Hey, guess what? Go to hell.

This (the subject line) is what I heard one bum say to another today on my way home from work. It's not one of those jokes... "What did one bum say to another?" But rather, I guess a commentary on their culture and how rather than helping each other out, most times they are territorial and mean.

I guess this entry is a look at the culture of homeless people and my struggle with whether or not to pretend they don't exist like everyone else does.

Almost daily, no matter how hard I try to get on one of the last cars on the train, there is always someone who pipes up just after the doors sound their "bing bong" that warns you they're about to close, saying "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen..." Yes, excuse you. I got on this train to go home in peace and quiet. In fact, I can barely hear you above my mp3 player but I'm not sure if I should take out my headphones to hear you or if you're full of bullshit like the rest of them. But you're yelling too loud now, so it's a bit hard to ignore. And you look so sincere. What's that? You're looking for donations to help people who are hungry? Well, I was going to spend this change on laundry but maybe you should have it? Maybe you are lying.

It would be easy for me to give if he played the fiddle or sang some do-wop like some of them do. Pathetic pleas for change where you don't look like you're in need don't work for me! And why are you in my train car when I'm trying to zone out until I finally reach home? Why? And why is the man next to me falling asleep, and swaying as he does... he threatens to fall against me as he passes out with sleepiness. And I honestly want to punch him in the face as he gets closer, but I understand that he, like the rest of us, is tired as hell and just waiting to get home.

The conductor sounds like the Crypt Keeper as he announces each stop, the woman with one in the stroller and one in her arms still stands as people refuse to give up their seats. An ape-like man with Edward Scissor Hands fingernails picks and wipes his nose as Mikes motions to me to get closer to him to avoid the dirty bum. Above ground, a man in dirt-soaked overcoat, tattered jeans and a sheen of dust and grime protecting his skin from the judgment of shopping-bag-clad tourists blows a snot rocket into the grate where the subway train runs below, as his only belongings in a shopping cart nearby stink so people from one hundred yards away can smell the stench of poverty.

It is a thing to deal with, and it is a thing you have to painfully ignore. Every day out of work, I see the same dread-clad bum with his tattered Starbucks cup full of change, a lasting image of corporate America and its reaches. When I walk by him, his smell is not a stench. It is a familiar, non-offensive rustic musty smell and in a way I don't much mind him being there.

I don't know much to say on the issue of the homeless because I think the government has failed them and there's not much we can do for them now. But I will say that their presence around every corner makes me thankful for what I have.