LES – Essay

     He looked lie a little Buddha man. Short, fat and bald.  His face and head are what give him it away the he isn't.  They looked much more like Mr. Clean, giving the queasily uneasy feeling of a Pirate ordering navel gunfire on some unsuspecting germ island.  Of course neither is the truth, it'd be more accurate to say that he's an ugly little garbage picker.  The kind o guy who gives the homeless a bad name.

     He used to spend his time over the corner of 3^rd and 27^th begging for change from the business men there.  That is until the new shelter was built on Pekoe.  Now, he spends his time, tying to perfect his fake limp, drawing sympathy from the rich college boys, and hitting on the young college girls who come to shelter to do charity work.

     Father Joseph is always on him about this.   On any given day you can hear the good Father cornering him and exclaiming in exasperation.

     “Your driving them all out Les  You've got to stop doing this.  Those boys and girls are here to help you.  You must treat them better”.

     I've never seen any sign that Les gives a damn about what the Father is saying.  Perhaps he likes to torment the old guy.  Either way it goes on the same.

     On Sundays the shelter is very busy and Les is always there.  The volunteers always want to something special for you.  According to Les their just trying to add to their resume's and we'd better get them because sooner or later their gonna get us.  I don't believe that, but Les does.

     Any way's I remember one Sunday in particular, when the shelter just opened and the TV people were there.  Well, Les was up to his old tricks that day.  Somehow, he had managed to get on TV.  I don't know how but there he was being interviewed by some TV lady.  He told her that he was a military hero who had been wounded in a war and the country had forgotten about him and left him here to rot. 

     Well that got Tommy up in arms, because he really was a war hero.  Boy, he was hopping mad.  It took the Father almost two hours to calm him down.  But, do you thing Les cared, no.  He just went on talking like Tommy didn't even exist.

     He started to tell that TV lady that he new his family was looking for him, and all he wanted to do was find them again.  He said he did because he feared for his life living on the streets the way he does.  He told her he'd been mugged by a guy named Snake.

     He told her that he and Charlie were over under the expressway pass one night and this Snake guy jumped them with his gang.  I know this for a lie cause poor old Charlie don't like Les.  He told me himself.  But anyway Les says they jumped and this Snake guy beats him and Charlie up and leaves them for dead.  He says not only did he take everything they owned, but he told them that if he ever saw them again he'd kill'em.

     The TV lady wanted Charlie to confirm this, but of course he can't; cause he can't talk no more.  I don't believe it thought cause I saw Les once wearing Charlie's shoes.  These were the same shoes that Snake was supposed to have taken.  Les say's it ain't so, and that the shoes were a gift from Charlie and the only thing Snake didn't take.

     But that's the way he is.  I can't believe he said all of that to the lady.  It worked to because he almost had her in tears, and she promised to help him find his family.  But they got off the air, Les grabbed her in a private place and that was the end of that.  He bragged about it for weeks.