The Professor

         Theodore was awoken from his sleep that morning by a soft tapping on the top of his cardboard refrigerator box.  He climbed outside his small adobe and stood up, brushing a few old food crumbs out of his gnarly black beard. His visitor was a young slender blonde girl looking to be somewhere in her mid twenties. she was wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled tightly over her head.  She was glancing around  nervously, obviously now wanting to be in the dark dirty alley any longer than she  had to be.

         “Umm excuse me umm. . . Are you the um . . are you the 'Professor'” She asked timidly, holding her hand over her nose in an attempt to block out his odor.

         “yup, that's me, I'm The Professor.” he answered.  “How many pages? Whats the subject?”

         “I need a ten pages on the ethics of gene splicing, MLA formated for Mrs. Sanchez's Genetic Theory class”

         “Sanchez? You don't mean Carla Sanchez do you?”

         “I-is that a problem?”

         “Naw, just a little surprised they're still letting the old bag teach. When's this due?”

         “Tomorrow afternoon.”

         “Tomorrow? Geez kid, procrastinate much? That's a bit of a short notice ain't it?”

           “Can you do it or not?”

         Theodore wave his dirty fingerless gloved hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, I can do it but since it is on such a short notice, the price is gonna have to go up a little since I have to spend my whole day on this basically.”

         “How much is this gonna cost?”

         “seventy five bucks.”

         “Seventy five to write a stupid paper? Are you crazy?”

         “Hey kid this is gonna take me at least seven hour tops. I think seventy five is a pretty reasonable asking price.”

         “How do I even know your going to get me an A plus? I expect an A+ for seventy five dollars.”

         “I think you already know I can do it, I mean obviously you've heard of me and my services. You wouldn't be comin' all the way to this part of the city all by yourself if you haven't heard of me.” 

         “Okay fine, how are you going to do it?”

         “You got a laptop or somethin'?”

         “I got a notebook.”

         “Perfect, then all we need is WiFi. you know the coffee shop two blocks from here?”

         “Yeah what about it?”

         “Meet me there in about exactly a half hour from now.”

         “O-okay.”

         She quickly turned around and left the alley. Theodore rustled around in a old rusty shopping cart which contain all his belonging and pulled out a case containing his glasses which he kept under his dirty grease stained degrees. He pocketed the case and smiled to himself thinking about the bottle of his favorite wine that he would use the money that he would make tonight for.

         She was standing in front of the coffee shop waiting for him as he arrived.

         “Took you long enough, I was beginning to think that you're messing with me.”

         Yeah, yeah, lets go on inside and  you get me something to eat.”

         “Wait I gotta buy you food?!”

         “Heck yeah you do, you don't expect me to do all this writing on an empty stomach do you?”

         “I'm already paying you like almost a hundred bucks. You can buy your own damn meal once you're done.”

         “Listen sweetie, in order for me to write the best paper for you my work environment and conditions gotta be ideal. Now I can't concentrate on writing if I'm starving half to death. So Either buy me something or you can write your own paper.”

         The girl sighed and pulled a small pink handbag from out of her hoodie. “Fine but this better be worth it.”

         Theodore grinned. “You'll get an A+ I guarantee it.”

         With that he opened the doors to the coffee shop and strode inside. He walked up to the front counter.

         “Good day miss.” He said. “I'll be having one of your steak, egg and cheese bagels, A large caramel hazelnut frappe and oooh! those are some good looking cinnamon buns, I'll be having one of those please.”

         The cashier looked unable to know how to respond to the smelly man's large order at first.“Um sir. . .  Just so you know the food here is kind of expensive. There's a soup kitchen about two block from here, they should be serving lunch at noon.”

         “Oh, that's okay, the nice young lady over here said she would be taking the bill.” Theodore said nodding towards the girl. The cashier looked up in surprise at her and  the girl just silently nodded.

         “Oh! Okay! Well that will be $12.59 please.” The girl handed the cashier a bright red credit card. As she accepted the card the cashier whispered to her. “That's such a nice thing your doing, feeding that poor man.”

         The girl smiled weakly. “Umm yeah, well its the least I can do.”

         Theodore happened to overhear this and laughed. “Yeah ain't she a saint?”

         After he received his food he sat down at a table in the back of the dinning area near the restroom. There was a man with thick frame glasses and a neat black suite sitting at the table next to them reading a newspaper. He wrinkled his nose and frown slightly as Theodore sat down. Theodore smiled at him. “Morning.” He said. The man simply nodded curtly and quickly folded up his newspaper and left the table with the paper tucked under his arm.   

           The girl followed him up to his table and laid a bright pink laptop in front of him. “How long is this gonna take?”

         Theodore though for a moment. “hmm, I'll say check back with me in about six hours. I think that should be a fair enough amount of time to get everything done.”

         “I'm gonna be over there.” She said pointing to a table next to the door. “Let me know when your about to be done.” With that she walk off.

         Before he touched the laptop. Theodore focused his attention on devouring his meal. It wasn't everyday that he got to eat this good so he tried to savor every bite of his bagel, licking up every bit of melted cheese off the wrapper after he was finished. He then ate the cinnamon bun, while taking sips from his iced frappe.

         After he had finished the cinnamon bun, he reached in his pocket and removed his glasses. After putting them on,  he opened the laptop and got to work. He spent an hour doing research. The he began typing. He typed with amazing speed, his fingers gliding effortlessly around the keyboard. Stopping occasionally only  to sip from his frappe.

         After five hours he stopped typing and closed the laptop. The girl who was still siting by the door texting on her phone, noticed this and came back to the table where he was sitting.

         So are you done yet?” She asked him.

“Yeah,” he answered her “All you gotta do is put your name on it and its done.” He open the laptop and showed her every thing he wrote scrolling through all the pages.

         “Wow, you actually did write the whole thing!” She murmured in amazement. “Citations in every thing.”

         “Yeah, its all here!”

         “Well thanks, 'll take that now!” She reached for the laptop but he firmly laid his hand on top of it preventing her from taking it. “Aren't you forgetting something.”

         “What?- Oh yeah here.” She slapped his money down on the table.

         As the girls snatched her laptop back, Theodore carefully counted the money. After he was satisfied that the money was all there he stood up sticking the cash in his coat pocket.

         “Well it was a pleasure doing business with you miss.”

         “Yeah, whatever.” The girl murmured as she began carefully wiping her laptop down with disinfectant wipes.

         Theodore left the coffee shop and started towards the liquor store whistling a tune as he walked.