Helping hand

"And your name was?..."

"Oh, sorry. John. John Doe."

"Nice to meet you John, the name's Curtis."

We'd been getting his things back together for the past 10 minutes. Curtis had more to him that was uncharacteristic for a homeless man, such as a refined speech and a regal way of carrying himself. His posture was perfectly straight at all times, and he spoke to me as if I was an old friend even though I'd never met him. The people at the bus had only glanced back at us when I began helping him, but they were still ignoring us. I still tried to glance at the blonde's ass as I picked everything up, but soon enough she seemed to notice me and moved herself out of view. I went back to picking up garbage. Each of his things must have held a lot of sentimental value because they were unremarkable. A rubber band ball, a broken pencil, a set of keys that haven't been set to fit locks. It made no sense whatsoever, but we still grabbed every little piece that was still there and put them into trash bags that Curtis had.

This also surprised me because the trash bags were completely clean, and Curtis seemed to pull them out of thin air. He caught me staring and cracked a grin.

"Magic tricks, obviously. Maybe I'll teach you after you're done helping. Everything ready to move? Good. Follow me!"

I had little choice but to follow, and he took me down a side street towards a shaded alleyway. Every part of my logic here told me NOT to follow him, but I felt that tug again. Something in my chest saying _go, _and so my feet followed, arms laden with trash that I had no understanding of.

Curtis pointed to a dumpster against the wall of the alley. "You can just leave that there...I'll be right back." He turned and gave me an unreadable smile. "I have a feeling you might be the type of person that I was looking for, John Doe."

That sounded especially concerning, but I did what he said and threw everything away. Five minutes passed as I waited for him, and a different man came back out of the end of the alleyway. He had the homeless man's smile, but his hair had gone from gray ragged ends to jet-black and combed. His shirt had switched from a dirty gray t-shirt to Calvin Klein, and he wore slacks with loafers. He stopped when I say myself staring. "What, these? I'll explain in a little. First I should say thank you! Your small act of kindness has given me a change of heart." He saw me open my mouth to speak and held up a finger. "Just wait my dear friend. I know you already have questions, but at least let me finish and I'll be happy to answer everything afterwards. I have a feeling some of this might be understood easily by you." He waved his hand and a wooden chair appeared beneath him. "This could easily take hours if I wanted it to, but let me give you a quick summary of everything so you don't get bored. My name is Curtis, but I'm a little more significant than the homeless man you saw earlier. I'm a sort of God, but not like the ones you've read of in the Bible or Quran. We were a little less known as a group, and certainly not the Greek ones, but my brothers and sisters have grown bored with life over the years. I being the God of Pleasure had a little bit more fun with life then them, but even I realize that there must be an expiration date on everything, regardless of how great. I've decided to move on, and I've chosen you as my successor."