Sergeant Sarah Walker sighed deeply and rubbed her temples as her radio went off in her car again for what felt like the umpteenth time that day.
"This is S-12," she drawled into the mouthpiece, trying her best to care for the last 20 minutes of her shift.
"S-12, we have another vagrancy complaint on 82nd. Can you please check it out before you head back?" the dispatch asked.
"Yeah," Sarah replied and hung the handpiece back up. "Gonna complain the whole damn time, though, she muttered to herself as she pulled out of the parking lot she had been trying to lay low in. She wasn't speed trapping, just trying not to see anything. See no evil, respond to no evil.
Sarah took her sweet time going to 82nd St. because her night had already been ruined with this overtime. Responding to one of the ever increasing homeless complaints was not how she envisioned starting her Friday night, yet here she was.
82nd was halfway across Burbank from where Sarah had parked herself, but the evening breeze was refreshing, the sun was setting beautifully, and traffic was surprisingly light. Sarah would have put the car's top down if it was a convertible. Instead, she had to settle for rolling her window all the way down. She wanted to let her hair down, too, but she had to keep it off her collar like regulation demanded. A high and tight ponytail it was.
When Sarah finally arrived on 82nd St., she slowed the police cruiser to a gentle roll and looked around for her scruffy vagrant. It didn't take her long to find a tall man with dark curly hair wearing a green bathrobe, a baseball cap, and cargo shorts. His unkempt beard and shopping cart packed with what she assumed were all of his possessions, tipped him off as her perp.
"Hey sir, are you okay?" Sarah tried to ask sweetly, but loud enough that the man could hear her from the other side of the street.
"Yeah, I'm great. Why?" The man asked with a light smile on his face. "Do you need directions somewhere? I know Burbank pretty well," he offered.
"Well so do I. I'm a cop, sir. Knowing where I'm going is literally part of my job," Sarah said back to him, a polite smile on her lips.
"Hmm," the stranger grumbled. "I suppose it would be," he said with a laugh. "Well then, what can I do for you, Officer?"
"Do you have a place to stay tonight?" she asked, hoping the answer would be different than the one she expected.
"Of course I do," he said nervously, looking about him, as if a place would magically spring up from the sidewalk. "Why wouldn't I have a place to sleep? Do I look homeless or something?"
Sarah lowered her sunglasses and stared him down, though it hurt her heart to do so. "I'm sorry, sir, but I received a vagrancy call on this street…." she trailed off, really hoping he wouldn't make her keep going.
His face fell and his shoulders slumped. "Oh, I see. Right," he said, standing up. "I'll find somewhere. I'm sorry to have brought you all this way from… wherever you're coming from."
Sarah watched him pick himself up and get behind his shopping cart. She couldn't help but notice the absolute tatters his shoes were. Sarah would be completely broke if she tried to help every homeless man that tugged on her heart strings.
"Have a good night, and please stay safe, sir."
"Yeah, you too, Officer. Try to stay dry, I think it's going to rain tonight," the scruffy fellow said as he pushed off with his cart.
Sarah's heart fell deeper into her belly. She had just kicked this poor man off of a beautiful lawn with a nice shady tree on it, which is no doubt the feature that attracted the well mannered vagrant.
His parting words to her tore her deeper. He was just sent off into the Burbank evening to fend for himself in some even less favorable space, and he just told her to stay dry.
Sighing to herself, she slowly took off and headed back to the barn.
Sarah was more than happy to be in her own civilian vehicle, in her red tee, leather jacket and blue jeans. She looked out the windshield and saw the sky darkening quickly, and clouds rolling in. Thunder rumbled far off in the distance, but if the sky, the pick up in wind speed were any indication, it would be here soon.
The first few fat drops fell down and Sarah shook her head silently as she took her car out of park and rolled out of the station lot.
Sarah didn't even bother to turn the radio on as she drove home. All she heard was that poor man telling her to stay dry tonight.
As she came nearer to her warm dwelling, she watched the rain come down in angry sheets, bloated drops of rain manically crashing onto the street and violently ripping back up to seriously reduce visibility on the road.
It was getting harder and harder for Sarah to see, but she did see something on the side of the highway; a shopping cart with a blue vehicle tarp pulled over it, collecting puddles of warm rain. A person sat on the ground next to it, also covered in a tarp.
She couldn't make out any features, couldn't tell if the person was a man or woman.
Sarah didn't want to know. She didn't want to see a face, she didn't want to see eyes looking back at her. She kept her eyes on the road and tried to stop noticing the person. Out of sight, out of mind. She couldn't help everyone.
There are an estimated 66,436 homeless in LA County. What was one Sarah Walker to do?
