The Raggy Man

It began when Juan noticed the bum under the bridge for the second time that week. Juan noticed the way the old man's spindly legs wobbled as he lurched from one edge of the dry creek bed to the other and the way he used an frayed extension cord to hold up his stained, dirty pants. Juan hated old people period. He hated the way they looked, smelled and well, just the fact that they existed in the world, made him hate them all the more. The bum stumbled and slipped to the ground like an empty sack, the kind that held the beans and rice that his mother brought home to make their meager family meals. There had not been much on the table since Juan's father had gone off to fight in some country far away in a war that Juan could never begin to understand.

Juan frowned and squinted his eyes in the hot Los Angeles sun and he wiped the sweat that trickled down the edges of his face from his brown forehead. He guessed he hated those rice and beans, almost as much as he hated his father who had disappeared from his life and homeless, old men. He nudged the greasy haired young boy that stood near him. He wordlessly pointed in the direction of where the old man lay limply on the dusty parched ground. Juan lifted his eyebrow as if asking a question of the boy who had a permanent look of knowing something secret and not so nice on his face. In unison they both turned and headed down the embankment towards where the man who resembled a fallen scarecrow lay. The old man lay motionless, almost as if he were awaiting whatever fate might descend upon him.