The Discount Life: Step Three Cont'd

Two days later I got out the running shoes. You know, the ones meant for that marathon I saved them for, and decided to take a run. Given that my previous running experience was limited to that Lowman’s sale to beat an ugly woman trying to steal my Cindy Crawford heels…I told you about those…amazing, I decided to start out small. Three miles. Nothing I couldn’t handle. The girl on the cover of Runner’s World does three miles in her sleep. If nothing else, I have made a job out of doing everything girls in magazines do. This would be easy.


Six blocks later. Running was not easy. I stopped, bent over, heaving like I’d just run an hour for my life. I checked my watch. You have got to be kidding me. It had only been five minutes. Five. Was the Runner’s World girl on crack? I had to do better than that. Otherwise owning the shoes was a complete disgrace. I jogged for 10 more minutes (I may have stopped for a breather once or twice but the same people weren’t around so it didn’t matter) and then copped a squat on a bench in front of the courthouse steps. Rocky had climbed those steps in victory. I was passively inclined to sit and stare at them.

“You thinking about Rocky?” asked a scruffy looking man at the opposite end of the bench.

“Doesn’t everyone who sits here?”

“Most folks try to run them. So they can say they done it.” His coat was reminiscent of army green but appeared brown from caked dirt. His beard was long and grey. His eyes were rimmed and heavy.

“I’ll never be Rocky. So no need to run the steps. And that would be cheesy.”

“A little bit of cheesy is sometimes good, right? Reminds you to have fun.” He smiled. He was missing a tooth on the bottom left of his mouth. He scooted down toward me and held out his hand, “Tucker Whitfield. Nice to meet you.” He had on those gloves without finger tips even though the weather was just starting to cool. “Chloe. Nice to meet you too.” I couldn’t help but flinch a little when I accepted his grasp.

“You run often?”

“First day. See how I’m sitting on this bench? I’m dying out there.”

“You’ll get better. Just keep on it. You’ll be running one of those marathons before you know it.”

I smiled. “It’s a goal.” A someday goal by the looks of it.

“Goals are good. I had goals once,” he ran his hand up and down the outline of his body like Vanna White gestures to the lit up letters on Wheel of Fortune,” its pretty easy to put them aside. Don’t do it.” He was homeless, I guessed. I had never really talked with a homeless person short of do you have change and my saying only a dollar, which is a complete lie but, I suppose, a dollar was all they were worth to me.

“What happened to your goals?” I asked.

“I’m an alcoholic.” I chuckled. A completely inappropriate response brought on my truth and nerves. He laughed back and said, “You laughing because it’s funny or because its true?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. It’s just that you always hear that homeless people aren’t necessarily homeless because they have a drinking problem. That they… fell on hard times and all that. And here you are saying your homeless because you’re an alcoholic. I just find it comical.”

“I never said I was homeless.” My heart stopped in my chest. Oh God. He was right. He never had.

“I, I…uh…well,”. It would be great if the cement in front of me would morph into a black abyss and come to swallow me whole, saving me from my entitled, assuming blunder. God if life could be that easy.

“I’m just putting you on the spot. Of course I’m homeless. Look at me.” He laughed again and I smiled cautiously. “I’m a drunk and it ruined my life and now I’m homeless. That’s all.”

“What did you do before you were …homeless?” I made being homeless sound like an occupation. Like a choice rather than an unfortunate. The whole of the conversation so far felt like a B movie where every line out of my mouth drove me farther and farther into disgrace.

“Nothing great. I worked in music stores. Sold pianos, drums, guitars. Played some myself. A few night bars. Then the drinking got the better of me.” He paused. “How about you? What do you do?”

“I’m a violinist.” The white lie danced on my tongue like the after taste of sugar. It was saccharine and delicious. I was a violinist but that was a half truth. I couldn’t leave it like that. The Discount Life wouldn’t permit it. “I’m a violinist but right now I work as a receptionist for the Philadelphia Orchestra.”

