Free Dire Means by Geoffrey Neil Page B

tongue.”
    Mark took a small breath so as not to reignite the pain in his torso and prepared to try his explanation again.
    “May I?” Uncle Leon pointed at a spot on the bench beside Mark.
    “Of course—apparently it’s your bench.”
    “Naaa. It’s a time-share. Anyways, I know yer new to beggin’ ‘cause the disappointment on yer face is fresh—it ain’t etched in real good. Yer askin’ voice is chock full of hope and you don’t got no callus in yer tone yet.”
    “So you’ve been watching me?”
    Uncle Leon nodded. “Not for long though. I seen how the clown did you. By the way, don’t worry,” he leaned in closer to Mark and lowered his voice, “Clowny don’t make nothin’—he stocks his own hat with cash so people think he’s good. Givin’ you quarters would wreck his profit ‘cause his mockery don’t pay any good.”
    “So I guess the clown doesn’t share your take on grace.”
    Uncle Leon smiled and nodded at Mark. “You believe me? ‘Bout the grace stuff I just said to you?”
    “Sure. But I’m not religious…I don’t really—”
    “Religious? I’m not talking ‘bout no religion! Grace ain’t just in religion. I’m talking about universal grace, boy! Givin’ without takin’! Unpaid kindness. You ever tried that?”
    “Sure. I give all the time without expecting anything back.”
    Uncle Leon’s smile grew wider and he adjusted his duffle bag on the ground between his feet. “Can we chit chat for a spell, son?”
    Mark checked his watch as if he had the option to be somewhere else. It was only 1:25 p.m. and Milten wouldn’t be available for at least a half hour. “Sure,” he said.
    Uncle Leon rubbed his hands together, scooted a bit closer on the bench, and crossed his skinny legs, drawing his pant leg yet higher and exposing a hairy leg above the green sock. “I’m going to tell you something you ain’t never heard before.”
    “Please do,” Mark said.
    “You remember that Bruce Willis movie where the kid said he seen dead folk?”
    “Yep. The Sixth Sense.”
    “That’s the one. Well, I can see favors,” Uncle Leon said. He slapped his knee like it was a gavel that pronounced his words true and then he leaned back on the bench.
    “What do you mean you see favors?”
    “I see favors,” Uncle Leon said louder, almost laughing at his own amazement of the fact. “I see them flying out of folk and into other folk. They’re real things—favors. I only know’d one other person, a woman, who could see favors like I can. One day she got sick with a fever and when the fever broke she couldn’t see them no more and never saw them again. The gift of seein’ favors got to her though ‘cause when she lost it she forgot how to trust what she couldn’t see and went crazy.” Uncle Leon wiggled his fingers up by his ears to show craziness.
    Mark returned to his suspicion of Uncle Leon’s mental instability. “Go on,” Mark said, more out of respect for the elderly man than genuine curiosity.
    “When a person does a favor, it slips out of his body and goes into the body of the person gettin’ the favor.” Uncle Leon thrust his hands out from his chest. “Anyone nearby that sees the favor happen, they get splashed with some of it. Then a new favor launches out of the person you helped and follows you waiting for a chance to get into you.”
    “So what does a favor look like?” Mark said.
    “All shapes and sizes and colors. Some are round, some are blocks, some are twirling tubish things—everybody’s is different, but all favors are just a jigglin’ when they come out—jigglin’ like jelly. I reckon they’re soft and that’s how they get into the person that’s gettin’ it.”
    “Amazing,” Mark said. He decided Uncle Leon’s wild notion was good entertainment for a few minutes.
    “I might be the last man alive who can see a favor anymore—long as I can avoid the fever. By the way, yer favors are hour-glassy, like the base of a