The street scene can get a little brutal at times at times. Last night I was hanging out with this friend of mine on a bench in People’s Park for about an hour. Just hanging out talking.
And then the next day I happened to run into him again. “How ya doin’,” I asked.
“How am I doin’?” he said. “This is how I’m doin’.”
He pulled off his hoodie. He had these big metal staples stapled into the back of his head.
“Gee-ziz!” I said. “What happened?”
“About a half hour after you left the Park last night this guy snuck up behind me and whacked me on the head. I don’t know what he hit me with but it was hard. I just got back from the hospital.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“The guy is a total psycho. He’s been stalking me for the last 6 months. He’s beat me up 5 times already. He keeps claiming I owe him money. He’s trying to extort money out of me. That’s his basic gig.”
Of course it occurred to me that if I had hung out on that bench for another half hour, I, too, might have ended up with big metal staples in the back of my head.
There are so many crazy people on the street scene. It can be like walking through a minefield. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that I still have all my limbs and some of my brains.
