He was one of those people on whom the rain always seemed to fall. He had tried sleeping under the open sky, he had tried crouching under bridges, and he had on occasion broken into a deserted building or two. It made no difference. Still it continued in that same slow miserable drizzle. He was sick of it. When he started carrying a bright red umbrella everywhere he went, only one person commented on it. The others understood intuitively with the demeanor of those who had felt their share of rain. He was allowed his particular quirk.
"What's with the umbrella?" the sharp-faced woman in the checkered blanket had asked him. She had just hitched in the back of a pickup all the way from San Diego.
"He needs it. What more is there?" said the oldest of the bearded man, and wiped a few drops off his face in sympathy. The sun shone brightly overhead. The woman muttered something and moved to another bench.
He didn't say anything. Although the umbrella kept the rain off his head, he could always see the water dripping a mere foot in front of his face, about a drop every second from each of the eight points. He could hear the drops falling like meteors to the pavement below his feet. If he stretched out at night he could only cover his head, and would feel the drops landing on his bare ankles, he could hear them patter on the cold ground. So he slept hunched over in back-alley doorways, one or both hands clutching his pathetic excuse for shelter. Maybe he should move to Arizona. Maybe he should get another umbrella.
Wouldn't that be a fine sight? A man carrying two umbrellas everywhere he goes. It would seem above his station. They would pick apart his ragged clothes with their razor eyes and wonder, "Why two umbrellas when he should have found another coat? He probably stole them." That did it, really: the fear of being thought a thief. He wasn't ashamed, but it was dangerous; living under bridges was bad enough without the unspoken assumption that if you had anything worth having, it must be stolen. A nice jacket? Sorry, you don't look as though you can afford it. And who would give you a nice jacket? People donate their ratty old clothes to the Salvation Army, not their nice new jackets. You'd better come in, and we'll see if you possess a nice criminal record. If not, we can always find one for you. That's a lot cheaper than warm clothes or a place to stay.
So he never found another umbrella, never found a waterproof coat. He sat on street corners every Friday and Saturday until he had collected enough change to buy a hot Reuben sandwich and a bottle of wine. On Wednesday nights they sold student tickets at the Portland Symphony, and college kids would sometimes take him into a fast-food restaurant and order him a burger. Less often when he had a bottle of wine with him. Most Tuesdays he would be ignored for hours, people passing by without giving him a glance, as if terrified to be accosted by yet another hungry beggar.
Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if everyone had an umbrella. The masses of humanity would flow together as little streams into a mighty river (he had heard this phrase at a Salvation Army church service once, keeping his feet warm) and there would be a perfect roof of umbrellas blotting out the rain clouds. Instead of the constant dreary gray sky there would be vibrant blacks and blues and reds and yellows in an unending pattern just overhead. Every once in a while, he would lift a lazy hand to brush that nylon ceiling. Sometimes he would dream of it for days at a time and the colors would swirl to the rhythm of half-remembered music and choreography from some generic escapist film. It would be nice to escape.
Once a man gave him a half-eaten croissant out of some vague feeling of guilt or sympathy, as if that were a display of a true generosity of spirit rather than a very human display of discomfort. As the man boarded the bus to head back to his comfy job and his comfy life, without warning he turned violently and yelled out, "Why don't you fucking get a job?"
But he didn’t answer, and the door closed, and the bus left behind that acrid smell of burning rubber. He looked down, then inward. "I'm just waiting," he said. "Just waiting for a sea of umbrellas, and a sea of hands to hold them."