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accepting a handout was finally complete. He sensed that maybe it was. That the bum was...what?...satisfied. That he had given Jay his stamp of approval. Weird. Plenty weird. “So, can I give you this now?”
    Sign Guy nodded serenely.
    Jay bounced the mound of change in his palm once, closed his hand around it, and reached toward the Yuban can, bending until his hand was just about over the slitted lid.
    That was when the bum grabbed him.
    His hands came with surprising speed, a graceful blur that Jay hardly noticed until both were clamped around his fist, tight like the gummy maw of some toothless pitbull. The action caught him off guard, enough so that his instinctive reaction—which would have been to yank away and run—was momentarily suspended. Long enough for the bum’s words to quiet any rising fears.
    “I thank you.”
    Jay stood there, almost motionless, his right arm levered in Sign Guy’s firm grip like the handle of an old fashioned well pump, the hands squeezing as one might before releasing a warm and friendly handshake. Compressing Jay’s fist around the coins so that he could feel their thin edges press into the tactile folds of his palm.
    “I give you my...” the bum began to say, but his words stopped suddenly there. His gaze broke briefly, looking down to sample the hand encased in his, and when it rose again the ever-present smile was sparkling in his eyes, bright like fireworks frozen at their moment of brilliance. Radiant as though some grand and pleasing truth had just presented itself. “Oh, my.”
    Jay puzzled at the odd and sudden shift in the bum’s reaction. “What?”
    “Oh, yes,” Sign Guy said, releasing what Jay thought was an amazed breath. “Isn’t this going to be interesting?”
    “What?”
    “Yes, yes, interesting,” the bum said further, savoring all about the young man whose touch connected them right now. Gazing fondly at him, so deeply that it seemed he might be looking through him, to someone or something else altogether. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess.”
    Jay’s head shook slightly as he puzzled at the bum’s weird words. “Surprised at what?”
    To that inquiry the bum only smiled. “Fate is a clever ringmaster, I must say.”
    “Pardon me?” Jay asked, missing whatever the bum’s meaning was. Did that just ‘mean what it means’, too, he wondered?
    For a moment Sign Guy was quiet, simply admiring his visitor lingeringly, as though in awe, then finally he said, “How rude I am. I was offering my gratitude, and then I ramble on. I apologize.”
    Whatever , Jay thought. The weird-o-meter had notched up a piece right then, and he was ready for this little interlude to be over.
    The bum clutched Jay’s hand and the offering it bore a bit tighter right then, and he said, “I give you my thanks.”
    This intonation drew Jay’s interest. The way Sign Guy had offered his appreciation, as if literally handing it over. As if it were more than a word and more than a feeling. As if his thanks were a thing, Jay thought as he looked into the bum’s eyes, the night’s artificial glow dancing on the sheen that surfaced them. But more thought on that would not come, for right then he felt the grip upon him finally ease. Not pull completely away, but slowly go gentle, both hands sliding off together to form a cup beneath his fist. Waiting. Waiting to receive.
    Jay’s pinkie moved first, flexing open to let a few coins drop into the fleshy bowl below, then his ring finger and middle finger, letting the bulk of the change fall, and finally his index finger straightened and his hand opened fully, dropping the last bit to join the rest, the entire offering jingling like the meager winnings of some slot machine jackpot as it tumbled piecemeal into Sign Guy’s hands.
    Jay drew his hand slowly back and turned the palm up, staring at it. The wrinkled pinkish skin was striped with the thin indentations of the coins’ edges where they had temporarily left their