From:             "Jim & Carol Gritton" <jimcaz@dircon.co.uk>
Subject:          The Beggar (REVISED)
Date sent:        Fri, 8 Aug 1997 18:59:54 +0100

TITLE: The Beggar 1/1

AUTHOR: Carol Gritton

E-MAIL: jimcaz@dircon.co.uk

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and
Fox TV.  They are used without permission, and no infringement of
copyright is intended.  

RATING: G

CLASSIFICATION: V

SUMMARY: A lonely beggar walks the streets of New York...

Author's note: I have never visited New York (yet), so I hope all you
native New Yorkers will excuse any liberties or errors I have made
when depicting your fair city.

Please note that version is slightly revised from the original.

Comments welcome and gratefully received at the above address.

The Beggar
by Carol Gritton (jimcaz@dircon.co.uk)

     He pulled the frayed collar of his tattered winter coat closer
around his neck.  It let in more cold than it kept out, but it was
all he had.  All his worldly goods were contained in the scruffy
clothes he stood up in, the battered sneakers he wore on his feet. 
New York City winters were well known for their severity, and he
wondered if he would see this one out.  At least it was warm in the
subway station, and he'd rest there for a while until he was moved on
by the police or the security guards that patrolled the system.
     The bustling commuters paid him no mind as they hurried past him
to catch the trains that would take them back their families, their
loved ones, to their warm houses and apartments after a long day in
the office.  He moved among them, jangling a paper coffee cup in the
hope of begging some small change for a welcome cup of coffee,
something to warm his frozen bones.  Maybe he'd be lucky to collect
enough for a muffin or a doughnut, something to fill his empty
stomach.  Maybe some kindly soul would take pity on him and give him
a dollar or two, maybe he'd even make enough to buy a night in a warm
hostel, where he could get a decent meal and a wash.  But mostly they
walked past as if he didn't exist, or looked at him as if he was
something unpleasant on the sole of their expensive shoes. 
     He wondered if these people ever thought about how or why a
person ended up on the streets - he suspected not.  That sort of
thing happened to other people, not to them.  Not them, with their
high powered jobs and their comfortable homes.  They rushed by him,
in their sharp suits and long overcoats, and a brief memory of
another time surfaced.  He was like that once, wasn't he?  A good
looking man, always dressed in a sharp suit? Then the memory was
gone, buried in the recesses of his mind.  He didn't want to
remember.  It was too painful to remember.

     He walked the streets, looking for a suitable place to sleep. 
Most of the shop doorways had already been claimed by other street
dwellers - if you didn't stake your claim early, it was your hard
luck.  Those that were unoccupied were too shallow to provide any
shelter from the biting wind and the snow that was threatening to
fall that night.
    There were rules to living on the street, and he'd had to learn
them quickly in order to survive.  He'd toughened up after the first
couple of beatings - it was either that or die.  Now he could be as
mean and as vicious as the next man, or woman, as the case might be.
     He caught sight of his reflection as he passed by a shop window.
 He stopped and stared, not recognising the face that looked back at
him.  Hollow cheeked and sunken eyed, several days growth of beard on
his face, his hair ratty and unkempt... who was this man?  The rags
that covered his skinny body just hung on his almost skeletal frame -
the consequence of too few regular meals.  He'd always been tall and
slim, but now he had a slight stoop, and his loose limbed gait had
been replaced by a shuffle.  Then there was the cough - the dry,
hacking cough that made him hug his chest against the pain, that made
him feel as if his lungs were going to burst out of him at any
moment.  
     He continued on his lonely patrol, looking for a place to sleep,
almost dead on his feet.  He wanted to sleep, he needed to sleep, but
that was when the dreams came.  The dreams of the woman with the
flaming red hair and ice blue eyes...  He hated the dreams, they
reminded him of why he was here on the street.  They reminded him of
the guilt, the guilt associated with the flame haired woman.
     He made his way to Cardboard City, where all the down and outs
and homeless eventually ended up.  Maybe he'd be lucky enough to get
there in time for the soup run - he hadn't even raised enough for a
coffee at the subway station.  Maybe he'd be able to talk his way
into sharing someone's fire.  The cold pierced his bones, making old
injuries painful.  He needed warmth, both inside and out.
     He awoke with a yell, raising a guttural chorus of obscene
comments and gestures from those around him that were trying to
sleep.  He didn't even remember falling asleep, but he knew what had
woken him up.  The flame haired woman was telling him that she had
cancer, that she was going to die...  It had been too much for him to
bear - he'd run away, had a breakdown and ended up on the street.  A
solitary tear ran down his face at the memory, a memory that was just
as quickly forced back from whence it came.  There would be no more
sleep that night.

