I don't wear shoes.

I've seen him more than a few times. Dark skinned, sitting or sprawled out on the sidewalk, asking people for money while constantly gesturing from his fist to his mouth while saying he is hungry. 

The problem is, I saw him at the park with some of his companions once. They were quite inebriated and discussing moments in their lives I could not understand. One of them was a woman who, although drunk, managed to keep the conversation going. He told her to fuck off, and that she was just trash. For a reason unknown to me she kept on trying to get back in his good graces but the response was still the same. Her screamed aloud that she was a bitch, a whore, and needed to go get him some "rock". She walked away, and he had the swagger of a man that had dominated a lion by staring into its eyes and telling it to fuck off. 

A charmer.

Not even three minutes later, he was walking up to a woman that had just parked her car next to the park. I saw the hand motions from his gut to his mouth, preaching the life of a homeless person that was hungry. He went at it for nearly three minutes, constantly begging and doing the same hand gestures I saw him do many times before. Eventually the girl, barely 21, gave in and told him she would bring him some food. In my heart I wanted to scream bollocks, to tell her how I had seen him not even three minutes earlier, but I remained silent. 

Eventually she came back with a large amount of takeout food and gave it to him. What she didn't see was how he gave it all to the drug dealer at the corner in trade for God knows what. After he traded, he came up to me with the same spiel. Hand from stomach to mouth, pleading towards my compassion, begging for money to get food.

I told him, point blank, to fuck off. I said I had observed how he had treated the young woman, how he had traded the food away, and that I wanted him to stay as far away from me as possible. He said okay, and two minutes later approached me with the same routine. He had taken his shoes off and hidden them in the alley, laying across the concrete as if his life was on the line.

I still see him with his compatriots - sometimes asking for money, other times hiding his shoes and begging for food. Every time he talks with me I try to remind him that I have observed his real nature, but it falls on deaf ears. 

I don't know if I should be angry or saddened.

Mrs. The Magic Dragon

I've seen her around - always wearing a Stevie Nicks style dress, hair long and brown but curled into a jangled mess around her head, walking with a shuffle that you can't tell if it comes from drug addiction, physical problems, or is just... Tired. Once I called for an ambulance after I observed her lying on the pavement in front of a bakery. As I watched through the window at the bar the ambulance came up to her along with a patrol car. When the police walked up to her she sprang up and started yelling at the poor officer that was just trying to see if she was okay. They took her into the ambulance and I didn't see her for weeks.

It was maybe six weeks ago when she briefly talked with me. The night was humid and a pervasive heat got on your skin no matter what you were wearing. After having a glass of wine I traveled outside of the building to my leaning spot to have a cigarette and she walked up to me. Mumbling.

She asked me for a cigarette and I politely said I couldn't spare one. Then the brief lecture started.

I shouldn't judge her, I was instructed. She was married to a Kennedy at one point and left him to open a diamond mine. I wouldn't understand how tough it was running a mine. Eventually she gave up on it and moved to Portugal, where she met her new husband. Puff the Magic Dragon. Again I was instructed to not judge her, and she walked away.

Every once in a while I see her walking around, and cannot help but to hum the song as she walks by. Quietly.

I'd never want to upset a former Kennedy.