Just run.
   The boy's bare feet barely touched the street stones.
   Down the alley, a quick turn through a stable, flashing by too fast to hear the stableman's curses as he bolted out the back into another alley.
   Just run.
   Jonas knew the soldier must have given up by now, but he also knew that the only sure way to avoid a beating - or worse - was to run.
   And keep running.

   It seems strange, but back when I was a teen and understood more about the world than the old poop I am now could possibly know, one of the coolest things to be, besides Neil Young's roadie, was a pauper.
   My friends and I went to great lengths to demonstrate our prideful membership of the underclass. We wore ragged denims like Woody Guthrie's boxcar buddies, scruffed along sidewalks in battered laceless runners, and exhibited great disdain for any association with filthy lucre and its capitalist trappings - unless, of course, when it came time to beg Mom and Dad for enough to make the next Valdy concert to listen to songs about how meaningless it was to get wrapped up in that whole money thing.

   Jonas' breath came in gulps as he huddled in the dark of a city wall crevice he and his partner Isaiah used as a hideout. They had each dashed in opposite directions when the soldier chased them from the market and because the Roman decided to chase Jonas, Isaiah should have been back first. Isaiah was even younger than Jonas and the little fugitive was so worried about his pal he almost forgot about the few coins he'd managed to beg from passing city dwellers that morning - coins still pressed deep into the flesh of his clenched fist. 
   He didn't have to count them. He knew exactly how much was there. 
   There wasn't a lot of addition to do.

    My pal Tom stomped crazily in a mud puddle outside our high school. "What's up man," I asked.
    "My folks bought me some new shoes, " he muttered, swishing his feet back and forth in the murky little pond. "I figure they probably cost 'em about $20"
    "Cool," I said, knowing how hard Tom's folks worked to bring in cash for the family. "Nice shoes."
    "I don't know man," said Tom. "It's probably gonna take me a week to get them worked in good." 
    And he continued slopping them through the puddle.

    Isaiah crouched against the cracked rocks of the wall. He picked up one coin from the short line in the dirt in front of him, inspected it, put it back down in neat order and then picked up another. "I heard he was gonna be just outside the city on the eastern hill," he said. "Some folks say he does tricks and stuff. Wanna go see?" 

    It's ironic what a couple of decades have done. Today it's not just unfashionable to be poor, it's a crime. If you're on welfare, you're ordered to a work detail.  If you're not on welfare and beg for a living,  you're either tossed in jail or fined. (I've yet to figure out the rational behind that). 
    More recently, the legions of middle-class Toronto decency have been marshalled against the squeegee kids because they look weird and annoy drivers. I guess what we used to call the war on poverty has become the war against the poor. 
    This kind of nonsense is being backed by a lot of supposedly clear-thinking, God-fearing folks. From my admittedly limited spiritual perspective, I would think that the forces of organized religion would be bulwarked in defence of the poor, especially young people in poverty like the squeegee kids.
    But then, like I said, I don't know much about all that religion stuff.

    There was already a large crowd on the hilltop by the time Jonas and Isaiah arrived with some of the other beggar kids from the market. They tried to push their way through to the centre, but were constantly rebuffed by some of the solid citizens who were afraid the presence of the dirty, ragged troop might disturb the speaker at the middle of the throng.
 But the speaker seemed to notice the plight of the beggar kids and he asked for a path to be cleared for them.
 "Suffer little children," he said. "And forbid them not to come unto me. For such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

 Or maybe even Toronto?