I rush to catch the streetcar before it pulls away from the intersection of Canal and Carondelet. I'm at the Don't Walk sign when I see the doors close. The bell rings, and the streetcar leaves.

Knowing I'll be late for work anyway I dig through my purse for the change to get a newspaper. My lipstick falls out and rolls toward the wall of the Katz and Bestoff building.

I push the rest of the stuff that's trying to fall out of my purse down inside and I hurry after the lipstick. It continues to roll down the sidewalk toward a huge cardboard box that's covered on top with tarpaper. The box has a newspaper curtain taped at the top of a cut-out.

The lipstick rolls under the newspaper and into the homeless guy's home.

I've avoided looking at the homeless guy for months. Sometimes I think I have the worst luck in the world. This particular homeless guy is convinced he knows me. When anyone else passes, if he happens to be sitting outside his box, he holds a tin can up to them, but he doesn't look at them. "Help the poor," he says in a monotone voice. People react in different ways, but the important thing is that some drop money into the can. I've never wanted to encourage begging so I don't look at him. Not even when I think he's talking to me.

"I know you," the monotone voice says. I pretend I don't hear it. Even when there's a crowd of other people standing at the corner waiting for a Walk sign I know he's talking to me.

"You know me, too," the voice says.  I want to scream, "No! I don't!" But then I'd be talking to him and I won't do that.

Today he's not outside. I watch the lipstick roll inside but I stop. I'll get another lipstick. I'll go inside K&B and get one right now.

"Come get your lipstick," the voice said. "Don't be afraid. You know me."

How can he know it's my lipstick? Can he see through the paper covering the door? I turn to rush into the K&B.

"You used to wear pink."

I stop. My breath catches. My back is to the box.

"Now you wear reddish brown. I like it on you."

I twist around. He rolls just outside the box. I turn away from him quickly.  

He has no legs. I've watched him in the past when his back was to me. His legs are not there from his upper thighs down. He sits on a thick piece of wood that has four casters on the bottom. He rolls himself around using his hands. On the side of the box a sign says, VIETNAM VET.

I remember fifteen years ago when some of my classmates went off to the war. Not many, but a few. Some never came back. I had read about them in the newspaper. There were others but I never heard what happened to them. I assumed they had made a life for themselves as the rest of us had.

I'll have to look at him now. There's no avoiding it. I can't be rude. But I can't turn around. Something frightens me about him. Since the first day when I saw the scars on his face, his eyes down, focusing on the pavement in front of him, tin can lifted toward the people passing by, I knew I couldn't look at his eyes. I only watched him from the back.

I keep my eyes above his head. He turns and lifts the newspaper and rolls back inside but holds the paper open.

"Come inside."

"No--can you just roll it-- or-- never mind, I don't want it back."

"You're afraid of the truth."

I feel a burning in my eyes. I quickly scan the people walking by. Nobody seems to notice me. I bite my lip and look up at the sky for a moment. Someone once told me that's the best way to keep from crying.

"Come inside."

My knees shake. I want to walk away but I know this time I can't. His voice compels me in a way I don't understand. It isn't rough or aggressive or frightening anymore. I kneel on the sidewalk in front of the door. His hand moves the paper away. I stare down at the ground.

"Come inside."

I crawl inside and sit on a quilt that's folded at one end of the box. I look up at the eyes that search my face. The steel blue eyes that used to smile at me when I looked at him and then past him to the trees outside the second story English classroom--the blue eyes that smiled when he talked about fishing and hunting and outdoor things to me.

"Go hunting with me," he'd say. "I'll teach you how to shoot."

And I'd say no because I was going steady with Ronny. But I'd say it with regret. I can't speak. He takes my hand and puts the lipstick in it. I close my fingers around it.

"You know me, Cindy."

"Yes, I do." That's all I can say.