More Than Enough by John Fulton Page A

eyes.
    â€œI’m not going to tell you a story about a bus ticket I need to buy,” the man said. “This is my entire story.” He hit the bag of aluminum cans. “Instead, I’m just going to ask if you might have a little money to spare. Five dollars, maybe?” He looked at me and winked. I was astonished, then angry. That was a hell of a lot to ask for. We did not have five dollars to give away.
    â€œMaxwell is trying the direct approach on my advice,” his girlfriend, or whoever she was, said. “Just tell them what you want. People don’t like to be lied to. It’s a matter of mutual respect.”
    My mother was fishing through her purse. “We don’t have any money to give you,” I said. But she suddenly had three dollars in her hand for him.
    â€œNo,” I said. The bum had his hand ready to grab for the money, but he held it back then, as if afraid something might bite him.
    â€œDon’t you tell me no,” my mother said.
    â€œWe can’t afford this.”
    My mother leveled her eyes at me. “I determine that. You got it?” I nodded, though I couldn’t believe it. More than any of us, my mother understood that our family had certain limits, that we had to be careful, that we’d be lucky just to get what we needed. Besides, she had never been an especially charitable person. She’d always been defensive and careful with money.
    â€œKids,” the bum said, taking her money. I hated him. “Thank you very much.” Then he winked at her cigarettes on the table and said, “And maybe two or three of those for later.” That was funny because his girlfriend had been smoking nonstop since we sat down. All the same, my mother gave them three cigarettes. I didn’t get it.
    â€œHonesty is the best policy,” his girlfriend said. “Just ask for what you want. Don’t make up stories. Am I right?”
    They stood up, seeming to realize that it was time for them to go. The man removed an invisible hat from his head and tipped it at my mother. I didn’t understand why they left then since it was still raining hard, and I watched them walk into the storm, the enormous load of aluminum cans on the man’s back and the odd plastic bags fastened to his feet. They weren’t hurrying, just walking in the downpour the way only people who have nowhere to go must be used to doing. It depressed me, watching them like that, though I still thought we’d been crazy to give them what we needed for ourselves, which my mother must have seen on my face when I turned around and looked at her again.
    â€œI make the decisions,” she said. “Okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    *   *   *
    It turned out that our charity cases were criminals, since they’d left without paying for their coffees. The waitress had a stand-off over their abandoned table with her manager, a young guy with a soft, fat Mormon face and a skinny body, who shook his head at her, dug into his lardy cheek with his thumb and forefinger because it hurt him to say, though he kept saying it anyway, “Someone has to pay for this. It’s your job to keep an eye on your tables.” This incident made me feel good; it showed that at fifteen I had sound judgment.
    Our waitress—the one who had been stiffed by Maxwell and his girlfriend—was a plump woman whose chin sunk into her loose neck. Her name tag said SANDY . “We’re sorry about your table,” my mother said.
    â€œWhat happened to you, honey?” the waitress asked me. I didn’t know what she meant at first. Then I remembered that my arm was still in a sling, and I felt what I’d felt over the last few weeks when people asked me about it—appreciative and self-conscious. I liked people to notice. It always surprised me how many strangers actually cared about what happened to people they didn’t know.
    â€œJust an