosie’s style, but it wasn’t of any contemporary blues singer. It must have been a dream or some strange kind of altered consciousness from the bump on her head. How could so much have happened in the few seconds she lay on the sidewalk?

The woman said her name was Rosie and she came to Chicago from the Delta. Jodie had leaned back on the couch, but shot forward, wide eyed. She entered 'Delta Rose' in the search engine and followed the first link to a blues women’s site. Jodie swallowed as she looked at the face of the woman on the bus. Behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, was her son, the bus driver. She died in 1963 and he in 1987.

There was a quote under Rosie’s picture—"I’m gonna spend the rest of my days and then some, keeping the blues alive."

"Wow, Rosie, you weren’t kidding." Jodie took her guitar from the case and played. "Nobody knows you when you’re down and out."

Her Feet Were Killing Her

Roxy pushed the heavy wood and glass door closed with her foot and grabbed a handful of mail from her box. She started up the stairs to the landing and released an almost silent groan when the door of her landlady's apartment opened.

"Hello, Mrs. Larkin. How are you this evening?" She had nothing against Mrs. Larkin, but as she walked home from the subway, she realized her new shoes hurt like hell. All she wanted to do was go upstairs, take them off, and relax.

"I'm fine Ms. Franks. Do you have a minute to stop by and visit?"

She already felt a touch of guilt. She had put off visiting the elderly woman for the entire two months since moving into the second floor flat. Previously, when she ran into her in the hall, she excused herself by blaming the pressures of learning her new job, but she owed her, big time. The woman had bumped another applicant to rent her the space-an incredibly affordable apartment in Lincoln Park. Though new to Chicago, Roxy heard about the upscale neighborhood before she arrived. She never expected to live there. "Okay, just for a minute though, Mrs. Larkin, I really need to take these shoes off, my feet are killing me."

Mrs. Larkin ushered her into her home and to a chair. "Let me pour you a small glass of wine, Ms. Franks. That'll help settle you, and you can take your shoes off here if you'd like." She half filled two glasses on the table in front of her and gave one to Roxy. "Here you are, dear. How was your day?"

The wine, along with a growing awareness of her surroundings, convinced Roxy that she had journeyed back in time. Her grandparents decorated their house in the same style. Dark, heavy pieces of wood furniture filled the room, and a variety of silver picture frames and small figurines dotted their surfaces. Lace doilies covered the arms of the chairs and couch, and supported lamps and vases throughout. It was as dark and depressing as her grandparents’ house had been.

If there were a television in the apartment, it had to be in another room, because there was none that she could see. Roxy did notice a very old radio in one corner, and something else unusual, right in front of her. "What are these?" She pointed at an item on the coffee table. "They look like old fashioned nylons."

"They are. They're silk stockings. My husband, James, bought me five pair after he came back from the war. We married in 1945, but he died in 1947 and since I don't go out often, they've lasted a long time. This is the last pair though, and there'll be no more to come. Maybe when they're gone, my memory of James will be gone, too." Mrs. Larkin rubbed the fabric between her fingers and smiled. "Go ahead and feel them."

Roxy took a sip of wine and set the glass on the table. "Oh, these are wonderful, quite a bit nicer than these panty hose I'm wearing." She smiled at the small white haired woman who delighted in showing off her stockings.

"Yes, it's a shame they don't make them anymore, at least not that I know of. How's your wine, dear?"

She had forgotten the wine and retrieved it as she spoke. "I think it might have been just what I needed. I'm starting to relax. You haven’t had any of yours."

“Oh, I’ve had a couple sips, you just can’t tell. I’ll be nursing it all evening.”

Roxy nodded and returned to her study of the knickknack-filled room, until she spotted something that seemed completely out of place. "Do you lift weights, Mrs. Larkin?" She pointed the glass toward a small barbell and hand weights.

"Oh, no, those were my husband's. I just haven't gotten around to putting them in the trash."

