You may say I’ve lost my mind, living here, but I ask you friend, who needs a mind? God loves a simple soul, and here I am, nice and simple and loving life. A cool breeze blowing through my head, a nice airy feeling deep inside. This city appeals to me, has always appealed to people like me, people with a disposition gentle as mine. And I’ve gotten nice and fat just being me – now haven’t I?

Do I have an apartment? Do I need an apartment? It’s always sunny down on the street. Most days I just lie on the sidewalk, reclining on my side. The sun burns my skin pink, but I don’t mind – I do what I want to do. Raise a finger, roll my eyes, whatever comes to mind.

*

The barbershop boys, they offer me work sometimes. They say, “Hey Bobby Boy, we got a job that needs doing, an errand that needs running.”

And I say, from where I lay, “Well now, speak slowly and come a little closer.”

And they say, “We’ll pay, we’ll pay.”

And I say, “So what is it that must be done?”

“Some nasty old man is flapping his lips across town,” they say, “and we need you to sew his mouth shut.”

Or, “That crusty lady over there needs bus fare, bring her some.”

Or, “Mop up that spot right quick, but shut your eyes tight the whole time.”

Sure, I listen politely, but then I just wave them away.

*

And yet there are some that would seek to destroy my peace. Just yesterday, a skinny little man in a delicate hat spotted me on the sidewalk. He’d just left Mulley Mutual, and it was plain to see his pockets were loaded. I was just minding my own business, eating an ice cream cone – vanilla, of course – and it was melting and dripping all down my hand.

“Did you hear the news?” he said.

“Is it good?” I said.

“A waiter got shot up today on Lampeen Street,” he said, “and later on, in Terko, an evil child garroted his own father. How can you lie there and eat cream while all this is going on?”

Well, what do you think I told him? I’m a sensitive soul, at my center. What could I, what could anyone, say to that? I was guilty, guilty as charged. There I was, lying back, taking pleasure in dairy, while nearby, dark things were going on. While I was taking my bites, a young father was losing his life. I said nothing; I crumpled. I dropped my cone on the ground, put my head in my hands, and cried.

But out of bad came good, and soon I felt a smooth hand on my shoulder. It belonged to the skinny man, and do you know what he was holding in his other hand? A brand-new ice cream cone, and he handed it to me. Suffice to say, it wasn’t long before the tears started flowing again, dropping all salty on my vanilla. I smiled a grateful smile. Then, right before I took a lick, I made sure to think about poor old mankind.

*

But it has been a pleasant life, didn’t I say it has? Though far, far from over – I’m in terrific health. I had such a fine upbringing too, and God knows, not every person can say that. My mother was such a caring, careful woman, and my father? He never laid a hairy hand on me. My sister – my sweet, sexy sister – it’s true she idolized me, always wished she could be more like me, but she loved money too much, and in the end it cost her her life. But it makes me smile to know she’s resting in peace now, alongside Mommy and Daddy.

*

It’s always a good day when the taco truck comes rolling by, and if I have a little loose change, I flag the woman down. My goodness, what a scrumptious mamacita she is – such a pleasure to watch her fire up the grill and fix four fresh tacos just for me – extra cheese, please.

“You dropped a drop of cream back there, miss,” I say, just to get her smiling. “But wait, I found it here, sliding down your backside. Oh, and bring me more of that green sauce I like so much, and if I smear it where you fear it, don’t judge me too much. Spicy radish pickle lady, I want to tickle your happy labey – let me eat my taco inside your taco. I just had four, but now I’ll have four more. I’ll eat tacos till I burst and spew forth, and then you, you angel, you’ll stitch me up and fix some more.”

Oh my God, she makes me say the most foolish, lovelorn things – and she must feel good about the power she wields. Women don’t get enough credit for the way they wield their power, I believe that’s true, and I’d like to change that if I could.

*

Some days are just too warm for clothes – they stick to me and give me a touch of anxiety, and I get a red rash, from my ankles to my hips. And there isn’t but one way to treat a recurring rash: you’ve got to air yourself out – and what’s more, you’ve got to do it without any shame or doubt. Let mother nature do the work she was made to do. Let her breeze cool your irritated skin, let her yellow sun just bake the pain away. Some mornings you might see my pants and tighty-whities folded neatly beside me, and my sizable genitals on display, and I wouldn’t mind if you waved.

