An anecdote.
The events portrayed herewith are true. Exagerrations are entirely within your own mind.
It was 11 AM. It was Goddam Memorial Day and it was colder than a quiet March Sunday. The wind was whistling through the deserted downtown streets of Des Moines. There was a loud silence of no traffic, the lights changing for no one, the homeless man walking down the block, then up it. What the hell was I doing here? Waiting for that contact at 11:30. Where was he? It was early, dammit, I have to waste some time, kill some time. What are you looking at? There's a mist, not a drizzle. I don't have a jacket, just a light coat. The coffeehouse is closed and I wait outside huddled like James Dean slightly before he was dead, once was. Waiting for Godot, waiting for time to pass. Waiting for it to get warm but the wind keeps hitting; it don't care. I need something to do, smoke a cigarette. There's no place to light the damn thing, every corner and crevice is alive with turbulence. But no noise. Finally I get the damn thing lit. Old man with laundry passes me by. Car drives down deserted street at 5 MPH looking for something I'll never know. Goddam old crusty man keeps pacing back and forth finally crosses. I sit there impatient, looking at everything the power lines, the side of the brick building the vacant interesection the man carrying the load of bananas. the parked cars. The wind though I can't see it. The crusty man walks up to me determined. I look him square, he's old past 80, no nose anymore, just a mound of disfigured tissue, who beat hell out of him? His voice is quiet but loud and commanding amid the whispering rooftops of Downtown Des Moines on a cold miserable Memorial Day nothing going on. It cracks and yells "Can I buy one off you?" pointing to the cigarette. Silence again, and it's too loud I need to speak "Sure, you can have one, but it's a clove." Looking me square never flinching analyzing every word he's got time "Hell, I don't care, a cigarette is a cigarette." I open up the package and pull one out slowly handing it to his free hand, his other hand clutching 20 bananas in a loose paper grocery bag. He takes the cigarette and looks down, then pauses, pulls a fruit from his bag and looks up, and in a voice louder than anything I've heard since that scream asks me "Want a banana?!!"
"No, that's all right," I answer. Gut reaction.
The events portrayed herewith are true. Exagerrations are entirely within your own mind.
It was 11 AM. It was Goddam Memorial Day and it was colder than a quiet March Sunday. The wind was whistling through the deserted downtown streets of Des Moines. There was a loud silence of no traffic, the lights changing for no one, the homeless man walking down the block, then up it. What the hell was I doing here? Waiting for that contact at 11:30. Where was he? It was early, dammit, I have to waste some time, kill some time. What are you looking at? There's a mist, not a drizzle. I don't have a jacket, just a light coat. The coffeehouse is closed and I wait outside huddled like James Dean slightly before he was dead, once was. Waiting for Godot, waiting for time to pass. Waiting for it to get warm but the wind keeps hitting; it don't care. I need something to do, smoke a cigarette. There's no place to light the damn thing, every corner and crevice is alive with turbulence. But no noise. Finally I get the damn thing lit. Old man with laundry passes me by. Car drives down deserted street at 5 MPH looking for something I'll never know. Goddam old crusty man keeps pacing back and forth finally crosses. I sit there impatient, looking at everything the power lines, the side of the brick building the vacant interesection the man carrying the load of bananas. the parked cars. The wind though I can't see it. The crusty man walks up to me determined. I look him square, he's old past 80, no nose anymore, just a mound of disfigured tissue, who beat hell out of him? His voice is quiet but loud and commanding amid the whispering rooftops of Downtown Des Moines on a cold miserable Memorial Day nothing going on. It cracks and yells "Can I buy one off you?" pointing to the cigarette. Silence again, and it's too loud I need to speak "Sure, you can have one, but it's a clove." Looking me square never flinching analyzing every word he's got time "Hell, I don't care, a cigarette is a cigarette." I open up the package and pull one out slowly handing it to his free hand, his other hand clutching 20 bananas in a loose paper grocery bag. He takes the cigarette and looks down, then pauses, pulls a fruit from his bag and looks up, and in a voice louder than anything I've heard since that scream asks me "Want a banana?!!"
"No, that's all right," I answer. Gut reaction.
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