It was the unusual story: adopt a derelict, clean him up, and wake one morning with his dick in her hand. If she were a prostitute they’d describe her heart as gold. But one thing leads to another, connecting people like trains of thought across the space of gray social matter, and so a length of life is strung.

She saw him on the corner for weeks before she gave him anything. At first she assumed he was one of the bike messengers; he looked young enough and he seemed to talk to them lounging around between jobs playing chess or hackeysack and sneaking hits of cheap pot. But slowly she came to realize he was different. As Olivia walked each morning to her office from the train, each evening to the train from her office, it seeped into her awareness that this one stood a little apart, and listed to the left. He leaned against the concrete wall more than the others, or he sat on the ground. She noticed that the cup he held was not full of coffee or cola; on the ground before him she saw that it was empty except for some coins.

Usually she didn’t give any money on the street. There were too many hands and cups to choose from, and Olivia was pretty sure what she gave would not go for food. Usually she just walked past the sidewalk folks, bike messengers and panhandlers alike, observing body modifications and wardrobe choices but keeping her hands in the pockets of her jacket, where the only thing her fingers touched was her transit pass.

But one day, three and a half weeks after he first became a streak-haired presence in her subconscious, Olivia exited the station with a five in her pocket. She felt almost ill with sudden hunger as her train pulled into the city, and she moved her smallest currency from the wallet in her backpack to the linty right pocket of her corduroy coat. She bought a blueberry streusel muffin as soon as she surfaced to the pillared daylight of the financial district, and she came away from that transaction with a small bag of sweet fatty bread and $2.25. She was so involved in pulling a little globe of streusel topping off her muffin that she didn’t see the paper cup on the sidewalk. She kicked it over, and she spilled his few coins.

He wasn’t crazy; he didn’t yell at her. He simply leaned forward and began to gather the scant change, so she bent and helped him. Pushed one of her dollars into his cup and met his eyes. Noted they looked dark amber, like the steaks in his long straight hair. He smiled and thanked her. She continued to the office, impeded on the sidewalk behind a pair on cellphones. They appeared to walking together but not relating to one another, not attending to their surroundings, rapt in their telephone conversations and slowing her down. She considered how much more real the guy with the cup was than the pedestrians ahead of her. She looked back at him and saw with surprise that he was still paying attention, watching her progress up the street.

From then on she noticed him. Everyday their eyes met and sometimes she dropped change in his cup. Eventually their mouths moved in silent “hellos.” Soon after that they vocalized. Still they might never have conversed if it weren’t for the pigeons.

Dumb birds. They make no sound and rarely fly. They are not lovely. They bob their heads like chickens when they walk, their armlessness apparent. Baby pigeons are not much smaller than their parents: just browner, stupider, more often dead.

It happened one Tuesday morning that she was flocked by pigeons when she passed his corner. A bad bum flushed them over the hackysackers immediately before Olivia stepped off the escalator onto the sidewalk, and a bunch of the birds flew chest-high past her in a poultry-panic, startling her so that she misstepped off the curb and stumbled into her acquaintance-derelict. She noticed his bad smell before his good looks. She felt his strength as his hand gripped her arm above her elbow, holding her up against her fall’s momentum. “Whoa,” he gasped out with a smile, as he leaned into what she was to learn was his injured leg. “You okay?”

The pigeons had cleared out, although Olivia noticed a man a building away who picked at his jacket shoulder as if he was besplattered. “Yeah,” she answered. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I was here anyway.” He smiled and Olivia noted again his amber eyes.

“My name’s Olivia,” she blurted.

“Ollie.”

“No one’s ever called me that…”

“It suits you. I’m Blake.”

They exchanged a few sentences and then she walked on.