Purple

Things always look different when you care about someone. Not just a little bit, but when you care about someone a great deal, it starts to affect your perception of things. It’s sort of funny, really. Like there was this woman sitting by an ATM on the Upper West Side, right on Amsterdam near 95th street. Twice I saw this woman, the first time way back before I met Janie. Back when my life looked so different. I was poor then, just out of a relationship that wasn’t going nowhere. I wasn’t all that broken up when it happened, to tell you the truth. I was more concerned about being poor than being alone, if you really want to know. Which is so strange to me now. It’s strange because now I have money, but after what I’ve been through, I don’t know that I see the point. Anyway, I saw this woman sitting by the ATM the first time, back when I had no money and things were so different, and she had this big potato sitting on the ground beside her. It was one of those big, sort of purple potatoes, with all the knolls and nobs on it. And this woman, she had her hand resting on the potato, just touching it. She just sat there, her head sort of leaned back against the concrete, her arm pressed right up against that ATM and her hand resting on top of this ugly, purple potato, like it was the only thing she had in the world. It made me laugh a little, honestly. It was such an absurd thing to see, but then I felt bad for laughing. For whatever reason, it just popped into my head that this woman’s life probably wasn’t going to be a long one. I stopped laughing right away when I thought about that. I’m not too smart, I know that. I don’t read a lot of books. I got my money the lucky way, by having a rich uncle who kicked the can way before he was supposed to. But I do know this much, about how homeless folks just don’t have a lot of luck coming their way. They don’t have rich uncles who up and die and leave them a whole bunch of cash. Of course I didn’t know for sure the woman was homeless at the time. She didn’t have a cup out or nothing, but I didn’t know why else she’d be sitting there, pressed up against that ATM at 95th and Amsterdam with a knobby old potato if she had a place to call home. I saw the same woman again much later, maybe a year or so down the road. I saw her again, probably about two months after I got that horrible call from Janie, when she told me she was done. This time I was pretty broken up, that’s for certain. The world just looked so different then. Sort of funny how it could look so different just a year or two down the road. The first time I saw the woman with the potato, I had no money. I had money now. I had became one of those people who was pretty well off. I didn’t have to worry about where my feet were taking me every day. I had the means to do as I pleased, and every day was sort of whimsical, if that makes sense. But all I could think about was how lonely I was without Janie. Turns out, money don't stop you from being lonely. Rich people are always saying stuff like that in interviews, about how they’re so lonely at the top. They’re always saying that, how they have everything and nothing at the same time. I always thought that was such bullshit but turns out they weren’t lying. After Janie called me and told me all that horrible stuff, how I was no good and would never amount to nothing, all I could think about was how alone I was. Uncle Jason snorted all that fentanyl and kicked the can, so I could afford to do as I pleased, but what was the goddamn point? I saw the woman sitting not far from where I saw her the first time, maybe three or four streets further up Amsterdam, and she didn’t have the potato anymore but I recognized her just the same. All I could think was, I wonder what happened to the potato. I wondered if she was sad that it was gone. Which was a very stupid thing to think, but things just look different when you care about someone. Not just a little bit, but when you care about someone a lot, it really affects your perception of things. It’s all you can think about, really. So I saw the woman again and this time she had a cup out so I gave her a few dollars and then I walked away, but I just kept thinking about the potato. I never saw another potato quite like it, all big and purple like that. I kept thinking about how absurd it had looked. But, the whole scene wasn’t all that funny to me anymore. It might have still been sort of funny if she had the potato. But she didn't. I didn’t laugh at all this time. It made me pretty sad, really. I was already sad, though.