"How did your husband die, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't mind, but it's not a very pretty story. A woman moved into the building a few months after we bought it. She called herself Stacey, I believe. They found her strangled and my husband lying next to her with a bullet in his head. The police said he killed her and then shot himself. It was his gun but I never believed that for a moment. She was a tall redhead who looked a lot like you in fact. If the police were right, the only thing I can imagine is that she enticed him with her charms. She was a beautiful woman. Once James was able to break free from her spell he may have been overwhelmed with guilt and anger, and thought that the best solution."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Larkin. It must have been awful for you. Why did you keep the building and continue to live here? I don't know if I could have done that."

The old woman shrugged and looked at the weights. "I wanted to keep an eye on James, I suppose."

Roxy thought that sounded a tad creepy, and realized at the same time that she felt strange. "I think I better go up to my apartment, I'm a little lightheaded."

"All right, Ms. Franks. I'm delighted you had a chance to stop by, and I'm sure your dizziness will go away soon."

As she climbed the flight of stairs to her apartment, Roxy leaned on the wall for support. When she unlocked the door and went inside, her shoes and the mail slipped from her fingers and she fell on the couch. "What the hell is wrong with me, I had less than a half a glass of wine and I feel drunk."

With the little energy she had left, Roxy looked up to see the door open, but she could not make herself move. Her vision seemed to blur and she thought she was imagining things when she saw someone standing in front of her with a silk stocking. Her body wouldn't move and all she could do was stare with her eyes wide as the silky stocking wrapped around her neck and tightened.

"Maybe this time you'll leave us alone for good, Stacey."

*

"What do you think, Sarge?"

Sergeant Borelli looked around the apartment and shook her head. "I read over the old files. This is the fifth redhead strangled with a silk stocking in this building in the last sixty years, and the first one was supposed to have been killed by Mr. Larkin, who killed himself. These aren't coincidences and I don't believe in ghosts. If Mrs. Larkin had not had airtight alibis for the other murders, she’d be our best suspect. What did she say?"

"She didn’t have an alibi this time. She just said that she hadn't seen Ms. Franks for a few days. The last time she did see her, she said her feet were killing her so she couldn't stop in for a visit. Larkin's the only person who's been in the building the entire sixty years, but she's seventy-eight years old and a little thing. How could she strangle someone as young and healthy as Ms. Franks?"

"You're right, I doubt that she could."

The Half-awake Accomplice

In the end, it would be those things done when she first crawled out of bed. The ones that received little thought because her brain had not yet engaged. The simple chores—feeding the cat, and making a pot of coffee to kick start lazy neurons. She could do them with her eyes closed and often did. Those things that she would not even remember having done, would threaten to be her undoing.

Sunday morning held the promise of peace and quiet. Many citizens remained tucked under the covers, not likely to see the streets until noon. No garbage trucks roared behind the apartment building beating heavy dumpsters in a kind of symbolic gesture of power. Yes, the morning promised peace and quiet.

Annie fed the cat and pulled open the utensil drawer to find the scoop for measuring coffee. Half asleep, she pulled a little too hard and the drawer crashed to the floor scattering various pieces of cutlery around the kitchen. She grumbled as she cleaned up the mess and made her coffee. In a short time, she poured a cup, took it to the living room, and climbed into her favorite reading chair. She watched the rear end of her cat who had finished breakfast, march out the kitty door without even a 'thank you very much'. "I'd like to be a cat," she sighed, reaching for the mystery she'd been reading.

An hour later, someone pounded on the door and she jumped two feet. "Who is it?" She yelled through the thick wood. She never could identify anyone in the stupid little peephole.

"It's the police. We'd like to talk to you."

"The police?" Her brain kicked into high gear. "What do the police want? Oh my god, something happened to Tucker. No, that's stupid. They wouldn't send the police for a cat accident."

"Open the door, please." A different, but equally gruff voice yelled.

She unlocked the deadbolt and the lock and pulled open the door as far as the chain allowed. "What is it? What do you want?"

"I'm Officer Ferriday and this is Officer Brown. Do you mind if we come in?"

She looked at the identification badges on their chest and then at the tee shirt she wore. "Let me put on my robe and I'll be right back." She pushed the door to close it, but someone shoved a foot in the bottom.

"Go ahead and get your robe. We'll wait right here."