*

But a man must know his limits, all the same. And if on a rashy day I see a yellow bus coming, bearing those bright faces off to a day of punishing instruction, I flip over and show them my behind. Sure, the children laugh – don’t think I can’t hear those pealing squeals, echoing all up and down the block – but let them, I say, let them laugh the whole day away for all I care, I’ll be their itchy downtown clown, it’s a small price to pay.

*

Never in my life have I been the kind to profile, but just recently it happened to me. Can you believe it? Bobby Boy got himself profiled the other day, and the results may surprise you.

I was just doing my thing, the thing I always do – reclining and smiling on the smoky hot sidewalk in the middle of the day – when two patrolmen pulled their cruiser over to the curb. They popped open the doors and made a beeline for me.

“You don’t mind if we ask you a few questions?” they said, the classic come-on.

“About what?” I said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“We’re looking for a pink man,” they said, “about your size and girth. Been terrorizing this neighborhood these last few weeks.”

“Gentlemen,” I said, having a little fun, “just because I fit a description, doesn’t mean I fit the description, and just because my crust is rosy, doesn’t mean I’m guilty – of a crime.”

“We never thought of it that way,” they said. Then they commenced beating me.

*

I won’t lie: sometimes I make up people in my mind, people that aren’t really there, that I’m conjuring with my imagination. You might call them my imaginary friends, but I say, are my friends so imaginary if what they wreak is real? What if they make me feel the same things that real people do? How imaginary is that? There’s a baby, for example, that dangles from the streetlight, by means of a ratty blanket, and he gurgles all sorts of nonsense and funny things. His name is Baby Light.

And sometimes there’s this old fellow that pops out from behind the garbage cans. He doesn’t say much, but he raises his eyebrows a bunch and he’s got ketchup stains all over his suit. I call him Red Man, and if you want to know, I use him as comic relief. And I won’t even tell you about Gally Holiday and her horse, which she rides backward, butt-naked. Most times I see them at night, or in the early morning. Then again, it’s not uncommon for me to see them after waking from my afternoon nap.

*

But Spider, he’s the man with the plan. Bald and bold and white as a dove, he’s always running a dream and a funny little scheme. He owns the furniture shop across the street, which, in my opinion, is just a front. How do I know this? Well, there’s never not some dirty truck backing up to his front door, never not some drugged-up, goofy-smiling duck stumbling out into the bright sunshine.

Spider comes to see me around lunchtime, plops right down next to me with a fat sandwich and a sigh.

“How’s the day looking, Bobby Boy?” he’ll say. “Gonna be in the hundreds, they’re saying.”

“Oh, fine,” I say. “I hope so.”

“You sure love that direct sun, don’t you?” he says. “Better be careful or it’ll fry your mind.”

“I’ve been cooking here twenty years,” I say. “And if today is the day, so be it, I don’t mind. I live a pleasant life, and you can see it on my face.”

“That’s a good attitude,” he says. “It’ll take you far in this old world.”

“It already has,” I say. “It already has.”

*

And what happens when it rains, you ask, when God sends a little blessed water down? It isn’t any terrible thing. A little rain’s always welcome – it rinses the skin and the soul. I open my mouth and catch the fat drops on my tongue, and remember back to days when I was young. When I was just a timid little squit, living in the shitty Midwest. Before I hopped aboard that flaming barge, bound for the sunny South.

But if that sprinkle should become torrential, I roll myself under the awning, taking care not to touch the broken bottles. The barbershop boys, they know the drill. They know that when it pours, Bobby Boy is going to keep extra close.

*

Now when the city does its cleaning of the streets – when they send those spinning brooms down the block – that’s the time I’ve got to be on guard. Once I slept through such a cleaning and woke up with one of my nipples hanging off. Wasn’t Bobby Boy a sight that night, a full-grown man screaming like a bitch on the sidewalk, with one of his pink nippies shorn?

*

Would you like to hear a little tale? Why not, I’ll just make something up. This is a story about a man named Sal. Sal, short for Salami Smith, at least that’s what his friends called him. Sal, you see, had himself a pink pal, and his name was BB. BB and Sal, they were practically brothers, sidewalk sleepers and midnight bleepers, on a block not unlike this one, but this was a long time ago. There wasn’t no Mulley Mutual then, no sandwich shop neither. Only block after block of burned-out houses with no trees to speak of.

