This one is about the guy we called Pickle Man. Pickle Man showed up in January, right after the New Year. We have a lot of guys hanging around Candy's Diner on South Dunlop Street, but Pickle Man was different. For starters, Pickle Man was in our joint every morning. Every morning he ordered the pancake and egg special for two ninety nine, the cheapest breakfast in town. He always had this big-ass jar of pickles by his side. When he wasn't eating pancakes and eggs he had his fingers in the pickle jar, fishing out another one and lifting it to his mouth. He'd suck on them things. He'd just hold each one in his mouth like a big warty cigar. Pickle Man loved his pickles.

So we have lots of cats come around for the cheap food. The homeless shelter is only two blocks away, and they kick everybody out for the day. In the morning we were like the unofficial homeless shelter cafeteria. We had to establish a two-hour table policy, meaning no matter how damn cold it was outside you could only stay two hours. It was a sour gig for a guy like me. Not much of a tip, if anything. Plus, I had to kick guys out on a regular basis. Usually I could just snap my fingers, and a cat would settle up, limp out the door, glaring back at me like I'm the one that gave him the bum luck. But some would fall right asleep at the table. Then we established a no-sleeping policy. After that a you-can't-smell-like-dead-rat-policy. Jack Straub wanted us to move out to the suburbs, and I can't say I blame him. He was owner. But as Sheila told him—"then you lose your base."

Pickle Man was different though. He kept to himself, for one. Didn't seem to know nobody, or didn't want to. Aside from the pickles, he was also thin, tidy, shaved, bathed. He wore a grey and maroon plaid dress jacket most of the times. A bit worn, but I could see it had its use. He always wore a dress hat. Wore a brown corduroy hat, like something guys would wear in 1979 to seem bohemian but also fit in with the power lunch crowd.

Mornings I usually worked the counter where some of the regulars would sit, the guys who had been around the block a few times. They "reserved seats," and everybody knew it. They were always trying to get a smoke on the sly. But I noticed Pickle Man. I watched.

This homeless shelter would only keep guys for sixty days then a guy'd have to find a new place to crash. So I knew my time with Pickle Man was limited. I asked Mr. Straub if it was okay with him if I waited the tables for a few weeks, just for a change of pace, just to keep things fresh. Mr. Straub was always up for keeping things fresh: he went along, no problem. I started waiting on Pickle Man. I started talking to Pickle Man. Thinking about him.

Now, I'm a woman who knows her limits. I can't transform nobody. A Jesus complex doesn't get you anywhere, especially in this line of work. But with Pickle Man, I just figured he had stories to tell. I like stories. If I wasn't good at listening I wouldn't be here.

It took me a few days to get his trust. Aside from the normal small talk, I gave him a little extra syrup, an extra egg. I even snuck him a fruit cup. His eyes widened. He knew that I went above and beyond the call of duty. He knew that. Pickle Man wasn't stupid. By the end of January I felt as if I could ask him a few questions here and there.

One morning Pickle Man came in and sat at the booth in back. He usually liked his privacy to read his paper, eat his pickles in peace. It was a quiet morning, warm outside so some of the guys from the shelter are basking in the sun. I thought of seals or penguins. This was a Baltimore winter we're talking about, not South Florida. So I asked him if I could sit down next to him, take a load off. He rotated his fork in one hand in and out of his fingers. He didn't say anything so I just sat. He was done with his pancakes and eggs. His water glass was still full. I could hear him unscrewing his pickle jar with his other hand. He brought a small round pickle to his mouth, and he sank his teeth into it. I watched a small green jet of pickle juice shoot onto the floor.

"So you really like those things, huh?" I tried to not sound sarcastic. I didn't want to scare him off. Just couldn't help myself. I listened for the bell at the door. If I heard that I'd have to go and seat the new customers. Since I believed in luck (still do), I crossed my fingers.

"Yeah," he said. I could hear him screwing the pickle jar closed.

"Don't you ever get sick of pickles?" I didn't want to go too fast. If I kept the conversation at the surface level, I was bound to win him over. This is what I told myself. He shoved the rest of the pickle in his mouth and swallowed. He chewed with his mouth open. I was willing to overlook this.

"No," he said. "Not really." He stared at the empty chairs across the aisle from him. He bored a hole into the wall. He didn't look up at the customers sitting at the breakfast bar. He didn't look out the window, or out the door.

"So why do you think you like the taste of them so much?" I asked. I felt as if I was talking to a child-this was what my job came down to sometimes. New strategies. Taking life at a new glance.

