Congratulations on Buying Those Kids the Bartles and James They Need!

“Please…”

His eyes will be wide as he looks up at you.  Big doe eyes, puppy dog eyes, eyes that beg for your assistance.  You won’t be able to say no to those eyes.  So you’ll put your palm out without a word and look him dead in the face.

He’ll put money into your palm and, without a word, you’ll walk into the convenience store holding his twenty dollars and you’ll locate two of the fruitiest Bartles and James flavors you can find.  Then you’ll pay for them, still without a word, and step back out into in front of the store with a dollar and nineteen cents change in your pocket.

You’ll gingerly place the bags on the ground and then nod at the young man, who will, in turn, nod back.  He’ll pick up the bags and return to his friends who, standing a short distance away, will have been watching you the whole while.  When he exposes the contents of the bags to them, they’ll erupt into a cheering slurry of humanity.

The children will begin chanting their name for you, which is Beardo.  It’s not your real name, which no one in the town you settled into knows.  But it’s good enough for a homeless man who sits outside the convenience store with a beard, a homeless man who has never been included in the community until today.  It’s good enough because when they say Beardo, what they’ll mean is “hero,” and it feels good to be a hero, even if it’s just for the fifteen minutes before some crackhead pays you fifteen dollars to kill his girlfriend’s cat with a brick.

Congratulations on Buying Those Kids the Bartles and James They Need!

Congratulations Street Magician!

You’re the kind of man who lives without fear, striving to entertain and amuse his audience day to day. You live without a thought of the future, for your future is today. And your past is tomorrow. And yesterday is your present. Or something.

Look, we’re usually more articulate around people, but you just do this to us. You make us all baffled, make us think we’re seeing one thing when in fact we’re seeing something completely different. It makes us confused, makes some of us a little horny, some of us feel dumb and some of us just feel for the first time in years. That’s why we’re happy to give you this prediction:

Today you’re going to be in Spain running from the bulls. You’ll feel kinetic and young for the first time in years, the way you used to feel before your wife left you and took that ungrateful shit you call your son and moved to Palo Alto with the man your son now calls “better dad.” Fleeing the bulls you’ll be free for the first time in years.

That is until the bull charges you, piercing your colon with his horn and hurling you upwards. You’ll stare at the bull’s compatriots, charging towards you, and you’ll know fear for the first time since your bitch wife had your best friend serve you papers just because he was the only process server in town. She didn’t even have the courage to show up herself.

You’ll spend your last few seconds of life cursing her name and formulating elaborate revenge plots, and as the bulls near your face you’ll close your eyes, only to be whisked away in a rush of motion, pulled out from under their hooves and hurled bodily into the cheering crowd. There a team of paramedics will rush to assist you, patching your new asshole and assuring you that everything will be alright, except your ass.

You won’t hear them, though. You’ll be taken by the young woman, the street magician, who saved your life as she sashays into the crowd. In that instant you’ll feel her pull, her magnetism, and you’ll know that you have to be like her. The choice will be made for you. There will be no turning back.

Ilea iacta est.

Congratulations Street Magician!

Congratulations on Taking That Magical Hobo's Advice!

He’ll be rummaging in some dumpsters outside of your stock exchange, which is a socially acceptable means of getting what people refer to as a “power lunch” in this economy, when you first meet him. You’ll see him closing in on a hot dog and you’ll have a roll of quarters ready in your hand so that you can sock him one good and claim your reward, but when he sees your eyes and the violence in them he’ll just smile a toothless grin and say “No worries, son. I’m only here for the puddin’.”

You’ll laugh out loud because that’s what you do in awkward social situations and he’ll laugh back even harder.

“You’se a good kid. I’ll give ya that there German cock for some o’ them quaties.” You’ll look at him skeptically. Negotiation, after all, is the bastion of the weak, negotiation with the homeless doubly so. He’ll spot your hesitation and, seeing an opening, present a counteroffer. “Give you some advice, too. A real pager turn.”

His folksie nonsense will sound about right to you and you’ll acquiesce, tossing him the roll of quarters. He’ll nod, pull one off the roll and bite it with his gums as if to test the nickel. You’ll wince, thinking of the places that quarter has been.

He’ll smile his big toothless grin at you and say, in his trademark folksie fashion, “Buy you’m some o’ them there bio techies, one o’ the ones in genetic member nearing. It’ll work you out real good.”

You’ll smile a big white toothed grin and say “Thank you, magical homeless man.” Then he’ll nod in response and his huge black friend will grab you from behind and run you into the ally. Then the magical homeless man will punch you in the face repeatedly with the quarters. He’ll be surprisingly strong and you’ll lose consciousness quickly.

The next two hours will consist of scattered bouts of agony as you come to and find yourself being raped in turn by the homeless man and his large African companion. When the two finally finish and abandon your prone body to the elements you’ll rest, gather your strength, devour the hot dog they discard on your body and drag yourself back into the stock market. Once inside you’ll buy around fifty thousand dollars of stock in a genetic engineering firm. In the hour and a half before closing the stock will skyrocket due to a late day bidding war between two larger firms interested in buying them out. The money you’ll make in that short time will more than cover your medical bills, and the money to come will one day still your ire and keep you from seeking revenging on that magical, advice giving, rape happy hobo who had a key part in forming the cornerstone of the investment empire that will become a major part of your life.

Congratulations on Taking That Magical Hobo’s Advice!