The Streetman Stays

The vertical city lights persist, but somehow they don't illuminate. I still see the big men when I leave work out of the cracked parking lot to the asphault artery. The big men so sad cry, they still limp and hustle to the edges of what they know and receive no return, except maybe the single smoke from the generous stranger feigning salutations.
Their eyes are a mix of yellow and red with crust still clinging, sleepy in the mid-afternoon. I see my brothers, black brothers, white brothers, sitting on the concrete blocks chatting in front of the post office laughing away the beginning stages of sickness. I feel so sad for them and care not of causes, just the harsh and the coldness of swimming upstream the same as any of them. I think of what stories I can tell and how in any way I can help but know the strange curls and minimal effects of my most desperate of smiles are all I have for offering.
I read my books and let the language numb my senses trying to give away my ignorance, and maybe sit in the sun with them on days that smell so good. But sometimes even that seems to upset the balance, for they have things to do and I have phone calls to answer and habits can't be broken, good or bad. Some are crazy, some are addicted, and some it seems just like the freedom. But at end, long after I have driven home and feel the break of night with the flow of my pen and the food that marks my time they have to find somewhere to wake up. The lengthening blade of loneliness should never carve such feasts.
That face you never get used to. The younger ones still fight and toil and compete against their family's prayers, but the older ones bent towards the ground, going gray after not nearly long enough, ready for the weep, have a look about them you never quite shut out. Torn clothes, the cobweb hair, arthritic hopes, and walks that could send you to therapy, The Streetman stays and helps you feel just a little bit better. His jingle is low and he fixes on the 'Jesus Saves' sign above the door at the Denver Rescue Mission and almost laughs. He looks at me and asks: "Do you think that's true?", and I think, Only in the summer. I follow him a whole day in my mind with the recall that I was once that way but luck and a fat enough ego pulled me up and out of the muck. He travels to where the sidewalk pulls right and the buildings are painted by fade, the payers of the rent sit still outside and cough. This neighborhood gives way to the side of town cluttered with industry and between here and there trapped in the rough are big, little, and old. They are mostly black and they know the game. The Streetman stays on course and finds his mark, just a house, as empty as anyone in it. The furniture pawned, the water pipes sold for scrap and the carpet lays trampled with fluid, the only thing to see all the stir. He whiffs and strays after the fix feeling no better while I go on playing, rocking straight because my life has gotten better.
He wanders back as both our shifts end each day and we greet each other in bubbles, insulated from how much we have in common. Oh how the questions march in my mouth but never find their way out when he's around, I am afraid he would think me patronizing, or perhaps I am asking to make some fun. I really want to know though how things got bad and how he can be strong enough to rack the rack and spit good riddance. But I find not the love in my throat and just give him his square. Stay strong my brother, don't wail or cry, the next time you run my way I'll help. But that never happens, I just write so he is madder and the spotlight shines, The Streetman stays.

One Thursday frowns a little darker than all the others and I don't see him. The wary still pass and the actions seems unchanged by anything but the cold. To work down here and pretend it's like working just anywhere is somehow funny because there are no gas stations, fast food restaurants, or townhomes, just levels of steel and the richest in the state conducting business for people who don't imagine this sick trip is shared by them. I know, that attitude has been done to death by those that have but it doesn't matter to my friend who is in a stalemate with the city. He runs on his airport walkway and never gets any further or wiser. On this day he gets pushed and lectured and finds an alley to run off of one of his cliffs. Too much, so much, so many times trying to quiet, and he now has had just about enough. I nod and tug on coats to see if anyone knows him so I can give him his petty. Just one cigarette may calm, may save his life, but no one seems to know his outline and I trace him with words as best I can.
Finally, someone who I have seen him run and stunt with tells me the mutual struggle between him and the city has haunted him for the last time, the natural beckons, sob stories play. The harmonious revolution of his cellular self, still, rotten and ready for another chance. We all go on attending to our charms and I sit to eat my lunch, the wind doesn't carry him by any more for that moment and the bust stop will never be the same. The champion of the rat race is gone, replaced by no one too special but nonetheless cut, so many now who fill the void and try to light the shadow and I try to see the same in them but the guy I miss will never know. It is a shame and I am shamed to think, The Streetman tried, The Streetman stayed, and The Streetman died.