Earth vs. Everybody by John Swartzwelder Page A

be telling me I’m not a bum.”
    He asked me if I
was blind or disabled or something. Was that why I was out on the streets? I
said no, I’m just a lousy businessman. I rattled my tin cup at him again, a
little more forcefully this time. He scowled, then moved on and gave some money
to someone else, a few bums away, giving me a nasty look as he did so. Gee, I
thought, this is harder than it looks. I decided I needed a better story to
tell. The truth wasn’t working.
    I told the next
passerby that I was blind and deaf and couldn’t speak, the doctors had given me
fourteen seconds to live, and that was thirteen seconds ago, my teeth were
animal teeth, and I had a spring for a brain. And that it would take at least a
buck to fix all that. He gave me the money, but when I didn’t get better right
away, and said now it was going to be another eight hundred bucks, he moved on
without contributing any more. I was disappointed. I thought I was going to be
able to make a nice comfortable living off this one guy alone. I thought I had
struck the mother lode. But no such luck.
    The other bums on
the street were doing a lot better than I was, I noticed. Some had long
pathetic stories of hardship to relate—stories I found hard to believe in some
cases. Like the bum who said he was a former child star and U.S. President, and
the current Miss America, and that he’d lost everything and had to start living
on the streets after the Soviet Union forced liquor down his throat. I didn’t
believe more than half of that story—Miss America, my foot! That’s a girl’s
job!—but I had to admit he gave customers a lot of story for their money.
    Another bum, who
was doing even better, didn’t even bother with a story. He just sat down a
little too close to the foot traffic and waited to be accidentally kicked. When
that happened his arms and legs would spring off of his body, his eyes would
fall out, the top of his head would fly off and skid down the sidewalk, and his
heart would explode out of his chest and go through a window. The horrified
pedestrian who had tripped over him would quickly apologize, help him retrieve
his body parts, and usually put a liberal amount of spare change into his cup
before hurrying off. Within two minutes the bum would be back together again,
waiting for another chance to burst apart. The man was a genius, in his way. I
tried his technique, but no matter how many times I got kicked, the best I
could do was lose some front teeth.
    Eventually,
though, after I’d been out on the streets for awhile, I started making a little
money. My pathetic claim to passersby that I couldn’t do anything right had
just enough of a ring of truth to it to generate some sympathy. And some
donations. I wasn’t making a fortune, by any means, but I was getting by.
    I didn’t just ask
people for money either. I needed everything. “Luggage?” I would ask. “Can I
have some luggage, mister? How about some toothpaste, ma’am? Theater tickets!
Who’ll give me front row theater tickets?” People didn’t give me things very
often, but it didn’t hurt to ask. I got a nice pair of pants out of it. And
somebody gave me a cat, which I named Russell.
    After I had been
at my station for a week or so, the city put a small wall in front of me.
Fortunately, pedestrians could still smell me back there, so they weren’t
surprised when they heard the wall asking them for money.
    While I struggled
to get my new career going, Buzzy’s big trial finally got started down at the
courthouse. Everyone in town tried to crowd into the courtroom to witness this
thrilling spectacle. Even I sat in on as much of it as my begging business
would allow. The people who were waiting to give me money didn’t like it—they
were late for work already—but I couldn’t miss Buzzy’s trial.
    On that first
exciting day, all sorts of motions were made and testimony was given, but it
didn’t turn out to be as exciting as we had expected. Most of it was