I don't know why I've had so many street interactions with bums... Probably from prowling streets with bars, I suppose.
Once I challenged a bum (who was telling me a lie about a busted car) -- that if he produced a driver's license, I'd give him 20$. Sure enough he did. Time to pay up, so I did... We got on fine, so me and a friend offered to buy him a drink. He insisted that this was "too good" for him not to bring his buddy -- I woud've done the same. We brough them with us to Fat Tuesdays... And ordered some slushies. We were just hanging out, but they became very happy and proud to be 'invading' the establishements they normally just walk by... They started get crazier and crazier laughin and shouting with us, then mostly each other. Then yellin' "BLACK MAN in the HOWWWSE' etc.. Lol... Eventually we just sidled away from them -- soon thereafter they got kicked out. Funny. Now they and we have a story to tell. But the real story I was going to tell was one of the earliest 'bums' I talked to -- we'd borrowed a car on a circle K run from a nearby house party. I must've been 18. We had cups of booze. Some guy out front offered to wash the windows, had Windex and paper towels at 10 PM. We declined (wasn't even our car, we laughed) -- but how 'bout a drink. That was the look of "real thanks" in his eyes. He drank from my cup. I told him "finish it". Then we said, hell, finish my buddies too, we have a short drive. So then we asked him, "uh, so how long you been homeless". Just a few weeks it seemed. "what's it like?". He finished downing the second of the large Seven and Sevens. Shook his head and said, "Busted, disgusted, and can't find a job..." Wary as I am when I see someone with nothing to lose, I think "There but for the grace of god, go I." Of course, I'm a pretty low-rent, law-breaking, mental case -- so I might be a lot further down the slippery slope than y'all. I have to agree it is the laziness/apathy/succumbing to mental illness that probably angers me (for wathever part of me recoils in anger). And mostly its those things I'm hating in myself. But I'll hang with three bums on the street before I'd hang with 3 average fucks plucked out of corporate meeting -- at least the bums have an inkling of what reality is. Hell now I'm getting pissed off at the NON-bums. See what karma we made, Al? Rod Scholl ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Would you Help a Child in need? It is easier than you think. Click Here to meet a Child you can help. http://us.click.yahoo.com/0Z9NuA/I_qJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
