One Night In New York

December 24th, 9pm, Eastern Standard Time. Another Christmas Eve, another hundred or so residents of New York fall below the poverty line. Yup, that's us. Just a buncha statistics struggling to survive against AIDS, sleet, cops and drivers who won't fucking tip us for cleaning their windscreens at traffic lights- well, when I say tip us, I really just mean the Squeegie Man (yes, he has a real name, no, he won't tell anyone what it is). He's the only one of us who's still unjaded enough to believe that people don't actually mind him eking out his honest living on their front windscreen while they're late for work (far be it from me to point out that they have absolutely no right to complain about the guy freezing his butt off doing them a favour while they sit in the warmth with their Mickey D's and their mass-produced Gap dresses).

We trudged our freezing butts along Avenue B towards the only remaining phone booth in Alphabet City, where the guys liked to amuse themselves by making collect prank calls. It wasn't occupied for long- some poor guy in a long yellow vest and warm-looking coat was dragged out of it by a couple of criminal element types, who purloined said coat- minus one sleeve- and ran off into the darkness.

"Merry fucking Christmas," Danny spat.

"Some people have no festive spirit," Sue mourned. "Someone should go help the poor guy."

We all looked at her for a second, then got distracted by the sound of drumming.

I looked over to see Angel, who busked around Avenue A sometimes. He saluted us with his drumstick and kept playing.

"What's the time?" Sue asked.

"About twenty past two, probably," Danny replied. We stared at him.

"What? I checked the watches on display in the window of Saks when we walked past before. They all said ten past two, so don't go telling me I'm wrong."

Mike slapped him upside the head, and we all turned as the mugged guy coughed, tried to stand up and fell against the side of the phone booth. Angel looked up and went over to him, concerned.

"Here it comes," I whispered to the others. If any of us had had (working) watches, we would have timed the conversation. I think it took Angel about two minutes to successfully flirt his way into this guy's life. As they walked away Angel threw a wink at us over his shoulder.

We shuffled away towards the community centre, where the last of out number, molly, lay curled in a puffy jacket on a blanket.

"Hey, Blanket Woman," Mike called.

"Is it fucking freezing or what?" she replied.

"Merry Christmas," Sue offered shyly.

"Seen Tine recently?" Molly shifted position and winced. She'd been getting progressively worse back pain since around July, but, surprisingly, no-one seemed to want to treat her. I guess physiotherapists don't appreciate rejigging their treatments to suit people without any pillows, mattresses or heat to ease their suffering.

"She…" Danny trailed off. Even his tactless, alcohol-rotted brain couldn't quite figure out a way to tell the woman who'd always had a soft spot for the least lucid member of our fraternity that Tina had been huddled in a gutter wracked with shivers and pleading for someone to get her a fix only two days before, and no-one had seen her since.

"Haven't seen her for a while," he rallied.

"Right," Molly grunted, letting her eyes flutter closed.

We moved on respectfully. She needed her peace. She was getting old.

"Goddamn kids," we heard her mutter.