First, we decided to eat at a small diner in New Jersey, the driver was from upstate New York, he knew the area and verbally co-signed their exceptional food, customer service, and its reasonable price. Once we were inside and seated a female waiter wearing a snug apron holding a pen and ordering sheet greeted us, this diner had a reputation for its famous burgers. We all ordered those burgers accompanied with the best homefries my nose can deja vu with conscious memory to this day. This was a decent size group. One couple after another would excuse themselves to go outside and wait on the remaining members. While the others ate, me and my date decided to go next door to purchase some gum to pop in our mouth. This particular store had stocked items on shelves that I never seen here in Ohio to this day, or anywhere else. Items such as pop, but in Jersey it’s soda, and on the soda cans were The Flintstones (the cartoon characters) Fred, Wilma, Dino, Barney, Betty and Bamm Bamm. And each famous cartoon character had its own flavor not quite accurate on matching specifics but an example is cola, red-cola, grape, strawberry, and root-beer the same soda taste as anywhere else in the country, but in unique identifiable cans. 

Before we actually saw the cans, I asked the man working the counter, “hey, where is the pop?” With his mannequin like stare, “what’s pop?” His accent appeared to resemble a person from a Third World Country. Quickly I responded, “nevermind” and went browsing through the stocked coolers. As soon as I grabbed Wilma, and held it high enough for the owner to see, he said, “soda”, “yea, we call it pop in Ohio where I’m from,” I answered. That was the first time I had heard pop being referred like that. I brought a few cans that turned into souvenirs. That moment had a sudden halt by a homeless man who came into the store wearing what appeared to be multiple clothing.  The excessive items were probably every piece of clothing the man had owned at that moment. As the homeless man turned around, I noticed shoelaces were attached to a guitar that was mounted on his back. The dude walked in looked around and walked right out without saying anything.

When everyone had finished eating it was now time to ride around, and do some site seeing, and some shopping in New Jersey, and New York. Once we were in New York, New York, literally within two hundred yards from one another stood a man, or woman doing something to make a dollar, literally. “Whether the homeless realize or not, in some areas, they are self trained salespersons living day by day, on who knows how much cash,” I debated quietly to myself. Only if he or she played the right song for the right crowd, a dollar could be earned. Just because you have many people walk or drive by does not always mean someone is going to except solicitations to have a front windshield cleaned, listen to a song or instrument, purchase gold plated jewelry, accept sexually offers. Is their a business man horny enough to unzip his dress pants while some homeless person gets on their overused sore knee’s on top of piss to suck his hardened cock behind a vacant building at peek hours? 

A friend of ours forcibly made his way through traffic to park the two toned white and grey van. All together eight of us four men and four women. From a short distance less than a block from where we began our walk stood a short Asian man. As we got closer, I took a rare glance at his frizzled untamed jet black hair. He held a rusty coffee can with his left hand his right hand extended out he was asking, “money for food.” At a stop light it’s like sudden death, heavy traffic to mild, you could have a gutsy homeless person pitching for cash until the signal turns green. At the gas station, they walked right up to pedestrians, cars, trucks and even the cabs. Cash wasn’t the only thing needed. Cigarettes butts were frequently picked up off the ground and re-lit and inhaled. Needless to say, held dangerously like that could be their last menthol taste. You would have thought that cigarette was weed the way the smoke was treasured with each pull.

The entire group stayed together within eye sight but nobody was afraid of anyone or anything. Reasoning, it was a matter of change in pace and New York has a lot to experience. When we approached a crowd of people my date and I often maneuvered shoulder to shoulder through the tourist, or “The New York Staters” hitting different clothing spots looking for something to buy. In between that, you also had your fair choice to sniff through and catch instant mouth water multiple food-carts were positioned along sidewalks. With all that going, someone out of the group decides they want a strawberry milkshake from McDonald’s because it was hot and muggy outside and she had a taste for it. She not only ordered that she ordered a hamburger and nachos from two different food-carts. 

Their was a news-station parent company in the area b Times Square and close to Radio City Music Hall we all wanted to check out. The walk took roughly twenty minutes around the time it takes to finish a meal. I heard the last crunch of a nacho looked over my girlfriend’s right shoulder. Within three seconds, our friend, she tossed the remaining milkshake in an outside garbage can. The black garbage bag was secured tight around the rim of the fixture. He appeared to be nervous as the quite dirty famished white guy reached inside the trash for what was tossed in. His hands and face developing a slight shake but along those cracked lips as he pulled the milkshake slowing toward his griping face was his “stomach contents”. On his front shirt wore a semi wet a huge red, yellow, green, black foreign shape design made from regurgitation that you could almost taste, it smelled foul. I noticed the man had a fresh closed left black eye under nature’s messy décor. My mind instantly went back to the man who was sleeping in the subway station. All I could think about was my feet walking to the edge of that chest high brick wall looking over and seeing him laying there, homeless. With no shoes, my stand height is 5″10. 

On the way home, I thought nothing much about the homeless more on the actual trip itself. Some years went by and I decided to enroll myself into a university.
   

To be continued:

Until genre is established names in this beginning draft is either changed or eradicated and events may appear similar in nature to real events but are works of an Author Max AKA BraineMatter AKA DeWayne White: Max Pro Check Publishing®

Max AKA BraineMatter AKA DeWayne White                 
Max Pro Check Publishing®
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