Walking down that street was always tense. Not that there were so many bad asses, no, the problem was the people with problems. It was homeless and half crazy central. They were all there with their dogs, their grocery store carts and their few possessions. Generally they were quiet and lost in a haze of alcohol, drugs or just deep confusion, but sometimes there could be trouble.
I had to go through that stretch every day on my way to work and although I think my empathy for my fellow man is pretty much intact, I just can't bear to talk to people who shout or ramble on or panhandle. And after all a dollar every day is thirty dollars a month. One does have to think about one's budget.
Of course someone had to hassle me. I saw her out of the corner of my eye and I hoped and prayed it wasn't me she was headed for. In her fifties, she had her hair held up with a flowered scarf and her eyes were covered with enormous round sunglasses with thick white rims. She wore a shapeless shift covered with triangles in orange and green. Her lipstick was dark red and she carried a cigarette draped delicately in her fingers. She came up to me like an aging actress approaching a fan.
"Darling, hello, how are you? It's been so long since we've seen each other."
She reached out to hug me and I must have cringed because she then said, " What! You don't remember your Aunt Sylvia? I know it's been a while, but how could you forget?"
I had no Aunt Sylvia, nor even an aunt of any kind, but I decided to play along.
"Yeah, didn't Dad say you should never call? I promised him I'd never speak to you again.
How clever I was! But almost immediately I felt like a mean girl, so I gave her $5 out of guilt and she walked away a very happy woman. Her con had worked just as she planned.
