the incident at the trashcans

We have this weird little area in front of the small condo building where we live. This weird little area is bordered by trees, looks like a courtyard, but is, in fact, the parking area, with a small kind of alcove in one corner for the trashcans. Now normally, you might expect to find something like this behind a building, but the back of our building overlooks a canyon. So, what are you gonna do? We just have this weird little area. It borders the sidewalk of our pretty palm-lined street where there are frequent passersby: moms with strollers, joggers, shoppers with Trader Joe’s bags.

And the occasional homeless person.

Like yesterday.

My Beloved and I are pulling up and I see him shuffling along the sidewalk, this homeless black man. He seems to be shuffling toward our courtyard/parking area where the trashcans are. Rather than pull into a parking space, we pull up to the curb to watch him, see what he is going to do. Sure enough. He drops his Santa-sized bag of cans, takes an empty trash bag, ambles over to the cans, begins to dig around. Now this is private property. It is obviously private property. These are not trashcans lining some back alley thoroughfare. No. These are clearly on someone’s property. What he starts to do is really more akin to walking up someone’s driveway to dig through their trash.

So MB gets out of the car and approaches him. Because of the distance, I strain a bit to hear, but I can piece together that he’s telling him nicely, politely, “Hey, dude. This is private property. You need to move along.”

Homeless guy ignores MB. Keeps digging.

MB moves closer, speaks to him again.

The guy doesn’t stop, doesn’t budge. Now remember, I am sitting in the car watching all of this. And now remember whose blog you’re reading. Which, as it follows, should then cause you to remember that, when under the spell of my own rising — let’s not forget righteous! — indignation, I am occasionally somewhat unmodulated in my behavior. In this state of mind, I am sometimes somewhat impetuous. Maybe I don’t think before I speak, sometimes.

So maybe I lean my head out the window of the car.

And maybe I yell — oh, something like, “You need to get the hell out of here!!!”

You know, as an example of something I might possibly do in a situation like this. And because I’ve now written myself into a corner, let’s just pretend that I actually did these things, okay?

MB throws me the warning face.

The what-in-God’s-name-are-you-doing-you-stupid-wench face.

Silly MB. As if he doesn’t know what I’m doing. I’m using my God-given gift of making things worse, is what I’m doing. Silly MB.

Homeless Guy yells at MB, “Get away from me with your racist ass!”

Uhm, what? The color of his skin had not been mentioned once.

MB is saying things to him, loudly now, basically chasing him towards the sidewalk. Once he’s grabbed his other Santa-sized bag of cans, Homeless Guy stands about 10 feet from the car, indignantly declaiming our racism to the entire neighborhood.

I break in. “Oh, please. This has nothing to do with what color you are! This has to do with the fact that you’re trespassing on private property!”

He looks my car up and down. “Oh, you think because you drive a black car, you ain’t a racist?”

I respond by asking if he’s retarded. (Another great idea …. courtesy of moi.)

MB towers over him and growls, “Move along now, pal. NOW!”

As he drags his bags down the sidewalk, Homeless Guy mutters, “White bitch.”

Yeeah.

See what I mean about that weird little area?