Everybody, Always

So much so, the firm couldn’t fit our cars under the building where I
worked.
Each employee got two hundred dollars a month to pay for parking
across the street in a fancy garage. That’s a lot of money when you’re
broke, so I decided to keep the cash and just park my yellow truck on the
street somewhere. The only place I could find was a twenty-minute walk
from my office on the other side of the railroad tracks.
One winter day, I left work a little early. When I got to my truck,
there was a homeless guy sitting in the driver’s seat. I guess he was cold
and saw the doors were unlocked, so he got in. His shopping basket was
up against the passenger door on the other side. My truck was parallel
parked between two other cars, and he sat there looking like he was
waiting for a light to change. His hands were on the steering wheel at ten
and two like they teach you in driver’s education class.
I walked up to my truck and sheepishly tapped on the window. I felt
like I was interrupting him. He looked up and waved at me, then stared
straight ahead again, putting his hands back on the steering wheel. After a
few more moments of him staring forward, I tapped on the window again.
He looked up and waved. This time he rolled down my window, smiled,
and asked, “Can I take you somewhere?”
“Not today,” I replied as I opened the door and let him out. He swung
his legs over, stood up straight next to me, crisply patted me twice on the
shoulder like I was his valet, and then walked away whistling. I just stood
there for a minute, my car keys still in my hand.
The next day, I drove to work in my yellow pickup truck and parked
in the same place. At the end of the day, I came back to my truck and
there he was again. I tapped on the window, he waved at me, and I waved
back. He asked if he could take me somewhere, I said no, and he opened
the door. He stretched, and we swapped places again. This went on for
months. We didn’t talk much during any of these exchanges. It was kind
of like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace but without the
fur hats. He needed a place to stay, and I needed an oil change. People in