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© 2006 Katt Thrasher Published in the 2007 edition of The New Voices at Ivy Tech Community College Awarded Third Place in the New Voices 2007 Contest sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women Indianapolis Branch 
The Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. has 365 steps to represent every day of the year. I hear tourists read this little-known fact from their brochures about twenty times a day, like a child who doesn’t know when to shut up. Of course, I get considerably less attention than the building and the business conducted therein, but I do hear them.
The granite steps gleam dully in the headlights of the passing cars that cut through another of D.C.’s many rainfalls like strange, metallic beasts. I loiter at the base of the eastern stairs while various men and women in suits hurry up and down them, cowering beneath the questionable shelter of newspapers or umbrellas. They hurry to get to work, not noticing the world beyond the things they’re holding above their heads. Out under the open sky, I notice more than most—and I don’t have to hurry anywhere.
Dirty and in raggedy clothes, I’d be your typical bum on the street, except for two things—one, I never had much of a taste for hard liquor, and two, the voices don’t talk to me. I tend to stay away from the drunkards and crazies, although the comments from some passersby tell me I still get lumped together with them anyway. I suppose pestering everyone for loose change tends to get annoying. Still though, I do my best to come off as friendly. No one’s nice to a rude bum.
Not one of those highfalutin suits or the visiting tourists would guess that I graduated from high school, must less that I have a masters degree. Although today, I’m guessing they’re worried more about getting under a solid roof than the history of the filthy old guy who’s sitting on the Capitol steps. Their world becomes bigger when they’re out from under their newspapers and umbrellas, after all.
It’s getting dark, and so the street lamps have come on. I enjoy the look of this city at night, especially when the rain is falling. Every street lamp glows with a warm, orange-yellow light. Even the colder white light of headlights can’t attract my eyes like those lamps can. The way they stand out against the night sky and reflect on the constantly pummeled puddles just makes me smile. I’ll admit that the springtime nights in D.C. are often too cold for my taste, but the sound of the rainfall helps me get by.
I’ve noticed, in my decade as a drifter, how easy it is for people to generally ignore the world right in front of their faces. Take me, as a poor—that is, a bad example. Standing here, on the steps of the Capitol, a cup out for change, folks don’t really take much notice of me. Sure, they see me—a darkly clothed figure on the oatmeal-coloured steps is rather hard to miss, after all, but, like most things, there’s more to me than just the quarter-inch thick layer of grime on my skin.
Of course, there’s a great deal more to life than people think, and most of them never realize it. Even in distressful situations like mine there are things of worth. There are people to meet, and there are experiences to have everywhere. Those lights up the street, on and inside the Capitol, across the lawn—they bring me joy, even though some people would take one look at me and decide that I have no reason to feel it. The scent of the breeze in the spring, the rain, the trees—all the clichéd parts of life that poets love to wax eloquent about—those are the simple pleasures I enjoy. And because I currently have a total of five dollars to my name—all in coins—it’s a good thing I learned how to enjoy the simple things in life.
See, I remember what it’s like to be where those suits are—so busy that they can’t see the world around them, feeling like they have to run everywhere. They seldom stop to think about what a beautiful world they live in. As this type of person goes, I have to admit that I was one of the worst kinds—I was a workaholic. My wife actually left me because I spent too much time at work. It’s funny how my life has worked out. Fortune dragged me by my shirt collar into the gutter and left me there for dead. But if it hadn’t been for my ruination, I would still be the same boring guy, unimaginative, and callous. Although I’m just a bum, I still feel rich when I notice the beauty of simple things, like the way ducklings waddle or how leaves turn over in the wind.
As evening starts to fall, I watch a group of suits climb the stairs, likely the last group until tomorrow morning. I always hated the night shift, but from the determined looks on their half-shadowed, hazy faces I can tell that staying up longer than man was meant to doesn’t matter to them. It’s all about getting ahead in life and making a buck. I really feel sorry for those poor bastards. They can’t look beyond their own petty concerns—or else they just don’t, which is even sadder.
Some guy hands me a fiver. While I thank him, I can’t help but reciprocate the pity I know he feels for me. I pity him because he and his coworkers can’t think beyond their jobs and future fortunes. Leave it to people, though, to not look beyond the discomfort they feel or the dreams they hope to achieve, to ignore anything beyond what they have time to think about. Why, I bet most of these suits going up and down the steps never even bother to watch the rain fall. If they did, that worry they feel might evaporate—kind of like the way the rain turns to mist when it lands on the lamps down the street. They wouldn’t recognize what’s really important in this world if it whapped them with a wriggling salmon. I’m damn fortunate to have the rain, the street lamps, and the night. |
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