Ancient Downtown Wisdom:

If you feed one homeless person, you will feed 10 others. They’re like pigeons and seagulls to one crumb of bread. Soon you are in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Run!

Posted around the perimeter of my office building are homeless people. Dey be my Homies – Yo, and dey know me, Ho! (Just tryin’ out my new rapper persona, like Joaquin Phoenix.)

Seriously though, it doesn’t help that my office sits above a food court, where Homies conveniently congregate, hoping for a donated meal. Well, I can’t keep breaking my shrinking budget to keep them fed. So lately, I’ve actually been trying to out-maneuver them by ducking behind trees and doing the low-crawl under benches and tables. I’m thinking about buying some camo-wear and tying small, leafy branches around my head.

(Theme Song from the TV Show Mission Impossible)

The other day, I was coming back from the courthouse and didn’t have my side-door key with me. Rats! That meant I had to walk through the food court to get to the front office door. Since I felt like grabbing a cup of coffee anyway from Carl’s Jr., it didn’t seem like that big a deal.

Then – I remembered! No-Speak Sad Sack W.C. Fields might be sitting at his usual perch on the stairs down to the food court. This guy never talks. He’s very sad-looking and indeed resembles W.C. Fields.

I tiptoed cautiously, figuring if I so much as catch a glimpse of his tattered shoes, I’d moonwalk away and go around the block if I had to.

Okay, no N-SSSW.C.F – but there was another homeless guy there. Maybe he was saving No-Speak’s spot for him. (Hey, I don’t know what kind of business arrangements these people make.) Anyhoo, I said hello as I walked by, relieved that I wasn’t going to get shaken down for my milk…er, coffee money.

Then I heard, “Excuse me.” I instantly froze like a statue, with my arm in a half-swing, begging for a pigeon to land on it and make Homie think I really WAS a statue.

No such luck that day. “Excuse me,” said The Smelly One, “can you please buy me some food?” I smiled weakly like a…weakling, “Sure. May I take your order?”

“Yeah, I’ll have a Double-Bacon Western Cheeseburger with some large fries. And can I get a large Dr. Pepper with that? If not, I’ll take an orange soda.”

Got it, Mr. Smelly-AND-Greedy One. Be right back. (Dude was a total Bogart!)

As soon as I turned towards Carl’s Jr, I couldn’t stop smiling and shaking my head because I’m such a pushover shmuck. So I get there and my regular server Ray started to grab my usual coffee for me. Ray knows I don’t eat much at Carl’s. I get my coffee and, only occasionally, a bacon and egg burrito, NO CHEESE. EVER. (I have this thing about melted cheese, can’t stand it except on nachos.)

So I cleared my throat, feeling oddly embarrassed, and ordered the damn Double-Bacon Cheeseburger with large fries and a large Dr. Pepper. Ray looked at me like this:

Then he looked at my belly, expecting to see a forming fetus holding a fork and knife. And he repeated my order to me, TWICE. “Cheese? You sure?”

Yeah, yeah! And a coffee, please – to make my frickin’ headache go away.

Bottom line: Like Meals-on-Wheels, I delivered to The Smelly One. If I had skates on and 50’s music playing in the background, I would’ve felt much better.

I asked Homie his name. It’s Edward. And he’s in the Witness Protection Program. The FBI set him up for a new job up in San Francisco as a postal worker, and he’s just waiting for the signal to go up there. Uh huh. Okay Edward. Enjoy your lunch, while I recalculate my food budget for the rest of the week. The weird thing is, I haven’t seen him since.

Meanwhile, this is what I came upon as I arrived at my office at 6 a.m. today: (just in case you think I’m kidding.)

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