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There's an itinerant guy who comes around from time to time and offers to wash my windows. I'm both lazy and guilt-wracked, so though he does a crappy job and likes to hang out and tell more hard luck stories than I need to hear, I say yeah, okay, wash the windows, and I pay him something.
He disappeared for a long time, and showed up again a few weeks ago with more hard luck stories: deaths in the family, the need to take both of his children in a Greyhound bus all the way to Upstate New York where there was a small inheritance awaiting him. I helped him with his bus fare, though it was after dark and thus not a good hour for window-washing.
He just turned up again. This time he had a truly wonderful story--maybe I heard about it on the news, he embellished. Someone offered him a hundred bucks to wash their car, so he had taken it to his friend's hand carwash and there discovered two bodies in the trunk.
Holy shit, said I.
He called a halt to the presumably accessory-after-the-fact activities of scrubbing evidence, called 911, and...well, I lost track of the rest, but after that he was robbed of his car, his $4000, and his window-washing equipment. So I gave him a bucket, some rags, some detergent and rubbing alcohol, and the thirty bucks in my wallet, and he cleaned the outsides of my windows--which is actually a reasonable deal.
Next he needed to use my phone. I'm very leery of people needing to use my phone, so instead we arranged a quick charge of HIS phone. He made a couple of calls of the "Hey man, I'm in trouble" kind, then asked me for nine more dollars because there's only one Trailways bus going to Salem today, and he's living in Salem now, and the fare is $38.
I gave him the four singles I had left, mostly to hasten his departure.
Then, because eventually I do remember what it was like to have addicts in the family, I got online.
On the plus side, my windows are noticeably cleaner.
He disappeared for a long time, and showed up again a few weeks ago with more hard luck stories: deaths in the family, the need to take both of his children in a Greyhound bus all the way to Upstate New York where there was a small inheritance awaiting him. I helped him with his bus fare, though it was after dark and thus not a good hour for window-washing.
He just turned up again. This time he had a truly wonderful story--maybe I heard about it on the news, he embellished. Someone offered him a hundred bucks to wash their car, so he had taken it to his friend's hand carwash and there discovered two bodies in the trunk.
Holy shit, said I.
He called a halt to the presumably accessory-after-the-fact activities of scrubbing evidence, called 911, and...well, I lost track of the rest, but after that he was robbed of his car, his $4000, and his window-washing equipment. So I gave him a bucket, some rags, some detergent and rubbing alcohol, and the thirty bucks in my wallet, and he cleaned the outsides of my windows--which is actually a reasonable deal.
Next he needed to use my phone. I'm very leery of people needing to use my phone, so instead we arranged a quick charge of HIS phone. He made a couple of calls of the "Hey man, I'm in trouble" kind, then asked me for nine more dollars because there's only one Trailways bus going to Salem today, and he's living in Salem now, and the fare is $38.
I gave him the four singles I had left, mostly to hasten his departure.
Then, because eventually I do remember what it was like to have addicts in the family, I got online.
- There have been no bodies found in car trunks in the Pacific Northwest in the last week (or, as near as I can tell, in the last couple of years)
- Trailways doesn't seem to operate out of Portland anymore
- There are five Greyhound buses a day between Portland and Salem, two of them later this evening
- The fare from Portland to Salem is about $14
On the plus side, my windows are noticeably cleaner.
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