Hobo Hold-up

An atmospheric shift, like an irreversible mood swing, happened mid-spring; I no longer felt safe walking through the park after a certain hour. I limited my time in the park to twenty minutes or less before midnight, and I stayed near the street. And then when school let out in late June, I was even more apprehensive about walking after hours, as it seemed that the more juvenile set has an even lesser regard for life and respect for anyone's dignity and that their code was more cavalier and faster and looser (than hobo code). Crackheads, for their volatility, operate under a code that seems to observe a few basic rules. One of the resident crackheads in my building called the fire department to report a fire, fabricated from his woolly, drug-induced mind: a false alarm. Perhaps there really was a fire. Maybe he'd set fire to a section of the tablecloth or a lace doily with his cigarettes, or crack pipe, or whatever.

But the question is: how can you tell when a hobo isn't from around here? Well, he wears a black jacket (big chance it's leather ... in this weather, batshit crazy leatherman thug machine). On a bike. With a gun. A leather-jacket donning hobo on a bike with a gun positioned across the handlebars is not our kind of hobo.

He was still on the loose when I came outside. My dog's favorite doorman cautioned me to be careful. I said, "You don't have to tell me twice." And it's not exactly an I-told-you-so scenario, where I see my wise prophet-ness has now come into play and I'm having my smug moment where I expect people to applaud my extremely adept prescience. The only thing I worried about was actually encountering him and wondering how he would react to the fact that I was carrying nothing but sandwich bags and liver treats. Would he shoot me for having nothing? Would he shoot my dog? Would he kick me after spitting out a dozen unprintable epithets (unprintable merely because I'm too tired to invent some colorful curses and slurs)?

Add carrying firearms to the list of hobo don'ts. This is one of many reasons why I hate the summer.