This is a stick up!

Peace sign, on the sign, and with his finger, I gave only a single Washington, cherry tree chopper, the lowest valued denomination!

I could say that that is all of the cash I had on hand, but there were two shiny quarters that some part of my child mind wanted desperately to hold onto, that they would surely come in handy, for my own hands--even more than the twenty I didn’t expect my ex to hand me just two hours before. So too late, crossing the bridge, I did ask myself out loud, why hadn’t I given him that? It could have been, easy come, easy go.

When I looked over, not averting their eyes, their sign, to read it, to see them, scanning for children, are those packs or strollers, I saw his head drop, almost all the way into his lap and his crazy eyed, blonde date sat criss-cross applesauce, or Indian style for those of us born in 69, right in line with the Escalade exhaust pipes without any kind of care—her skin in desperate need of Water Babies 45.

I took out the one and showed it through the window. He looked up, testing his faith just after what appeared final whitewash and with the biggest smile, at least six teeth missing, his eyes flamed and he quickly rose, fisted up his now too big pants and did his best ever walk-on-water over to my open window.

I said, “It’s only a dollar,” and shrugged. He told me God loves me and once back to his side of the street, as the red light switched, I waved and he gave me a thrusted forward pelvis, an open grin and with his holding-tree-flag hand flashed the V sign for victory and presumably bestowing a blessing of peace on me.

Surprising, I thought, they weren’t getting people laughing and throwing out pocket change and drunk crunched bills at this wisecrack when they saw him waving that long twig in the air in which he’d pulled every small branch and stem and left only the top--a Muppet puppets hair dancing in the wind, an ensign above the hedges, just as I first saw it in wonder, waiting in the gas-line just the other side of a live, manicured barrier.

Green man, his right hand held the wand, and resting against his chest, cradled lightly with his left, was his sign made of a single piece of drift-board, which means these particular, and presumably homeless, were not from around here or they wouldn’t have used all of their Gatorade given energy to walk all the way out and through Fort Stevens to see Ocian in view despite the steady line of jacked white trucks and stickers in the dunes.

These weren’t the types who were just lazy and out spending their day panhandling to make thousands (the current turn-your-cheek misnomer) because they were too skinny, their hair too knotted and just think all of those teeth he’d left as totems atop milepost markers!

Perhaps, they were two of the dreaded lot babies, their parents making a religion of Terrapin Station? They’d been van-schooled to not trust the tie dye, the backpacks, 5-0! Uncle Benny, not their real uncle at all, had told them since they were three they’d always be better out in the trees.

“This is a stick up,” his sign read!

Now, God’s going to stick me up! Not one of those who just didn’t look, drove on, but that kind of good that means good for you, like eat your vegetables, more than all kinds of free gifts are going to start showing up on your doorstep—think Maserati and swimming pools at California cliff-class mansions.

God’s providence is my inheritance.

Photo Credit: Eddie Kopp/unsplash