Snippets of Memory - The Umbrella Academy

A ray of sunshine

"And your left hemisphere, what does it think, of you?"
He shrugged.
"Oh. I think he's jealous of the fact that I'm alive. And flamboyant and spiritual and sexy."
"And humble," I added, which made him chuckle. I mostly got the feeling that he didn't like himself very much, in spite of appearances, and he retorted:
"Exactly. Extremely humble. Certainly one of the most humble people the world has ever known. Possibly even more humble than Jesus."

There was an amused silence, he stood scrutinizing me for a moment, then asked me, as if now I intrigued him:

"I stole some hooch and a pastrami sandwich. And you, what did you do to come spend the night in this cozy little nook?"

I sighed and let myself fall to the floor, on the waxed concrete, against the bars not far from him. At least this way, he could talk to something other than my boots.

"I do odd jobs," I replied, "which aren't always within the framework of the law."
He gave me a knowing look, as if he could see exactly what I was talking about.
"Oh. I do that too, from time to time, cherry-picking. The useful and the pleasant. It's about the only professional activity where I manage not to forget to go to work. And it also gives me a chance to crash in a real bed sometimes".
I shook my head and cleared my throat. I still wonder what made him think of that first.

"No, a different kind of services. Something to do with... let's say... information management and redistribution of wealth."
He opened his eyes wide and almost shouted down the aisle:
"WHAT, you spy and burgle!"
"Hey, shut up!"
He burst out laughing.
"They've got you locked up! They already know! And don't worry, I pilfer in my spare time too, I was already doing it at home."

No one came, despite his shout. I think our guardians were too busy eating. We laughed for a moment, because - in the end - none of us really confessed stuff like that all that often. In the end, when you meet someone in police custody, you know the worst before you find out the good. I leaned my head against the bars.

"I'm doing this to help my family. We need the money."
His lips pursed, as if he felt sorry for me, or as if the word 'family' made him afraid of going off on a tangent he didn't want.
"Do they know about what you do?"
"No. They think I wash dishes in restaurants. I only have my mother and grandmother."
"Why don't you really do that?"
"Because I..."

I couldn't tell him, at the time, that it was because invisibility and intangibility were what I was best qualified for, and that many 'customers' were interested in that. So I replied with another explanation, just as valid, by the way:

"Because it pays well. Opportunities aren't plentiful, but they pay with three-zero numbers."
He whistled.
"Golly. You're a catch."
I laughed.
"And also... it's not easy to get a job when you look like this."

I vaguely gestured to myself, and he looked at me from head to toe, as far as he could see anyway. Frankly, my work interviews had historically never gone beyond the doormat back then. The job market really does judge the book by its cover, and I think he could have guessed that, even though he'd obviously never even tried to really work himself. He grabbed the bars with his left hand and laid the side of his head on top, revealing a round tattoo on his wrist - representing an umbrella.

"If only people could realize that what they have in common is to be all different."
I smiled at him.
"You know what you're talking about."
'Different' even seemed like an understatement to me.
"I don't think you can imagine how different".
You know as well as I do what he meant by that. And in mirror image, I couldn't hold back a little ironic shake of my head.
"I don't think you can either..."

Both of us remained on the assumption that the other would fall flat on his face if we went through with such confessions. But it never happened at the time, and we simply didn't say anything for a while.