7 June 2012
Noon at the park was sunny and warm. Hippo and Andre were arguing over forty-five cents. They were short that amount to go to the liquor store. Hippo threw a nickel at Andre. Andre threw a quarter at Hippo.
Andre said to Hippo, “Do you want me to get up? Do you want me to get up?”
“No,” said Hippo, “I don’t want you to get up. Let’s be reasonable about this.”
I stopped to talk to Wolf who said, “If you wonder why I’m sitting with these wild men, it’s because that other group over there is too near the war memorial. That’s the first place the cops are going to stop. It makes sense, if someone has lost a friend or family member to the war, the last thing they want to see is a bunch of people standing around drinking beer. It’s not respectful. There used to be two benches there, but they took them out. That was the reason. Since then, they’ve taken two more benches out. They’re making a statement. Do you see what I mean?”
I wandered over to the other group. Joy was talking about an incident that happened yesterday. “Lucy punched Irene in the face and broke her nose. Then Daimon grabbed Shark and took his cell phone. He gave it back later. I said to Lucy today, ‘I don’t appreciate what you did to my friend. Shark was good to you, he sold you drugs at half the price he could have charged. Is this is the way you repay him? That’s not the way that friends treat friends. Does Daimon want to go back to jail so soon? Anyone walking by, seeing someone putting the boots to someone on the ground, could have called the cops.’
“That’s what happens when you’re dealing with addicts. They don’t think reasonably, they just think of their next fix.”
“Here comes Andre,” said Outcast.
“Little Jake has passed out on the bridge. The cops and the paramedics are sure to be here soon. Speaking of cops, there are four of them on bicycles talking to Hippo. One of them is riding in this direction. Dump your liquor!”
As he rode by, the officer on bicycle said, “Hi, Andre!”
Joy poured the contents of her plastic bottle on the lawn. “That should kill the grass,” she said. Outcast kicked over his can of beer that he had placed on the bottom rung of the railing. Andre started staggering to where the action was. “They probably won’t do anything to Little Jake because he has AIDS. He usually has a cut on his lip or something. They won’t want to go near him.
“Earlier they talked to me. I said, ‘anything you want to know is on my dossier. Just look me up. ‘Dossier?’ he said, ‘that’s a pretty big word for you.’ ‘Look dude,’ I said, ‘I’ve been in the system for as long as I can remember. If there’s one thing I know, it’s the system. You’ll find that I’m red flagged for violence and there’s a green C beside my name for hep.c. Anything else you want to know is in there.”
“Andre,” said Outcast, “stay here, you’re drunk! If you go over there you’re going to be charged! Stupid bastard!”
Joy said, “He rode right by. I wouldn’t have needed to dump my bottle.”
“That’s the third can of beer I’ve kicked,” said Outcast. “That’ll tell you how many times they’ve been here this morning. They’ve been coming every hour.”
“Dennis, I think you may have been lucky for us. You look respectable. They’d treat you decent. You should have seen the bicycle cop that was here yesterday. A red-headed guy with big muscles. I wish I’d had a video phone. He stood there, in front of the women, scratching his balls. He was really disgusting. He said, ‘They don’t make condoms big enough to fit me.’ and ‘I’m so big that I’m cramped by this bicycle seat’. If I could have recorded that I’d have been on the phone right away to the police. I’d say, ‘This is how one of your officers talks to the public.’ They think that, because we’re alcoholics, they don’t have to treat us like humans.”
“Dennis is always lucky for me,” said Joy. “Every time he stops by, I get two or three drops.”
Outcast said, “The Chief of Police was on T.V. the other night. He said they’re going to crack down on drugs in the Market. I guess that means here too. It’s because of the tourists. He said so. They don’t want tourists looking at people like us, hanging around drinking beer.”
“I’ll have to mix another drink,” said Joy as she reached into her backpack for her sherry and water bottles. “Are there any female cops over there? If there aren’t, they won’t be able to check my bag. I hope there aren’t, because I’m carrying pot.”
Outcast said, “I think Hippo has outstanding warrants against him, but that’s in British Columbia.”
Hippo came walking up, “They charged me with pissing against the wall. I got a thirty-five dollar fine. I couldn’t have held it any longer anyway.”
“May I see your ticket?” I asked. “I’m just curious to see what they wrote.”
“I threw it away. It didn’t have my real name on it anyway.”
“And even if it did, you wouldn’t pay it, would you?”
“No, but maybe I should have given it to Jacques. He could have taped it on his wall with all the liquor violations, and Joy’s ticket for jumping the bus.”
Hippo walked over to Outcast, “Can I have forty-five cents. Rocky is going for a run.”
“Will they let him in?” asked Outcast. “Is he sober enough?”
“Well, he’s more sober than I am. I’m hammered.”
Joy reached into her bra and pulled out a change purse. She gave some money to Hippo, “Buy me a bottle too, will you?”
“Joy, I knew you stuffed your bra,” laughed Outcast.
“Earlier, Daimon saw me put money in my backpack and he kept eyeing it. I figured this way, he’d have to come through me to get it.”
“Charlie was by earlier, but he didn’t stay long. I guess nobody would give him anything.”
The police had left, so I wandered down to say good-bye to the other group. Shark had joined them.
“Hi Shark,” I said, “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to Irene. Joy said her nose is broken.”
“It’s not broken. It was just bleeding. She’d be here but she’s mad at me for not stepping in when Lucy punched her, but I couldn’t. First, I was in the middle of a drug deal with Daimon. Second, he said, ‘Stay out of it!’ He grabbed my arm and held me down. See the bruises?
“I wouldn’t say this to Irene, but she had it coming. I’ve told you before that when she’s drunk her mind goes on retard. She just keeps repeating the same thing over and over. She was saying, ‘That person has sucked Sharks’s cock, that person has sucked Shark’s cock, and on, and on, and on …’ I said, ‘Irene, this may be of some concern to you, but it isn’t to anybody else, Now, shut the fuck up!’ That’s when Lucy popped her.
“She won’t be mad at me for long. I talked to my landlord and I have a two bedroom apartment arranged.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know, he has buildings all over the city, we can take our pick. I told him that I’d pay him the last months rent now and the first month’s rent, August first, when we move in. He’s willing to give me the last month, in my present apartment, for free. Not a bad deal, eh? I’ll have a room to myself, so when Elaine gets mad at me I can go there and play my games.”
~~~
Sample my books for free — To date, $1945.00 has been donated to the homeless:
Gotta Find a Home: Conversations with Street People
http://buff.ly/1SGzGCY ($2.99 Download)
http://buff.ly/1qLHptc ($2.99 Download)
https://buff.ly/2lUfp6Q ($2.99 Download)
https://buff.ly/2Gkoyxj ($2.99 Download)
They Call Me Red:
https://buff.ly/2GJSDsG ($2.99 Download)
Private Eye: Eugene Leftowicz
https://buff.ly/2GJSDsG ($2.99 Download)
Podcasts:
http://buff.ly/1Pxlf9p
http://www.blunttalk.libsyn.com/
http://buff.ly/1XU368M
http://buff.ly/2iYvOE4
http://buff.ly/2jdjZd6
Streetsister 