Dead Weight (part 1)

[This is a writing project that I've had has an idea for a while. I'm finally getting it down in bits and pieces. It will unlikely be a full story, but rather a collection of scenes and vignettes involving a central group of characters. The working title is "Dead Weight". Let me know your thoughts about it. Note - I know my grammar and spelling are bad. I'd love to hear about what you think of the characters, plot, and story elements.

Enjoy!]

 Calvin hated it when he lost himself. He stared at the space where he had stashed his crate near the other detritus of the alleyway for a few seconds before slowly closing his eyes. A couple of pigeons watching him took off as he started cursing. He jumped down the stairs and headed to the now bare spot where there had been a bunch of junk and a small, dense crate that belonged to him. He hadn’t heard of any city clean up efforts, but it appears that junkmen had come and collected the, well, junk.

    He could see the tracks from the truck they had backed into the alley and the evidence of men moving stuff and “cleaning up.” He could even see where they had struggled with a heavy weight - his crate, he imagined. He had to make sure that he got it back before anything destructive happened to it. He needed that box intact. He took off in a sprint to the mouth of the alley, and then slowed before trying to merge with the foot traffic.

The tire marks from the truck gave away which direction it went and he turned to follow. The sidewalk was crowded and Calvin kept to the side of the buildings to avoid getting jostled and kicked. One or two people took a pot shot at him with a curse or two, but he handily avoided them. He came to the next large alley and looked down it to see similar signs of debris removal. He needed to speed up.

With a burst of energy he made his legs move faster, scampering down the street. People swore at him as he dodged in, out, around them. One man fell over but Calvin didn’t feel bad for him. He had tried to kick him as he went by. The next two alleys showed similar signs of clean up and removal. He hissed and spat as he stretched out and ran faster.

As he blitzed by the next alley a loud series of barks made his eyes narrow and roll in frustration. Now there were dogs after him. He could tell from their scrabbling and gait that they were medium sized and it sounded like there were three of them, barking and growling. This was an inconvenience he didn’t need right now. With the rest of him on some truck he resented being chased by these city canines. But luck was with him as the dogs hit the foot traffic and received verbal and physical abuse for their bothersome antics. Most strays learned early on that inner city people had no qualms about using more than just harsh language to deal with animals.

His luck held as he came to the corner. He had to pause for a moment to make sure he knew which way the truck had gone and that he wasn’t going to get run over by the frenetic traffic. A tug on his mind drew his attention down the cross street a ways and he saw a truck loaded with junk. He couldn’t see his crate, but he knew it was there, probably on the bottom of the pile. Jumping into a run, he dodged traffic and curses as he sprinted across the street and down the sidewalk. More than one person remarked on his mental instability as they watched him, but ultimately turned away shaking their heads.

The truck was backing into another alley when he caught up to it. There were a couple of big men in dirty clothes that were blocking traffic so it could. He would bet the commuters loved that. Another man was helping direct the driver so he didn’t hit the walls of the narrow lane. Four men, all decent sized and likely to cause a fuss if he just tried walking off with himself. He slowed to a walk as the truck disappeared into the alley and the two men who had been holding back traffic ambled in. Sauntering up to the corner he heard the driver kill the engine and get out to start directing the other men to start getting the junk. Calvin hoped that the man giving the orders would join in and give him a minute to get to the truck, but his luck wasn’t that good. He was just going to have to come up with something to distract them.