BB and Sal, they used to lie in the street together, and they shared everything: dairy, ladies, you name it – there wasn’t anything that passed through BB that didn’t pass through Sal. But Sal, he had issues; he couldn’t live free like BB. He fell under the spell of something malignant, started acting like anything but himself. Then he started using hard drugs and hanging out in those ugly houses. Poor Sal, every day he was becoming more and more emaciated, every day his pink skin turned more and more blue. Soon he quit the street altogether. He disappeared in one of those houses for good, until the day they carried him out.

Oh, Sal, where are you right now? Are you in heaven, smiling down? Or are you in hell, sweating all your evil out? The end. I hope you liked my little tale. I sure enjoyed telling it to you.

*

I have observed the mating habits of rats, my friends, and I am here to say that they are tender with each other. Roaches, too, they are very attentive lovers. And when the pigeons fly down from Mulley Mutual for some screwing, first they do a little necking. Street dogs are different, though, it seems to me, and much less lovely to watch. The male is often cold and aggressive, mounting a female before she even has time to know what’s going on.

But as for me? My love comes to see me at sunset, when all the bright neon is fizzling on. She makes her money in a restaurant and always brings a fresh tablecloth with her, and under the cloth we get it on. She’s got sweet cheeks and a big round butt, and a throat that’s lined with gold. What a creature, what a teacher, we play for hours together.

*

Can you imagine, just the other day, some stranger thought he recognized me? In my opinion, it’s the age we live in. Everyone knows everyone else, and there just isn’t any distance between you and me.

He said, “I know you. You’re Jack Sprack, disgraced CEO of Mulley Mutual.”

And I said, “You most definitely have the wrong man. My name is Bobby Boy, and I live on the street.”

And believe you me he left me alone.

*

A motorcyclist died today, but really, what can you say? He had a need for speed; he had a drive for the wild side. He blew through a red light, and got T-boned by a family man in a minivan out for a pleasant Sunday drive. His helmet popped off and went skidding by, and pieces of his brain flecked me where I lay. It wasn’t so shocking: you live your life, you dance your dance, then, one day, you pass on. Maybe you pass on quick, maybe nice and slow, but it was decided, long before you opened your eyes, that one day you must pass on. And for me that’s a comfort, the fact that we all share that.

*

When I die, and as I’ve said, this will not be for a long, long time, just leave me be. This is Bobby Boy’s last wish. Leave my body on the sidewalk for all to see. When I’m freshly dead, there will be no fuss or muss, I’ll look just like I did in life, but with my eyes kindly closed. This is the time to come see me, to pay your last respects. You may have to stand in line awhile – you might have to wait behind the mamacita and the barbershop boys and Spider and all the rest – but soon enough you’ll get your turn. Kiss me or give my dick a squeeze, lick my neck or smack my butt, however you like to say goodbye. Because before long, I’ll start to smell, and the rodents will come running. They’ll eat my eyes, they’ll gnaw my toes, they’ll nibble my lips – they’ll have a nice little meal, won’t they? Then I’ll bloat a little and release my juices. Soon I’ll lose my mass, and a pink puddle will start to form. Do steer clear during these times. But on the day – surely so very far away – when all my flesh is gone, and it’s only my pretty white bones reclining on the sidewalk, go ahead and sweep old Bobby Boy into the street. Remember him as someone who lived simply, one hundred percent dedicated to the pleasant life.

*

Every single day I watch those happy travelers line up across the street. All those searching souls, sitting on their black bags, waiting patiently for the dollar bus to arrive. Just a dollar, they say, and you can go anywhere you care to stay. North, east, west, you can leave no stone in this fair country unturned, no mile unmarked, all for a dollar. It makes a man like me curious, and curiously jealous, sometimes. I’ve thought about taking it a couple times, and maybe I will go someday, leave this greasy street behind. Hoist myself up into the bus, pop my dollar into the machine, and say to that driver, “To think is to stink, my good man, so take me far from my dollar mind.”

---

‘I Lead a Pleasant Life’ features in the collection My Worst Ideas — available now from Spurl Editions.

Michael Jeffrey Lee lives in Berlin. His first short story collection, Something in My Eye, was published by Sarabande Books in 2012. His stories have appeared in N+1, The Rupture, and BOMB, among others. He received the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and a literary grant from the Berlin Senate. In addition, he is the vocalist for Budokan Boys and teaches writing at The Reader Berlin.