Bronze

Streets and Siblings and Statues and Preachers

Connor Werther had been there when the statue came down. Wanted to get his hand on the chain, just to say he helped, but couldn’t get close enough.

The pedestal the statue used to be on had been adopted by a street guy, manic, wore a trench coat over a red Chicago Bulls warmup suit, held a bible in his left hand with an old laminated Big Boy menu and one of the books of lucky numbers party stores sold for two bucks next to the lottery machine.

The man preached a combination of biblical names, numerology gibberish, Connor heard some anime references thrown in.

Connor wasn’t sure if it was coherent enough to even be called preaching, but it had an evangelical verve to it.

The street guy-Connor had heard a half dozen nicknames for him in the four months since the statue came down- always had a small crowd, but that seemed to be more of a function of the bus stop, the hot dog and paleta carts and a few small trees that were the only shade on that stretch of Fort Street.

Only a few people seemed to be paying attention.

Saraya was one of them.

Saraya was Connor’s younger step-sister, had probably rebelled the most against their blended family of the five kids that were thrust into the same household.

She’d be the black sheep, too, Connor thought, if she wasn’t brilliant.

Saraya was cross-legged on the ground near the guy. Some mockingly called him Jordan because of the warmup suit. That worked for Connor.

He tapped Saraya on the shoulder.

“Enough Jordan, Rye. Let’s go. I’ll buy ya some poke.”

Saraya looked up.

“Where the heck did you come from?”