e=mc2
By J Betty Ray, Sept. 2000
As I'm walking back from the parking garage , a homeless guy with big, billowing white Albert Einstein hair and a busted pair of kids' sunglasses with an alien sticker over the left lens gets right into my face. It's late afternoon and the sun behind him is blinding.
"Why
are people so inconsiderate?!" he asks me. He reeks. A combination
of alcohol, sweat and godknowswhat.
"I
dunno man. I haven't figured that one out either."
"They
don't think we have feelings?" he asks. "So I'm homeless. That
means I don't have feelings?!"
He looks like he's about to cry.
"Maybe
you should tell them that," I offer.
"OH!
OH OH!" he says as he feigns a slap to his face and his hair flies
everywhere. "They just look the other way!"
He takes his glasses off and stares me right in the eye. I'm totally
gagging on the smell and his teeth are covered in weird brown
funk. He's probably in his mid-forties, or maybe younger, and
I can't tell if he's delusional, shitfaced, or the most lucid
person on earth.
"When
is it going to stop?" he seethes. "When. Is. This. All. Going.
To. STOP!?" He is literally shaking his fists at the sky. "It's
enough to make you want to stick your head in the toilet and flush!"
He puts his glasses on and takes a deep breath.
"Thanks
for listening," he says as he straightens his tattered jacket
and walks off.
"Sure,
man, hang in there."
Thanks for listening.
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