When I watched Pickle Man's reaction I could tell the question hit a nerve. This is when things changed really quick. He dropped his fork on the floor and squinted and furrowed his brow as if he'd never heard this question before, as if this was some kind of Eureka moment. I thought right then and there he was about to relate his life story to me, to tell me how he got so scarred. Instead, he stood up. He kicked the fork across the dining room to the men sitting at the counter, and then he turned to me.

"You ask them about that," he said, pointing to where he kicked the fork. He walked up to the register, carrying his pickle jar in both arms. One of the men at the counter stifled a laugh, then as Pickle Man walked by they all started cracking up.

"I think you lost something, Pickle Man!" one of them said, pointing to the fork.

"You like the shape of them pickles, Pickle Man?" another said. "Look like warty green cocks you ask me." They laughed it up.

"Guess you don't need no fork to eat them nasty-assed pickles," another one said.

I was still sitting there at the booth, watching him go.

For another week I didn't have the guts to approach him. I just didn't want to annoy him, to get him worked up. Didn't want to make life more difficult for him than it already was, so I did as he said and I asked the regulars at the counter. Most of them just laughed me off, but when things settled down, Harvey leans toward me and whispered. "Here's your Pickle Man's story," he said. "He was a fancy lawyer. Had a wife. A house. Everything. But the man worked his ass off. He was up in his office eighty, ninety, one hundred hours a day. Seven days a week." Harvey took an illicit drag off his cigarette and held it down by his thigh where nobody could see it, especially Straub. "Nearly killed hisself. Had a near heart attack working so much. Just overloaded the system, know what I mean? After he recovered, he quit. He took off out of here. He wandered around, like all the air came out of the balloon. His wife filed for a divorce. Sold the house. Poof. Something snapped in the man."

That afternoon I trudged over to the homeless shelter and did some more nosing around. Calvin, who manned the desk, was not supposed to spill personal beans, but he said it's common knowledge that Pickle Man used to live right down the road on Lovelace Ave in one of those big old blue stone houses that look like castles. The guy has never gotten over the loss, Calvin said. Felt exiled or something, I thought. Pickle Man walked by his old house every day, Calvin told me. Used to before he stayed at the shelter. "He'd sleep in the park across the street, until some of his old neighbors began housing him," Calvin said. "When they couldn't do anything for him anymore, he came here." All that money, all that work, I thought—what a waste.

When I get back home that night I couldn't get Pickle Man off my mind. I poured myself a stiff drink and turned up the boob tube as loud as it gets to drown out the thoughts whirring in my head. I knew I was getting over an ex myself. I couldn't plug up every hole of suffering. I could only do so much. I poured myself another drink. Then another. Zapped myself some leftovers in the microwave. Curled up with my cats. Fell asleep in front of the television.

The next day Pickle Man was gone. Checked out last night, Calvin said. Nobody seen him since. Him or his jar of pickles. All that week I couldn't sleep. I started dreaming about Pickle Man. Nothing sexual really, just snuggling, cuddling. But he was there in my bed, on my sofa, on my floor. Him and his salty pickles. In one dream Pickle Man told me he liked pickles because they reminded him of lunch. When he was a lawyer he'd go to this deli for lunch. It was the only break he took from seven in the morning until nine at night. And he loved pickles. The sandwiches were good, but the pickles were the best he ever had. Then the deli closed. He always took that as a sign.

I didn't see Pickle Man all spring. But in the summer I was walking with my niece at sunset in the park down by the river, and there he was about a football field away. He was sitting on a bench. He looked so different though. He was wearing an all-white jumpsuit, a white headband. Like one of those old pictures of Jimmy Connors or something. Pickle Man's shoes were so white it was difficult to look at them. He was holding a tennis racquet with a wooden frame. I bet Pickle Man used to play tennis every night. I leaned over to my niece and told her that the man sitting on the bench is Pickle Man. She knew all about him.

"We have to hurry," I said. "Don't know where he's staying." I looked down at my watch to see what time it is, and when I looked up I didn't see him. He wasn't there on the bench. He wasn't walking around. I ran over to where I saw him, but he just wasn't there.

I closed my eyes and smelled the balmy air. I could hear the gentle flow of the river. I could see him there glowing in the light of his own private court, practicing his serve. The yellow-green ball arcing up, dropping, the racquet swiveling forward, and then thunk. The jar of pickles was there in the pantry, where it was supposed to be.