"Get away from me scum!"

Gordon told the pickup truck winos that they had until the end of the week to leave.

Sunday when the male drunkard tried to shake my hand - people who live by their minimal wits are full of false friendship (one customer told me the guy had helped him take his laundry from the car to the Laundromat, maybe 8 feet, and then demanded a dollar) - I recoiled. "Get away from me scum!" wasn't an urbane response I'll owe. But after his threats and incontinent meanness I'd divorced him from the implicit civility of contact most of us abide by.

A few minutes I had to shoo him from the store's porch when he showed up to growl at me that I dare not call him a "faggot" again (can you imagine an epithet I'd be less likely to use - I'm the faggot).

Later when Charles and I were on the porch I saw him coming our way (out of the corner of my eye: no need to provoke more). He walked into the neighboring parking lot and then up to the street. That he'd walked from the front of the lot two get to the street instead of walking ten feet directly to Markham Avenue told me he was looking for another fight, albeit merely a cussing match.

My patience flatlined, I called the Durham police.

When the copy showed up he made me feel that I was the man in the wrong. If we didn't want them there why'd we allowed them to remain for a couple of months. Charity toward the homeless didn't seem a convincing explanation. The drunkards claimed the woman was working for the hotdog stand in the front of the lot. We'd asked the owner and he'd said no. Then they said that the woman who'll be leasing part of the lot when her new restaurant, Sirens, opens. I'd only met her once but doubted she'd relish winos anymore than, say, Charlotte on Sex & the City.

The cop did tell them to leave and they did. The truck is still there. Gordon as owner of the property will have to call for a tow truck if he wants it removed. Having their truck impounded will only hurt themselves. Some people are determined to make the worst of things.