What was that about? Annie ran to the bedroom and grabbed her robe, slipping into it as she returned to the door. "Please remove your foot so I can unhook the chain." The shoe disappeared and she let them in. "What is it, officers?"

"Where have you been for the last hour?" asked the one who called himself Ferriday. Annie thought he looked familiar but she was no less surprised at his question.

"Right here, reading a book."

"Can you prove it?"

She stared at him. "What do you mean, can I prove it. Of course, I can't prove it. I was here alone, reading. My cat wasn't even here to testify."

"If your cat were here, would he be able to testify?" Officer Brown asked.

"She. No, my cat would not be able to testify. I meant it as a joke. Could you please tell me what this is about?" The solemn faces of the two officers frightened her.

"Do you know the dog next door?" She nodded. "Do you have a grudge against him?"

The dog Ferriday referred too was a large, vicious animal, which her neighbor kept tethered to the front porch. It scared the hell out of Annie every time she walked out the front door. "I don't like that it snaps at me all the time and stretches the chain until it looks like it'll break. What about the dog next door?"

"That's my dog," Ferriday told her. "My wife and I live next door and she told me she's seen you yelling at Brutus. Is that true?"

That's why he looks familiar. "I've told Brutus to shut up on occasion. I wouldn't say I yelled at him, and I certainly wouldn't say I held a grudge against him. Officer, why would two policemen come to my door to accuse me of yelling at a dog?"

"Someone killed him about a half hour ago. My wife put him out only a few minutes before that and when she returned with a bowl of water, found him lying on the ground with a steak knife in his chest. It looks like they buried the knife blade up, and the dog leapt as far as his chain could reach and fell on it."

Annie never wanted to see an animal hurt, but Brutus was a monster. She'd seen little children run away, terrified of the frightening beast because his chain reached to within a few inches of the sidewalk. He terrorized all the neighborhood cats and sent more than one individual flying off their bicycle as they went over the curb to escape. "I'm very sorry, Officer Ferriday, but I had nothing to do with Brutus' death."

Hours later Annie thought about her visitors. If it hadn't been Ferriday's dog, she wouldn't have been talking to the police at all. She was curious as to who did the dog in, but not really surprised. "Hi, there, Tucker." The feline swaggered in through the kitty door. "Hey, I'm cooking myself a filet. I'll bet you'd like a little piece. Let's go see if it's ready."

Annie pulled the piece of meat from the broiler and set it on the cutting board. She dug around in the utensils to find a knife. "Hey, Tucker. Where did that steak knife go?"

Honor Among Pigeons

During her seven years on the street, she had somehow forgotten her given name. There, people called her lady, or hey you. Others completely bypassed such formalities. That was okay, she never did care for people to know her business.

The streets had not always been her home. She grew up in a house the way most people did, with a mother, father, and an older sister. Later, she received an Associates Degree from a secretarial school and it hung on the wall in her own home. She lived in a nice condo, not too far from Lake Michigan, in Chicago. Things were good then, and her boyfriend even asked her to marry him. Of course, she said yes and they planned a June wedding.

That was before her life fell apart. No, her life didn't fall apart. Someone tore it to shreds. Someone she dedicated twelve years to as an executive secretary. A man she had trusted completely, a man with connections to every big shot in the city—including the mob. She had not known about the mob or a great many other things until that final year.

Strangers began coming to the office and anonymous letters arrived. When she opened them, she was shocked. People threatened to kill her boss for the terrible things he had done. She decided not to show him, but instead kept a folder in her locked desk drawer. She also decided to do a little investigating on her own. Before long, she found out things that made her wonder how she could have been so blind. One word described him, crook. An attorney who advertised his commitment to help the poor and downtrodden and he stole from almost every one of them.

Not sure what to do, she finally confronted him. She took the folder from her drawer into his office and threw it on his desk. "You're stealing from these people."

He laughed. He looked at her and laughed. "That's right, honey, that's how you make those big condominium payments every month." She stared. Was he the same man she had worked for all those years? She told him she could not be a part of it and that she would go to the police. He found that even funnier. "You go ahead, go to the cops, for all the good it will do you." Then his face grew stern. "You tell anyone anything, and as long as I'm alive you'll never have a job in this city."

