It's been a bad year. My girlfriend kicked me out of her apartment when my unemployment ran out and I couldn't find a job. It didn't matter that there were no jobs. She moved someone else in, someone who could help her with the rent, her sister. It wouldn't surprise me if the two of them were having an incestuous lesbian relationship. They both nag at me the same way and in the same disrespectful voice.
"Get a job, you lazy bum."
Now, without a job, out of money, I was out of options, and nearly out of hope. I was desperate. Drastic times call for drastic measures. It was time I needed to be over the top and drastic.
Never having done anything like this before, I decided to rob the jewelry store downtown. Judging by the number of items in their display window, I knew they bought more inventory hoping to sell for Christmas. I figured today, Monday morning, was a good time to hit him, before he made it to the bank with Saturday's receipts. The back door was in the alleyway behind the shop and that was where I'd make my forced entry.
I had been casing the joint for a while and I knew the kind of car the owner drove, a black Audi. No one else in this neighborhood owned a car as nice as that. I waited at the corner for the light to change to cross. I was early. I wanted to be there before he opened the store. I was planning to set up behind the dumpster, while pretending to be a homeless bum and surprise the owner, just as he opened the door and turned off the alarm.
Waiting for the light to change from don't walk to walk, I watched the cars speeding through the big intersection. Everyone's in a hurry today. There was a truck with no intention of stopping, I could tell in the way he sped up, as soon as the light yellowed. Now speeding through a red light. he barreled through the intersection. I couldn't believe my eyes when an old woman holding a blue bucket filled with cans and bottles, chose this time to cross the street without looking.
"Hey! Look out," I said just barely grabbing hold of her arm before the truck knocked her from this life to another.
The truck came so close to my face that if it had razor blades mounted on the side of it, it would have given me a close shave. The turbulent air from the big vehicle blew us both backwards into a parked car.
She was a bag lady. I've seen her around here before. She was old, ugly, and smelly. Yet, I felt good saving her miserable life for her to live another day scrabbling to collect cans and bottles.
"Let go of me," she said shooting me an ungrateful stare, even though I had just saved her life.
"Lady, another step and that truck would have exploded you like a watermelon hitting the pavement from 3 stories. I saved your life. You could at least say thank you."
She had a curious twinkle in her eye that I couldn't help but wonder about. This woman was more than a bag lady and I wondered what was her game. For some reason, I was still holding on to her arm, as if I was a cop and she was my prisoner.
"You're right," she said. "Sorry, but I've been a little bit preoccupied lately. I don't normally meet someone nice, someone willing to risk his life for mine, and someone who has a thing for old, bag ladies. Now, let go of my arm, you pervert," she said looking up at me with a crocked smile that showed a missing front tooth. "I don't say thank you to anyone," she said. "But because you saved me from certain death, I'll do better than that. I'll give you a wish, one wish."
"A wish? What are you a witch or something," I asked giving her a long and hard look? "What's your name?"
"My name is Ruth, but everyone on the street calls me Bucket because I carry this little blue bucket everywhere I go, as a reminder of my house that my neighbors burnt to the ground. The bucket was spared because it was submerged in my well, but I fixed them," she said with a slyly satisfied smile.
"I don't think I want to know how you fixed them," I said taking a step back away from her, but not letting go of her arm for fear that she'd run away.
"Do you want your wish or not," she asked with a nastiness to her voice that told me to be weary of her?
"Let me give you the witch test," I said reaching out my hand and feeling her tit. It was cold alright. Definitely, she was a witch.
"Hey, stop that. Let go of my tit, you perverted son-of-a-bitch."
She was someone that I wouldn't want to double cross. Certainly, even though she was small and harmless looking, I wouldn't want to run across her in a dark alley. No doubt, she was an insane homeless person, but there was an evilness about her.
Maybe she was a witch. Her tit was cold enough. She could be a witch. Only, if she was a witch and could cast spells, make potions, and grant wishes, wouldn't she be living better than living on the street?
It was eerily prophetic that she said that she'd grant me a wish because my favorite story as a kid was Aladdin. I used to imagine finding the magical lamp, rubbing it, and making a wish, before taking off on a magic carpet ride. I spent years looking for that damn magic lamp while perfecting the perfect wish I'd ask, should I ever stumble across the lamp and the imprisoned Genie, and here I am holding onto a witch who is willing to grant me a wish, one wish.
What should I wish for? Should I wish for good health or immortality or to be on the safe side, good health with immortality, even? Should I wish for a billion dollars so that I can buy houses, jewels, cars, and travel the world or with the rising cost of living, maybe ten billion? Should I wish for happiness? How would I even define happiness never having known it? Peace is a good thing to wish for? Only, should I wish for peace only for me or for everyone? Or what about wishing for knowledge and being able to understand everything, even the reason for life and what happens when you die?
Wow. I know, I remember now. I remembered the wish that I had come up with should I ever find myself in the spot that I'm in now. I remembered the wish I'd make should I ever come across that magic lamp and was confronted by a Genie that I had let out of his prison by rubbing the lamp.
"Yes, I'd like my wish," I said holding on to her tighter.
"Hey, you're hurting my arm, fuckwad. Let go of me."
"Sorry," I said. "I'll let go of you after you grant me my wish and not before."
I reached in my pocket, pulled out the handcuffs that I had intended on using on the jewelry store owner when robbing his store and slapped them on her wrist.
"Hey! What the fuck," she said wiggling her hands behind her and trying to break free. "I'm not into bondage, you sick psycho."
"Bondage? With you? In your dreams," I said.
"Let go of me," she said trying to get the attention of people walking by us. "Help!"
"It's okay, I'm a cop," I said to the curious people walking by and staring.
It wouldn't have worked had I said, it's okay, I'm a criminal. Surely, they would have called a cop had I said I was a criminal.
"Just tell me the fucking wish, so that I can be on my way," she said. "It's Christmas. I have things to do."
She was such a miserable, old woman with an awful potty mouth.
"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
