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ARTICLE 136: cigarette frank MARCH 2005 at some point in every person's life, they reach a critical moment. this moment is when they decide: I AM NO LONGER LIVING IN THE GHETTO. for some, it may be having children, getting a promotion at work, or graduating college and moving back into their parents' house. but for me, it was this morning, when i was accosted outside my back door by a man sitting on my porch asking me for cigarettes. HOMELESS MAN i do not smoke, i told him, it is a bad habit which makes you lose your job and house! then i walked to the curb and put my trash in the trash can. it was not so much a curb as it was a bit of gravel next to the alley that runs next to my house, but i took out the trash regardless. the homeless man ignored my lightly-stinging barb and strolled over to my trash and began pawing through it. usually they have the courtesy to wait until you leave and not make a mess, but not this man! i do not have a problem with homeless people trying to find some food or cans to recycle, but this one poked and prodded for a few seconds before overturning the whole can and dragging my trash bag out of it. DAMMIT HOMELESS MAN PUT THAT BACK WHEN YOU ARE DONE EATING! i told him. also, you will probably not find any food, i am not a restaurant or bakery, just a regular man with a magazine column, i added. i went back inside and told rickeydog to be careful, because if he was outside i did not want him to get eaten by a hungry and rude homeless man. a few hours later i left to go to the post office. the alley was full of my trash! i had tried my hardest to keep it in a bag and take it out to the trash can at regular intervals, and the man had distributed it from one side of the alley to the other. apparently he thought i was lying when i told him i did not have food, and used a special method of trying to find food, called "throw trash everywhere because being decent to people is impossible unless they have cigarettes." well, unfortunately for this rogue bum, i have an in with most of the local bums! as you may have read before, i know several local homeless men, who are quite nice and whom i have known for years. by regularly giving them leftover food and alcohol, i have gained their trust as well as been audience to a wide array of stories involving slashing, cutting, or slicing enemy bums! jumping on the internet, i searched intently for a couple of hours, trying to find out how to convince alcoholics to do my bidding. my research paid off when i finally came upon a site telling me exactly what i needed to know: alcoholics are intent on obtaining and consuming ALCOHOL! with this knowledge, i locked up the house and walked down to the convenience store. i dropped ten dollars on a few bottles of malt liquor and walked directly out of the store to the dumpsters in the back. sure enough, some of the local bums were there, no doubt talking about homeless politics or geography! i recognized one of the men and waved to catch his attention. SLIM JOE how are you, i called to him. DREW!! he yelled back, after seeing my brown paper bags full of liquor. drew how are you old buddy, do you have any spare change! ha ha! we laughed, and i gestured to my liquor bags. i don't have any change, slim joe, but i do have a little something for you if you and your friends can do me a favor! he introduced me to his colleagues, and i said hello to them in turn. then i addressed them as a group. fellows, i have a proposition for you which will result in malt liquor! please follow me! i led them from the dumpsters, down the street, and back to my house. i showed them the destruction left in the alley. boys, if you can find the scoundrel who has perpetrated this destruction, i've got twice this many fortified beverages waiting for you! please take these as a retainer for your services, i told them, passing two bottles out to each bum. they assured me that the perp would be brought to justice, and i thanked them, and sent them on their way. now, i don't think that they will necessarily catch cigarette frank, or whoever destroyed my garbage, but hopefully the idea of good acts begetting good acts will filter down through the homeless community and crazy cigarette frank will finally realize that he can only improve his own life through cooperation with other people. i just have one thing to say. cigarette frank is lucky i'm not a bible-beating politician from texas, or i would have bombed the homeless shelter downtown in retaliation for his actions, and tried to convince the world that the leader of the homeless shelter was supporting bums overturning trash cans, or hiding weapons of trash destruction, or who knows what. i don't know. i have to end this metaphor now so i can go look for a place in a part of town where bums don't hang out on your back porch. (back to the writing index page)