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And the Band Played On

The authorities were after him, but he’d managed to elude their grasp for going on six months now.  He knew he’d end up in one of those foster homes – prisons for pay his friend called them – if he got caught, but the grumblings in his stomach convinced him to take the risk.  And what better opportunity would there be then today with the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade marching through the town square?  All those people, all those purses, a veritable feast for the pickpocket.  And she (or he) would get the personal items back; all he wanted was the money, enough to buy a few meals.  He knew he had to be careful; the police already had a vague description of him.

He changed into the grey sweatshirt he’d found by the playground, and brushed his fingers through his newly washed hair, trying hard not to look like the nomadic child he was.  His mother finally succumbed to the cancer that was poverty, but he would not. He had a plan.  That was his mother’s downfall; she had no plan.  She had no hope.

As he casually walked down the sidewalk he surveyed the wall of human spectators, decked in green and four-leaf clovers.  By the second block, with the parade in full swing, he spotted his target – a small black clutch tucked underneath a woman’s arm.  She stood at the back of the crowd.  He snatched the purse from its resting place and ran as fast as he could, slipping into the procession.  Over the woman’s screams, like the good soldiers they were, the band played on maintaining their formation, providing camouflage for the boy darting in and out between the trombones and bass drums, running desperately toward his next meal.

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