Green Money

The bench was a hard, yet comfortable old friend. Molly Ludendorf favored this bench, and this corner of the park. The old woman pushed her "house on wheels," a McKay's Market shopping cart, to the bench and sat down. She began ceremoniously preparing her sleeping quarters. The night air felt crisp. She raised her head and sniffed. "It will be coldt before mornink," she muttered in a thick, heavily German-accented voice. Nearly twenty years of living on the street had given her skills meteorologists could only dream about. She laid out a ragged pink wool blanket on the bench, patting it lovingly. It was a find, from a Hillman Avenue triple-decker just before it was knocked down. Molly stuffed newspapers into a white plastic Stop N'Save bag, and put it at the head of the bench. A good pillow. Dipping into her cart, she fished out a baby blue polyester sweater with a bleach stain on the front. She'd found it in the trash outside of the Laundromat on Second Street. She had seen some men going through the trash can and had waited for them to leave. She'd had her share of trouble with homeless men in the years she'd been on the street. Thank heaven she was too old to be raped anymore, but then, you never know. When the men left, she went through the can. She discovered the sweater at the bottom. She pulled it on, over her clothes. It was big, but that was good; she could wrap it around herself like a coat. Again she reached into the jumble in the cart, taking out a three-day-old copy of The Wall Street Journal. Carefully rationing out the pages, she wrapped them around her green Converse high-top sneakers, tucking the edges inside the shoes. The nuns who ran the Saint Luke shelter had given them to her. She had dragged herself in on a cold, snowy night, her own shoes in tatters, barely clinging to her nearly frozen feet. The Converse sneaks were the only shoes they had that she could fit into. The nuns let her bathe, then gave her clean clothes, underwear, two pairs of pristine, thick white socks, and the shoes. Once the shoes felt secure, she took out three dark green plastic garbage bags and smoothed them out on the bench. Selecting the one on top, she pulled it over her feet. The bottom had been cut away so that she could tug the plastic all the way up to her waist. She tucked it in to the band of her stained blue denim pants. She took the second bag and pulled it up to her knees, then tucked it securely around her news-shrouded feet and legs. Garbage bags were a miraculous invention, she thought. They held body heat like the finest goose-down quilts she'd owned in her other life, before the pain, before the alcohol, before the streets. Holding onto the bag around her legs with her free hand, and pressing her ankles together to keep the paper in place, Molly lay down on the bench. She wrapped the third garbage bag around her body and pulled up the pink blanket, tucking it under her hips and thighs. She felt warm and secure. The breeze was beginning to turn cold. She pulled the dirty black hood of the nylon windbreaker she wore under the sweater over her head. She pulled the drawstrings tight. The hood formed an ear-warming shield around her wrinkled, dirty face. She pulled her crocheted brown woolen hat from inside her sweater and tugged it down over her forehead. The brim touched the bridge of her nose. On the chilly, light breeze, she smelled a sweet, pungent smoke, coming from the trees. "Lowlife scum," she muttered to herself. Her heavy accent gave the words a clipped and guttural sound. "All da drugs dey smoke and shoot, dey're killink da worlt." She turned her back to the wind. The bass-heavy beat of music rode on the air. Molly pulled her hat down farther, trying unsuccessfully to block the sound. Dr. Dre and the prematuSmith-Levin, Judith is the author of 'Green Money', published 2000 under ISBN 9780345420848 and ISBN 0345420845.