"Well, today’s been good to Bunny and I have two extra pieces of fried chicken and a half bottle of whiskey. Would that help them bones?"
He nodded and his grin returned. Bunny liked it when he grinned. She saw men’s faces in all sorts of contortions, but a grin, or at least a non lascivious grin, was rarely one she got to see much of these days. It was a warm respite in her otherwise dreary life.
"Good chicken," Steve said, fairy devouring it.
"The Colonel knows his chicken, Mr. Beam knows his booze," she replied, keenly aware that she had made her first joke since she could remember.
"And you’ve got a customer," he said, pointing to a car that had pulled up as they sat there and ate.
"Well, Lordy be," Bunny said, jumping up and wiping her hands on her mini. "It’s raining men today."
"Hallelujah," Steve said, wiping his face with his sleeve.
* * *
This "relationship" went on for several weeks. Actually, it was the highlight of both Bunny and Steve’s days. Bunny rarely if ever talked to her johns, except to say, "That’ll be twenty." and nobody ever talked to Steve, even when they threw him a nickel or a dime. Except for his interactions with Bunny, he was, strictly speaking, a non-entity. So the two of them formed a sort of bond. A friendship, if you will.
"Hey, Hoppy, how about a ham sandwich today?" she asked, taking her now regular place on the sidewalk.
"Sure. Might you have some Gray Poupon for that?"
The joke was lost on her, but she smiled anyway. Steve’s jokes almost always went over her head, but she loved the way he grinned when he said them. No one had ever told Bunny to always look on the bright side of life, but Steve had seen it in a movie once and it must have stuck. It was, after all, fairly gray most of the time down in their neck of the woods, and he still managed to smile whenever possible. Now Bunny managed one every day, though only with Steve.
"Nice day today, Hoppy," Bunny said, still grinning.
"Nicer than most," he agreed.
And just before she got up to leave, they heard an alarm going off down the street at The Eagle. Years on the street had taught them to hate that sound. It meant that cops would be nearby soon and cops were not their friends. Cops treated them worse than anybody else.
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