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I took a good look at him before I got out of my car. He was shorter than John and his hair was streaked with grey. His ragged facial hair formed a scraggly beard that touched the base of his neck.
By his random hand gestures and barely moving lips, he seemed to be participating in an ongoing conversation with himself. Every few seconds he used his middle finger to greet passersby in a way that wasn't usually seen in the Piazza.
I decided to go into Roasted Love through the kitchen. I wasn’t ready to face Licorice Billy at this point.
When I walked in, I went straight to my boss. "Jacob, did you see that homeless man sitting outside the shop?"
"I saw him. I don’t know what to do at this point," said Jacob. "John was one thing. He never caused any trouble. This one definitely isn’t John. I'm thinking I've only got one option and that's to have the cops move him away from my business for good."
I could see that Jacob was torn. His sympathy for the less fortunate battled with concern for Roasted Love – his livelihood. I saw his dilemma, but at the same time I wanted to talk to Licorice Billy first.
"Yeah, I can understand if we need to call the cops. But do you mind if I take a bagel out to him first?"
Jacob hesitated, but then nodded. "Okay. But just one."
I filled a take-out cup with black coffee, got a bagel, and spread a little butter on it. Then I took them out to our new resident.
He stayed sitting down and quickly took the coffee and bagel from me. He never said a word but just started on the coffee first, gulping down the hot beverage. "Do you mind if I talk with you?" I asked him.
He glanced at the bagel and at the empty cup of coffee before he responded.
"Suit yourself," he said, in the roughest, most gravelly voice I'd ever heard. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Do you know what happened to John?"
He took a big bite of the bagel. "He’s dead, if that’s what you mean." No emotion of any kind showed on his face.
"I heard you and John used to fight. What did you fight about?"
Billy peered inside the empty coffee cup and then crushed it with one hand. I saw that his fingernails were caked with permanent dirt. He made a motion as if to throw it onto the sidewalk, but I raised my hand to stop him. "I wouldn’t advise that," I said.
He pushed himself up from the concrete wall, heaved himself to his feet, and then ambled to the trash container a few feet away. I noticed that he was several inches shorter than my own five foot six.
"Yeah, we used to fight," he said. "I was here before John was. This was my spot to begin with. I picked the best spot after I saw there were shops selling food here. It’s better to get leftover food than to pick through a dumpster."
Billy glanced up and down the street, and then looked at me again. "John and I argued a lot about it." He snickered. "I guess he won. At least, for a little while."
I didn’t remember this man ever sitting outside of Roasted Love, but it could have been before I'd started work here. "You do know the cops have to make you move along if you're – if you're just hanging out for too long."
I couldn’t bring myself to use the words homeless or street people. Even Licorice Billy was a human being and deserved some consideration. "Were you around when John died?"
"No. I don’t even know when it happened. I mean, I don’t know what time of the day or night he died. I have to hurry every night to get a bed at the shelter. They don’t let us in until seven. If I want a bed, I have to be there early." I resisted the urge to tell him to wipe his dripping black mouth. "I stay until morning when they kick us all out again."
"I see. Um, tell me – why would you rather sleep on the concrete instead of a bed?"
"The shelter's got better beds than the sidewalks. But it's noisy all night long. Hard to sleep there, too. Sometimes I stay there. Sometimes I don't."
He shuffled his feet. "If I don't stay at the shelter, I get moved all night by the police. A person can’t sleep when the cops come around every hour or so. I think they get a big kick out of harassing us."
I kept my arms folded across my chest. "I have to tell you, Billy – I don't think you'll be able to stay here every night unless you clear out before daylight. Having someone sleep outside of the coffee house doesn’t go over well with the customers."
He glared at me, and I saw his lip curl. "No one seemed to mind when John was here," he said. He finished his breakfast bagel and wiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his stained stubby hand. Then he reached in his pocket for a stick of the black licorice and jammed it between his chipped and yellowed teeth.
"Billy, the cops always made John move along, too. Now – let me ask you something. Did John say anything to you before he died?"
Several customers walked towards the door of Roasted Love, and they all stared at me and the shabby little man I was talking to. I saw them frown at us and then whisper to each other.
Licorice Billy threw them an obscene gesture, and then got back to me and my question. "Naw. All he ever talked about was his brother, Steven. He hammered away about how much he wanted to help him. I think his brother was into drugs."
