Thanksgiving: Prelude

It's a gray and rainy day, typical for this time of year, and I've been at Peet's for a few hours, doing a bit of writing and a bit of work. I think it's time to go home soon but I go outside for a cigarette, with my hat on to protect me from the cold drizzle, my headphones replaying the same song I've listened to repeatedly for every smoke break I've taken. A homeless man stops and asks me for a cigarette, and I offer him the last of my pack, something I would not have done a decade ago, but I have another pack with me so it's not a hardship. A few doors away he encounters another homeless man who is walking in the opposite direction, walking towards where I am with a can of something, probably a beer. The first guy, in a surprisingly deft motion, kicks the other one's hand and knocks the can out of it. The can goes flying and they start shouting at each other but I can't hear what they're saying because of my headphones. I feel bad for giving the first one a cigarette if he was going to do something like that just a few seconds later, but I realize I know nothing of their relationship to one another. The second one is one I've seen wandering around the neighborhood for years; sometimes he frightens me with his bursts of anger but mostly he just makes me sad because I think he's just crazy and needs help. So they go further down the street, arguing, and I watch. Number two gives up and returns to his original path: towards me, and he's angry and shouting, shouting, shouting. I casually get a parked car between him and me as he approaches, as he passes, and then I watch him reach into a tree pit and fill his pocket with shiny obsidian stones. Then he turns back and heads to the site of the incident, where a third man has been standing the entire time with a colorful umbrella, under the awning of the Japanese restaurant. My song ends and I put it on again. And as unexpected as the first event, number two attacks the third guy, seemingly unprovoked, and I run over. The third guy is maybe homeless too, but he does have a single white headphone in his ear, which I would normally assume means he owns an ipod, but with street people it's impossible to tell sometimes. The third guy tries to protect himself with his umbrella and the second guy has such unbridled rage that I'm afraid to get between them, and again, unsure of what their relationship is. Number two chases number three up the street, back past me again, knocking over placards as number three desperately tries to get away. They get dangerously close to traffic and I think I should cal the police but I continue to watch, and by this time, a number of other people are watching as well as the shouting is impossible to miss. Eventually number three gets away by crossing the street and the second guy starts heading back towards where this all began. I head back into Peet's, to my safe window seat, and watch as he stops at the tree in front of me, and empties his pockets, dropping the stones back into a tree pit, oblivious to the fact that he is returning them to the wrong tree, and then he passes me, passes by my window. He is nearly toothless and his dirty blond hair is slicked down by the rain, and he looks so sad, so lost, so sad.