Three Minutes

As soon as you got to the corner and as you were crossing the street, just when you began retelling the story in your mind, you see him. He is a 60something looking guy who was probably only 48, but has lived hard. He was wearing a ski cap, his Hispanic skin was something other then a healthy brown tone, it was in fact ashen and wrinkled, and he had whiskers sticking out of his chin like, Poopdeck Pappy, bright white. He was pushing a blue shopping basket, like the one your grandmother had only hers was red and narrower.

Just as you were deciding whether or not he was homeless or just borderline homeless, you could see him stumbling. He went down kind of slow and you noticed that he almost seemed to propel himself forward, when he could have probably stopped himself from falling over into the gutter completely. It was like he gave up as soon as he tripped and let the momentum have its way with him. You find that you don’t want to get too close to the man, you worry that he purposely flipped himself over to gain your sympathy, when you bent over to give him a hand he’d mug you, and Suzie would get run over by a car.

Still you can’t just leave him there. No one else is around, in a city where every fucking person is up your ass, until you want them to be. You ask if he is ok and he slowly rises nodding his head and saying yes. You wait until he is on his feet. He says thank you as you turn towards your door. That makes you feel guilty for thinking he was going to rob you, not guilty enough to turn around though.