     The steely grey light of dawn found him making his way to Fifth
Avenue.  It was a good area for picking up loose change during the
day - at night he usually headed for Broadway to catch the
theatregoers.  His stomach rumbled loudly - he'd had nothing since
the soup and bread from the charity soup wagon the previous night. 
The soup and bread were like manna from Heaven, and he'd accepted
them gratefully, devouring them like there was no tomorrow.  But that
was life on the street - you never knew if you would see out the
night, let alone see the next day.  He settled himself in his
favourite spot, right next to a warm air vent, paper cup at the
ready.

     She had never stopped looking for him.  Not since the day she
had gone to his apartment and found him gone.  He had taken nothing,
no money, no credit cards, no items of a personal nature, no change
of clothes... just the things he stood up in.  She'd circulated his
description all over the country and she'd get sporadic reports of
sightings, but never anything concrete.  He was good at disappearing,
adept at living on his wits.  He had more lives than a cat.  He'd
disappeared before, and always come back, but this time she knew he
wasn't coming back.  She'd gone over and over their last meeting,
looking for some hint, some clue as to why he would do this, but it
was fruitless.
    She'd started her search with the places she thought he might go,
but she'd drawn a blank.  He wouldn't go somewhere so obvious if he
didn't want to be found.  So she widened her search.  She spent all
her free time combing the cities on the Eastern seaboard, searching
for him, asking questions, showing his photograph, each time drawing
a blank.  At times she despaired, became disheartened, but in her
heart she would never rest until she found him and brought him home.
Whatever had caused him to leave, she knew he couldn't have been in
his right mind at the time.  Two years she'd been looking, and she
knew she would find him one day.  It was the only thing that kept her
going - it had become her faith.

     The wind whipped around him, and he wrapped his meagre overcoat
tighter about him.  The warm air vent afforded a little heat, but not
much.  Pickings were slim so far... the cold and threatening snow
were keeping people indoors.  He huddled closer to the vent, the
cough suddenly bursting out of his chest.  He knew he should see a
doctor... maybe he'd take himself off to one of the hostels later and
see if they could arrange for him to see one.  Even if he saw a
doctor and the doctor gave him medicine for the cough, someone would
more than likely beat him up and steal it.

     She had never experienced a New York winter.  She'd heard how
cold they could be and she was glad of the gloves and scarf she had
brought with her.  She'd decided to buy a few early Christmas
presents before going out later and resuming her search for the one
she was seeking.  She hurried along, her head down against the wind,
past the beggars that sat every hundred yards or so.  She didn't stop
when they asked for change - if you stopped for one, you had to stop
for them all.  She felt a little guilty for not stopping, but it just
wasn't possible to help everyone.  Her mind was still occupied with
this when she heard, yet again,  "Spare some change?"

     She stopped dead in her tracks, and looked down at the pathetic
specimen huddled on the sidewalk, a paper coffee cup held out in
front of him.
     "Spare some change?" he asked again.
     Her heart leapt into her throat. The voice was a little coarse,
a little raspy, but still recognisable.  Her heart began to race as
she bobbed down.
     A pair of hazel eyes connected with hers. They were dead,
lifeless... devoid of the kaleidoscope of colours that used to dance
there depending on his mood.  Tears filled her eyes, and she reached
out a soft, lilywhite hand and rested it against his rough, grimy
cheek.
     "Mulder?" she said softly.  She swore she saw a flicker of
recognition in his eyes.
     He looked at her.  Was that his name?  It seemed familiar
enough...  This was her, the woman from his dream...
     "Scully?"  The name rasped out of him, followed by another bout
of bone rattling coughing.  The woman nodded, tears running down her
face.  She placed a hand on his dirty, matted hair, taking in his
cadaverous appearance, the ragged clothes, the scent of living rough.
 His hands were blue with the cold.  That he was in desperate need of
medical attention was obvious.
     "Scully?" he said again.
     Smiling through her tears she said softly, "It's me, Mulder, and
I've come to take you home."

The End