She left the office and went to the police. He had been right about their reaction and he made good on his threat. He not only fired her, but also slowly began to dismantle her life.

He had somehow been able to get a completely bogus story into the newspaper about her selling drugs from her home. With his power and influence, he convinced the condo organization to repossess it and throw her out. Another newspaper picked up the article but added another charge. They said she often entertained male visitors there to supplement her income. She was grateful her parents were not alive to see it, but her fiancé and her sister read the paper. Though they said they knew it could not be true, her boyfriend took an extended vacation, and her sister suggested she not come over. She worried about her kids.

He had someone follow her, and that person thwarted every action she took. She answered a number of ads, but no one would even give her an initial interview. Living in hotels was expensive and she could no longer afford a room. Without an income, her wardrobe began to deteriorate. Within a few months, she found herself living on the street. She thought it would be temporary, that she would find work and be able to afford an apartment. She stayed at a women's shelter for a while, but most of the other women were in much worse shape and she gave up her bed.

For seven years, she wandered around the city streets. She climbed the steep sharp rises under viaducts, hauling her belongings and cardboard to make a noisy, exhaust fumed shelter for the night. The climb created thick calluses on her hands and delivering babies under those viaducts created thicker calluses on her heart. The hardships began to wear on her.

She imagined herself crossing back and forth between indefinable realities. There were days that she thought she might have been a pigeon, because they were her only companions. The world she knew seemed to be pushing her away and she had little strength to put up a fight.

Then she saw him, and as though it were yesterday, remembered his words—‘as long as I'm alive you'll never have a job in this city.'

He looked right at her and had no idea who she was. "Got a quarter, mister?" She asked, holding out a hand he would have only recognized if it were soft and pink with long red fingernails. He pulled a dollar from his pocket and threw it in her direction. She laughed and knew it sounded insane, but that was what she felt—completely insane. Now, she had a purpose.

It proved easy to follow him because she made an unlikely looking spy. She watched him leave the office every evening at 7:45 as he had done when she worked there. He climbed the stairs to the LaSalle Street Station and waited to board the 8:01. The elevated trains were very punctual. Not only was her boss a precise man, he was also a skinflint. He wouldn't drive to work or take a cab. He took public transportation almost everywhere.

She knew the man. She knew he hated dirt and could not tolerate being touched. That would be to her advantage. For nearly a month, she followed him and worked on her plan. Then the time arrived to carry it out.

On Fridays, many of the people waiting for the train were zombies. Few did anything but look down the curve in the track, anxious to hear the sound of steel wheels screeching to take them home for the weekend.

She sat on the far end of the platform with all her worldly possession around her. He always boarded the last car. She looked around at her pigeon friends on the ground and up on the railings. Some just floated along overhead. She winked and then smiled as he approached. "Got a quarter, mister?"

When he pulled out his wallet with his back to the tracks and she stood and faced him. "Do you remember me?"

He looked at her blankly. "What the..." His wallet fell from his hands and his eyes went to the shoulder of his jacket where a pearly white line of pigeon shit rolled down the dark blue material.

"Here, I'll wipe that off for you." She took a piece of clothing from her bag and walked toward him. He stepped back and leaned over the tracks to keep away from her touch. She came even closer.

"Get away from me." His eyes opened wide in sudden recognition. "You're...Ahhh," was all he said as the train pulled into the station.

"I'm Katherine, you bastard." She smiled.

"Officer, I don't know what happened. A pigeon pooped on his suit and I offered to clean it off. All of a sudden, he screamed and fell back as the train came. I couldn't help him."

"All right, lady." The officer looked at her and shook his head. "You can go. We won't need your testimony. We get a lot of jumpers up here."

"I'm Katherine," she told him and walked to the park, stopping for some bread on the way. The pigeons were at the bench as she sat down and flipped his wallet in the air. "Lots to eat tonight, kids. Tomorrow, I buy some clothes and rent a room at the Y. I have to get ready for my job interviews."