“Sticking around music. That’s good.”

“I’ve got this theory that says it’s not all that good.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It’s called the Discount Life,” I stopped. Why would I subject a man with obvious extensive troubles to my minor under achieving life gripes? “It’s not that great, I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“Just tell me and let me decide if it’s great or not.” I hesitated and then I told him. “My friend sees it like a twelve step program. He calls it the Discount Life Anonymous. Says I should start an organization.”

“I’d join. Sounds like it could be a real experience. Might be fun.” He smiled and the vacancy from his missing tooth glared at me. The old Chloe would never have shaken hands with a man as dirty as this but the new Chloe found something endearing in him. He was listening to me.

“Well so far I’ve given up ten very good pairs of shoes, played a very sloppy violin and almost died on my first day’s run. The fun hasn’t exactly started yet. But it’s an interesting challenge.”

“I think it’s good of you for thinking outside your box. What step are you on?”

“Step three: Work on Goals.”

“What’s step four?”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of making them up as I go along.”

“Want some company?” It was odd but I felt a strange kinship to this man. It wasn’t just that we occupied the same bench but that somehow, despite our separate worldly paths, life had derailed us, sending us here, at this moment, to the very same place, on the common ground of giving ourselves the short end of the stick. Two souls united by a bench and the ubiquitous Discount life.

“Sure,” I said. “I’d love some.”

“Okay. So what’s step one?”

“Clear out your life.”

“Done,” he laughed. “I’ve got nothing.”

“You don’t have a cart somewhere?” I slapped his shoulder playfully and hoped he’d take it as a joke.

“No cart. I have a box over on 10th street but I’m perfectly happy to give that up. It’s got nothing but rags and dirty magazines in it.” I glanced at him with raised eyebrows. “Awww come on. Homeless men have needs too!” He threw his hands up in the air. “What’s the second step?”

“Create goals. And the third is, of course, get to work on goals.”

“Ok. So what did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Step One, step two. What happened?”

“I cleared out my life. Twice. The first time I wasn’t being very honest with myself, which is classic Discount Life behavior. The second time I cleared out my closet and got rid of all the stuff I’d felt attached too that wasn’t really helping me be who I want to be. Stanley says it doesn’t look any different but I see a difference.”

“Who’s Stanley?”

“My partner. We’ve been together for six years. We live together.”

“Well girls do tend to have too much stuff.”

“I did. I did. But I got honest and got rid of a lot. And then I wrote down my goals. Well, Andrew helped me write them actually and now I’m working on them,” I said cheerily. “I played the violin, I took a run, I signed us up for a cooking class –“

“Who’s us?” he cut me off.

“Me and Stanley.”

“Oh. I wasn’t sure if you meant you and Stanley or you and Andrew.”

“No. No. Me and Stanley. His idea of cooking is to open a box of Hamburger Helper. The cooking class should be good for both of us.”

“But learning to cook sounds like your goal.”

“Right…” I said it like a question, drawn out so as to express so what?

“I’m just saying….”he trailed off. “But I’m sure you know him well enough to know.”

His insight struck me like a fist. I knew my goals but what were Stanley’s? I shook it off. “Guess I’ll have to ask him for his goals.”

“And me for mine. I’ve got some thinking to do. When should we meet again?” He really wanted to do this with me. I was touched and, if I let myself think it, amazed by the power of humanity. The sameness that we all carried within our differences.

“How about next Sunday morning?” I said. A week from today if he decided to show.

“Done deal.”

“Alright then. It’s a DL date.” I stood up, preparing myself for departure and proffered a hand shake.

“Looking forward to it.” He shook my hand and pointed to the stairs. “You gonna run ‘em?”

“Not today. We’ll make it a someday goal.” I smirked at my own Judy-ism.

He laughed. “Okay. See you Sunday.” I jogged off in perfect formation until I rounded the corner of 1st street and knew I was out of his sightline. Baby steps, right? I walked the rest of the way home.