Cluckers

Of course it isn’t really the pennies that have him. It’s the tweak.

He, my good sirs, is a Clucker.

There are a lot of them around here. Cluck cluck. Cluck cluck. They’re especially active around the first of the month when the checks go out. But the middle of the month, the end… well they’re extra desperate, like Mr. Pennies. And like this other guy too. He’s too old to live with his mother. But he does; when he’s not homeless. And he always has a girlfriend, which comes in handy, especially when he is homeless and she gives him a place to stay a couple nights a week. Plus she does his laundry. Oh and she gives him a place to park his dick. That’s important.

But it’s the laundry that sets him apart from the HOMELESS homeless and the TWEAKER tweakers. He’s just always so fresh and so clean.

His white t-shirts are always so… white. And his Canadian tuxedo? Freshly pressed.

The first time he walks into the bar, ignores me and goes straight to the smoking porch, only to disappear minutes later without ordering a cheap beer or putting a dollar in the machines, I am curious. Maybe he was just looking for someone. The second time I realize he’s up to something weird but I’m too busy pouring drinks to spy on him. The third time the bar is completely empty and I get a private show on the security monitor.

There he is; outside, on the smoking porch. But he doesn’t light up. Instead, he goes for the ashtrays. He checks all three picnic tables. But there is no luck for him there, no refries with his name on the filter. I dumped them earlier. Too bad.

It’s only a temporary setback, of course. Those butts did not go far. In the corner, next to the fence, there are a pair of coffee cans. Old, rusted coffee cans where we dump the ash trays until they overflow to the point that someone gets sick enough of looking at them that they actually get emptied. Or they catch on fire. Whichever comes first.

In this case it’s the tweaker that makes the first round. He’s on those cans like nobody’s business. Refries and halvsies, he takes the best of the bunch from the first can and moves on to the second. When the second can disappoints he is back to the first can, desperate for any butts with even a few stray hairs of fresh red tobacco. When that’s not enough he scans the ground, moves chairs, brushes bushes aside. On the upside, the dropped cigarettes have more meat on them. On the downside, it’s been raining.