5.17

Destiny was off again and yelling obscenities. "Just use the fuckin' phone, you fuckin' jackass. It's easy, I don't know why you're having so much fuckin' trouble. What are you just gonna fuckin' beat me again? It's all you fuckin' do." He was listening pretty patiently up until this point.
"Hey, don't say that, man."
She was holding my phone and tapping it like a baboon would, like an old woman, like an alien who's afraid of what they've got. Stabbing. Punching invisible sliding keys and unknown options. She called the third person, talked for thirty seconds, and handed the phone back to him. He walked over to me.
"Hey, thanks, man. Looks like we're in for a walk."
"No problem," I reply. "I've been where you are. I lost my phone a couple months ago and got a lot of help. I try to give back what I got."
He smiled. "Man, I really appreciate it. We've got a hike to get where we're going, and all her meds and stuff--she's off her meds because--all her meds and stuff are there, but we've got to hike, and we got the tent, but no sleeping bag, you know? Man, I really appreciate it. I came up here a coupla months ago and had my truck and my tools, looking for work, and a coupla guys jumped me and broke my elbow and found--well, the tools were in the trailer, and they took all that, and me a veteran."
"Damn, man. When it rains, it pours."
"You can say that again."

I offered him some granola bars. He said maybe a couple of bucks would be better. I apologized for not having any and continued to dig. He made a dismissive gesture and turned down the granola bars.
"Okay," I murmured, and closed up my backpack.
The security guard came to ask them to leave only a minute or so after that. The bus they wanted had left an hour before. Bad luck on bad luck.