Overheard while walking
Titan and I were walking on the Street of Freaks (read: Broadway) this afternoon as usual, and in front of us was a sudden police altercation.
Just like that. We were strolling along, I was minding my own business, which is to say, I was eagerly staring at people on the street, willing them to do something interesting so I could write about it, although I'd probably forget anyway. And Titan was minding HIS own business, that is to say, attempting to check his pee-mail, in spite of his mean owner keeping him on a short leash and trying to attempt SOME kind of exercise on our stroll, which is greatly at odds with stopping every three seconds...
...but anyway, as I was saying, we were strolling along like normal. And suddenly we (I) looked up, and there were three cops remonstrating with a homeless person, who seemed to be in possession of a large green trash can, obviously a city can, that he did NOT want to give up, and there seemed to be another homeless man, somehow impeding either the cops progress or the homeless guy's progress, or possibly both.
Titan and I skirted the argument with a minimum of effort, not being too concerned, and on our way to better things. (Pooping.) But there were two other individuals who were clearly NOT on their way to better things; in fact, it would not be inaccurate to say that they clearly had all the time in the world, being, if not homeless, then the next thing to, and indeed one of the individuals was SELLING a homeless newspaper. And they spoke thusly:
HomelessPerson #1: "What's going on there?" (Meaning the remonstrations.)
HomelessPerson #2: "I don't know. Some stubborn drunk, I guess."
Now, Seattle has a bad rap for being a very "white" city, as in, a lower population of black people than, say, almost any other major city in America, and as such we are labeled as not too diverse, but let me tell you, a city in which there are so many homeless people that there are CLASSES of homeless people, as in, a city in which respectable homeless people can pass judgment on less respectable homeless people...
Well, that is a diverse city indeed.
1 comment:
I would wager a bet that Boston is right up there. Most of the diversity I saw was Irish v. Italian. (Thank God Seattle is *generally* fairly accepting of diverse populations, as compared to some other major cities.)
But a homeless-person caste system? Wow.
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