My regrets
"Damn, it's cold tonight." I complained.
"Ha, you think this is cold. Did I ever tell you about the winter I lived in Boston?" he replied.
"No, but you will," I muttered.
" Well it was back in '78. I had just finished college and moved from my hometown to Boston. I needed a change of scenery. I got a job at an all night store, working the graveyard shift. I needed some time to myself, to think. Hardly anyone ever came in. Well round about the middle of January it starts getting really cold. Now I'd known cold in my hometown, but this was cold of a different order. About that time this guy starts coming into the store. Nowadays you'd call him a homeless person, but back then we called them bums. So this bum starts coming in and tells me that it's too cold outside and could he stay in the store for awhile and warm up. Well, you know me, I didn't have the heart to say no. Not that I really liked it mind you. I wanted time alone. Last thing I needed was some bum hanging around. Sometimes he would try to talk to me. I'd just ignore him. Well this went on for weeks. Pretty soon this bum becomes a regular part of the evening. One night he asks if it would be OK if he could lay down in the back room. I told him to go ahead, mostly to get rid of him. Well two or three days later the boss comes in and says that someone has been messing up the back room and do I know anything about it. Of course I say I don't.
That night its a doosey of a cold one. 11 degrees below zero without the wind chill and there was wind. Well the bum comes in just like clockwork and doesn't even say anything. Just starts walking back to the back room. I stop him and tell him the boss is onto him and he can't sleep back there anymore. The bum walks around the store awhile and then comes up and tries to make some small talk with me. Well I'd had enough. I just exploded. I'd gotten used to being alone again and I just didn't want him around. Why should I sacrifice my hard earned solitude for some bum anyway.
I told him, "Look Buddy ( I didn't even know his name) , you can't hang around here anymore."
"But its too cold outside."
"That's not my problem. Get out or I'll call the cops." I said , and I meant it.
The old bum sighed a deep sigh, picked up his bag, and pulled his blanket around him and headed for the door. He opened the door. I felt the swish cold of air. He turned around and looked at me with a sad face.
"You're going to regret this someday." he said, giving me a long,sad penetrating look. Then all of a sudden he plunged out into the cold. "
"That was a strange thing for him to say ," I said.
"Yeah but the really strange thing was the way he said it. Like he wasn't angry or anything, just sad. Like he really felt bad for me because I would regret it someday. It was like at that moment, this bum was more concerned about my welfare than his own. It was almost if for that one moment he had taken on the soul of a saint."
He leaned back in his chair and I looked at my friend as if for the first time.
"Did you eve see him again?"
" Nope.I never saw him again.That was over twenty years ago and I've thought about that bum and what he said many times over the years," he said thoughtfully, " but the funny thing is I've never once regretted kicking him out of that store. Saint or no saint, he was dead wrong about that."
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