Sarah closed her detective novel and looked out of her rain streaked window for the tenth time in a half hour. The storm wasn't letting up, and neither was the guilt inside of her.
That man was out there somewhere, no doubt cold, drenched, and miserable. Sarah wanted nothing more than to get the image of him out of her head, but it felt as if when she tied, she was only closing a blind and she could still see his silhouette on the other side.
The silhouette never spoke, didn't even move, it just stood there. It stood there in a bathrobe with a cart.
Sarah had been a cop for seven years. She was a damn good officer and had seen things that would make anyone seek out a therapist. Hell, she'd even been shot once. She had a nasty scar on her inner left thigh to remind her every day.
So why was she being haunted by a single homeless man?
His face felt sunshine. He heard a bird. He heard a lot of cars honking and the hustle and bustle of a Saturday in the city, but most importantly to him, he heard a bird.
Chuck Bartowski sat up and stretched his warming but stiff arms. He had survived the storm, though what was left of his shoes were more than soaked, and his robe felt like a giant dish sponge around him.
"Well, we survived another one, buddy," Chuck said, patting his cart like a friend. His stomach rumbled and he kneaded it gently, trying to push away the rolling hunger pangs. "If we don't make some cash soon, though, I'm not sure we can make it through the next one," Chuck mumbles to himself.
Resigned to another day, Chuck rose to his feet and kicked the saturated ground, smiling slightly at the squishy sound it made when the open toe of his shoe connected with it.
"Even if we had food money, I don't think any business would let us in," Chuck grumbled, taking in the sight of dirty pants. "A Goodwill would be nice, too, huh?" He patted the cart again and fought with fading might to get it out of the marsh-like ground.
He peeked under the tarp and saw that his things were dry for the most part, and he was thankful for that, if nothing else. He was also able to drink the rainwater that had puddled. It wasn't Dasani, but it was free, fresh water.
Chuck had been aimlessly pushing his cart around for a good hour when he spotted a truck stop. He looked at it longingly, remembering when he had the coin to at least use their showers. Now, he couldn't even do that or use a laundromat.
He shook his head and kept pushing, laughing humorlessly at how far he was now from the hallowed halls of Stanford. He would do anything to have those days back; the days when he was warm, respected, fed, and had promise.
After more walking, he was closer to downtown Burbank, but with nowhere in mind to go. He missed the tree he had yesterday evening, but now he wanted to find a new place to squat and get shooed away from.
He patiently waited at a crosswalk when someone made a daring dash from their car over to Chuck.
"Hey man, it isn't much, but I hope this helps," this stranger said, putting a $20 in Chuck's palm and dashing back to his car, making it back just in time for the light to turn green.
All Chuck had caught was that the man wore a green Buy More polo, was quite squat, and had a decent beard. No doubt he was on his way to work.
Chuck looked into his hand and saw $20 pressed into his hand. He looked back up just in time for the smiling man to wave at him before he pulled into traffic.
First stop for Chuck was getting some food, and then going to the Buy More to see if he could thank that kind mind.
Sarah stared at the phone in her hand with amazement. She was in the middle of sending a text when her screen made a blood curdling shriek, the screen went pink, and then blank.
"Are you kidding me? Can I ever have a normal day off?" Sarah groaned as she slid her phone into her purse and stormed towards the door. She knew there was a Nerd Herd at the Buy More just a few blocks from her apartment. If the Nerds couldn't help her, she would have to get a new phone, and she definitely didn't want that. She hated getting used to new tech.
After a small lunch of bread, meat, cheese, and an apple with plenty of leftovers stored away in his cart, Chuck headed to the Buy More. He left his trusty cart behind the store, hoping it would be safe there in the brief time he was inside.
Upon entering the store, he was glad he wasn't immediately tossed out. Chuck was a sore sight in his thread bearing jeans and hopelessly dirty t-shirt with holes under both arms.
At the center of the store, Chuck felt the Nerd Herd desk calling to him like a siren; not only because he loved all things tech, but because he felt a command center such as that was a good place to start his search for the kind donor.
"Hello, yes?" Chuck asked meekly to the short Asian descended lady that was behind the counter.
"Hi," she said without looking up from her phone.
"Uh… I was hoping you could help me find a man that works here?" Chuck tried again.
The girl whose name tag read "Anna" looked up and wrinkled her nose at him.
"Can I help you find some soap first?" the girl quipped, and Chuck's jaw dropped. "I…" Chuck was completely speechless and wounded beyond words. "I just wanted to thank someone who…."
"Oh hey!" Chuck heard a familiar voice from behind him. "Hey man! I didn't recognize you without your signature bathrobe!" It was the little man who had gifted Chuck $20!
