cerebral discharge

My office is in Downtown Phoenix, almost directly in the middle of all the excitement that comes with living in a large city. I am 2 blocks from Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Another block west is the US Airways Arena, home to this weekend’s NBA All Star festivities. I took a bunch of pictures at the big block party we had downtown outside the arena. I’ll upload those later if I remember, so you can see what it was like.

Well, today, right outside my office, I heard loud shouting and swearing, as if there might be a fight brewing. Remember when you were young enough that fighting people was an honest possibility? Like if you hit someone too hard playing playground football, or if someone called you a name? It reminded me of that. Everyone goes quiet except the one kid yelling.

Well all the shopping center commotion got quiet, but there was one man yelling and swearing. Naturally, I ran outside to see what was happening, cause you CAN’T miss a fight!

I looked over the balcony down onto the main sidewalk, and there was a homeless man walking through the middle of the sidewalk, between Starbucks on one side, with lots of outdoor seating, and Hooters on the other side, again with dozens of people seated outside in the shade.

The homeless man was looking over his shoulder shouting about someone framing him for something, and saying “you ain’t gunna git me!” and things like that. But he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. He was just shouting at whoever was around him. I listened to him as walked another 100 feet or so, and he continued shouting to the universe that it wouldn’t “mess wit da back of me!” or something like that.

The best part, though, was after he was gone. There were a few businessmen standing around, as well as a man with his 3 year old son standing next to him, watching and listening to all the crazy things the drifter was yelling. After he was out of ear shot, the 3 year old scrunched up his face and yelled “HEY!” in protest to the man’s chaotic outbursts.

I shared a chuckle with the businessmen watching, and got back to work…well, back to my computer anyways. I couldn’t resist blogging about it before I got back to work.

NOW, I’m getting back to work.