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I awoke that morning, about seven, to an unusually cold day for the middle of May. Old dirty blankets and oil stained cardboard boxes don’t make for very good sources of warmth. Like most mornings, I awoke to rush hour traffic buzzing above me on the tenth street bridge. Cars traveling to work. People off to get their coffee and donuts. Some mornings I’ll hear the sirens of an ambulance or a police car. This morning it was the bass of some punk kid’s car that really woke me up. That boom, boom, boom shaking and rattling the steel girders holding up the bridge. It was probably the pipes on a Harley that woke up Sheldon.

Each morning Sheldon would wake up, walk to the Porta-John, take a shit and drink the rest of his vodka. He was, by all means, an alcoholic. I would tell him he needed to quit drinking but ‘what for’ is all he’d say. That was his answer for damn near everything. And really, I don’t blame him. His wife left when he lost his job. He started drinking, lost the house, and now he lives next to me under the bridge. Sad. It’s really sad to see him like that.

After his morning constitution we’d walk to the corner and hold up signs. ‘Will work for food’, or ‘Homeless Vet’, or even ‘I need money’. Most people would just drive or walk past, some would give us change, and some would tell us to get a fucking job. I would want to tell them Sheldon’s story. Tell them how he was a stock trader and how he had more money than they’d ever seen. I’d want to tell them what an amazing artist he was, but they wouldn’t listen. All they saw was the vodka bottle and smell the breath of a man who hadn’t brushed his teeth in well over a year.

After we collected about ten dollars Sheldon would make me buy him a pint of vodka. I’d buy it because I hadn’t been homeless very long and I didn’t smell nearly as bad. My clothes weren’t as dirty. I looked ‘respectable’ he’d say. But believe me, there’s no respectable way to look when you’re homeless.

He’d drink and I’d eat an Egg Mcmuffin or something of the sorts and if the mood struck me, I’d buy a newspaper. I always read the Lifestyle section first and on this May morning the headline read: Johnny Depp to play lead in Paper Hats.