He kept grabbing her hand.
“Over here, ok!?” he said. “Over here!”
“Ok, ok,” she said, trying to pull her hand back.
We stood around drinking, listening to the swish of rush hour traffic in the rain.
The trains above, more frequent, each time sending down older rainwater off the tracks onto my head and neck and back.
An ambulance and firetruck passed with sirens on.
Spider-Man jogged out to the edge of the alley and checked their identifying numbers.
“Both of them #3,” he said. “That’s over on Shakespeare and California. Right by where my mom used to live.”
He talked about how his mom used to make cookies every Sunday for the firemen and policemen.
Firemen and policemen would line up at her house on Sunday to get a cookie.
“She’d draw em like pigeons,” Spider-Man said. “Man, one time—”
But then he started crying.
He walked away a little, pinching his eyes.
Then he came back and told a story about firemen stopping traffic when he and his mom were walking home from the grocery store, to get out and hug him and his mom.
Janet said how they used to live with Spider-Man’s mom, and how much they loved each other.
“She, um, change my diaper. I say, ‘You no have to do it, Janny be back soon.’ But she, didda for me. I, wuh was embarrass, because no one see my, my privates. My, um, vuh—”
She looked at Spider-Man.
“Vagina,” he said, sniffing. “Yes, that’s what you have.”
Janet looked back and me. “Um, yeah, my vagina. Heh. Shit.”
Spider-Man was still crying, looking to the side and shaking his head.
But then he ate a few more pieces off Janet’s candy necklace and seemed to feel better.
He checked the time on his phone and asked if I could push Janet to the library.
He wanted to go to the library to charge all their stuff before they left the next day.
I handed Janet my 40 and tucked her stuffed animals more securely into the back pouch of her wheelchair.
I pushed her out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.
It was raining hard again.
We were completely wet in seconds.
Janet joked about stealing my drink.
“I gonna, heh, I gonna, steal it,” she said, holding the 40 closer to herself.
“Don’t steal it,” I said.
She laughed and said, “I luh, luff you.”
I pinched rain out of my nose. “Yeah?”
She quietly said, “No, I mean it. I do.”
When we got to the library, I parked her underneath the front entrance overhang.
Spider-Man came running up, wheeling the luggage.
“Oohweee,” he said, shaking off.
He took off his tophat and slapped it a few times.
He put their luggage beneath some bushes, setting the sleepingbags under the overhang.
I sat down crosslegged and drank my 40.
Janet took out her stuffed animals and petted them.
We hung out drinking until really late, talking about what they had to do when they got to Las Vegas, playing trivia, yelling at people who walked by in costumes, trying to throw our bottlecaps against each other, pissing in the bushes, laughing.
I told Spider-Man and Janet I would miss them and to call me whenever they came back.
Eventually they went to sleep in their sleeping bags.
I sat there for a little bit then got up and walked home.
By the time I got near my place, it was getting light out.
Sunbeams were coming down from the bottom of the cloud-cover, pointing to different areas of Chicago.
And I wanted to break off a sunbeam right where it met with the clouds and use it as a sword to protect the city.
Anyone coming in comes through me.
Anyone leaving leaves through me.
Anyone not wanted, denied.
Everyone else inside safe — but always in view of my sunbeam sword as I hold it, arms crossed and expressionless.