Epiphany Jones Read Online Free

of people a lot faster by scaring them, annoying them, or making them feel like they’re your saviour, than you can by sitting around asking them for a nickel.
    Case in point: a kind-looking, balding man is bringing him a cupof Kenyan Select right now. ‘It’s OK. Calm down. Why don’t you drink this and warm up?’ the coffee-bringer tells the doomsayer. The bum takes it and stands between a set of tables and the snack counter, his body blocking the path of an alternateen barista with pigtails who carries a tray full of biscotti. Her shirt reads: ADMIT IT. YOU’D GO TO JAIL FOR THIS . As the barista awkwardly slips around him, carefully trying to balance all the biscotti on the tray, one falls off. The bum snatches it from the floor before the girl has a chance to see.
    Now the bum’s settled into a seat in the middle, at a little round table with a chequerboard. The barista, counting biscotti, eyes him suspiciously. The bum holds his biscotti in both hands, twitching his head left then right, like a skittish squirrel nibbling an acorn.
    Choke on it, you freak. My lunch break is almost over and I didn’t even get to finish my paper in peace. I put on my coat and leave the Sun-Times on the table. Someone else will get to finish it. As I walk towards the exit I pass the bum and intentionally check him with my body, knocking him back in his seat. Fuck you , I say in my head.
    And just as I get to the door a lady screams.
    I turn around and everyone is on their feet. Through their legs a mass of dirt-stained clothes wriggles on the floor. Then a break in the crowd reveals a black knit cap with silver hair sprouting from the back. The bum’s face is turning an ever-darkening shade of blue. He’s grasping at his throat. The motherfucker is choking on his biscotti.
    There are eight people between me and the bum, but no one is doing anything. Admit It just rolls her eyes, wearing a face that says, God, this is so inconvenient. I don’t get paid enough to worry about choking homeless people . Some guy near the back has started recording everything with his phone. Look for it on YouTube soon, no doubt.
    And maybe the rest of the people don’t know the Heimlich, but I’m betting no one else is helping him because they don’t want to touch a creepy, worthless fuck of a man – worthlessness that might rub off on to them.
    I can relate. To the bum, I mean.
    Clawing at his throat, he’s a minute closer to death than he was when the lady screamed, and still the crowd is acting like they’re watching a one-man improv show.
    And look, I don’t know the Heimlich either, but I did bump him. So I push my way though and kneel at the bum’s side. Then I do the worst thing possible. I do the thing the first-aid refrigerator magnets tell you never to do: I stick my fingers down his throat.
    And there’s a reason they tell you that. All I’ve done is lodge the biscotti further down. Panicked, I grab his coffee and pour it into his mouth.
    And somewhere in the crowd a woman screams again.
    Someone shouts, ‘He’s going to die!’
    Someone shouts, ‘His face is so blue!’
    Someone shouts, ‘Leave room for cream!’
    And, leaning over the nearly dead bum with his mouthful of steaming coffee, I take my middle finger and jam it down his throat.
    I thrust up and down, finger-fucking his mouth until the coffee has saturated the biscotti enough to break it in two. As I roll him onto his side the combined coffee and biscotti sludge slowly dribbles out of his mouth and down his whiskered cheek like a mini mudslide. Going back in, I stick all my fingers in his gaping, coffee-scalded mouth, past his rough, rodent-like tongue, till I feel the sewer-slime slickness of his throat and scoop out a clumpy mush of biscotti. I go in one more time, fishing for leftovers.
    Then comes the gag.
    And his warm, chunky, lava-like vomit flows over my hand.
    He gasps for air.
    ‘I’m not going to go to hell for someone as worthless as you,’ I whisper