Two days before Christmas there’s standing room only on the street car as it rumbles slowly home. It’s quiet. Everyone’s reading: newspapers books magazines. Maybe we’re all just bagged from shopping. No one notices the homeless guy until he speaks. “I like the lines” he says loudly and when no one answers he continues anyway. “I can’t read but I like the straight lines.” We all pretend to keep on reading, our heads buried in those lines as if he’s just a troubling fiction.
R.D. Book
Writer and former journalist, author of five books of fiction including short story collections, historical fiction novellas and children’s picture books.