"Hey!" Chuck responded, shooting him with finger guns. "I had to come find you. I saw your shirt and figured you work here. I just had to thank you for your generosity this morning," Chuck said with all his heart, and it melted the short man's heart.
He placed his hands over his chest and he sighed. "It means a lot that you came all the way here just to thank me!" he said. "You looked pretty down on your luck, so I was hoping just a little help could get a rally going, you know?"
"It really did! It rallied my spirits, anyay," Chuck said and looked at his hand. There was nothing glaring on it, so he offered it to the funny man. I'm Chuck."
"Good to meet you, Chuck. I'm Morgan."
"Now that you two know each other, can you introduce Chuck here to a shower? He smells," Anna said, completely shameless.
Movement caught Chuck's eye, and he turned to see a beautiful, but also a familiar sight before him. There stood the blonde cop who had so politely asked him to move on last night, but today she wore a breezy brown blouse instead of a policeman's uniform.
A look of realization dawned on her face, too, when her eyes met his. She quickly recovered, but continued to stand there sheepishly, a phone held in her hands like it was a wounded bird.
"Can I help you?" Morgan asked her, trying to keep his eyes in his head.
"Um, I hope so," she said, stepping forward now that she had been noticed. "This little guy needs to be in need of some aide," she said, offering over her trusty friend.
"Whoa ho!" Morgan laughed. "Look at this dinosaur!" he joked. "Chuck, did you know people still had this phone? This thing is what, 10 years old?"
"It's not that old!" she shot back at the beard, her pride obviously a little wounded.
"What seems to be wrong with it? If you don't mind me asking…." Chuck ventured, briefly forgetting his place. He didn't work here. He didn't work anywhere, and he felt he had no place to make himself heard.
However, despite his own feelings, the off-duty cop turned her attention, and her phone, to him.
"I'm not entirely sure," she admitted. "I was texting, and then it screeched, and the screen shorted out. Now it's a paperweight," she said disappointedly, shaking it like that would help anything.
Chuck tilted his head and said, "Wait… shake it again." She did, and a grin appeared on his face. He held his hands out and looked like Oliver Twist holding a bowl out for scraps. The blonde handed him her phone, and Chuck popped the back off.
"Morgan, can you hand me a jeweler's screwdriver? I'm sure there's one back there," Chuck said, and Morgan was Johnny on the spot, handing him one while Anna offered no help at all.
Chuck stuck his tongue out as he took a whole three seconds to tighten a screw, and then popped the back on again. He held down the power button for five minutes, and her little friend chimed back to life.
"Oh my God! You did it! How did you do that?" she asked, her eyes wide and her face beaming.
"Well that particular model of phone has a little screw in the back, and for whatever reason, if it gets loose, everything else does and the entire system shuts down. Retighten the screw, everything else reconnects, and it's good as new," Chuck said with a shrug, a little smile on his face.
It had been so long since Chuck felt like he was a help to somebody that it made his entire insides glow. Chuck's new acquaintance looked like she was ready to hug him as well.
"Thank you so much. How much do I owe you?" the sergeant asked, her attention on Morgan again.
"You don't owe me anything," he chuckled. "Chuck fixed it. You owe him," Morgan said, pointing to the gentle giant.
The pretty lady turned to him again and she smiled at him lightly. "Thank you… Chuck." His name came out of her mouth with a hesitance, and that made Chuck tilt his head ever so slightly to the side. He felt like she almost didn't want to say his name. It frankly baffled him.
"You're welcome," Chuck said with a smile. After the odd exchange, he didn't venture out for her name. "Well anyway," Chuck continued with his original mission, "thank you again for this morning, Morgan. It meant so much to me. I uh… I don't see that kindness very often," Chuck finished weakly.
"No problem, man. It's the least I could do in the moment. Please take care of yourself out there."
Morgan put his fingertips together and bowed, and Chuck followed suit before waving goodbye to him, and then said "Officer," as he waved at the woman, and he made his exit, leaving the two behind him.
Chuck felt like he was getting a little too comfortable with them, and he didn't want to get used to it. It wouldn't be good for him.
Chuck exited the Buy More on his terms, which was nice, but he felt a weird feeling for his gut, and he jogged around to the back of the store.
Chuck rounded the corner and stopped dead in his beaten shoes. His arms fell limp at his sides, and he couldn't bring himself to move, to cry, or to scream.
His cart was gone.
A/N: Hello friends. I know I'm working on Chuck Vs. the Open Field. I'm super uninspired at the moment, and in a weird mental space due to work and personal stuff. This story is a little more inspired. I'm a journalist, so I notice things about the community I live in, and this includes an increasing number of homeless people in my area, and it breaks my heart to see. I don't want to have too much of an author's note, so I'll have another "behind the scenes' A/N next chapter, too.
SP96