Joe to the Rescue

Every so often our wonderful pirate neighborhood experiences an influx of new folks just passing through to somewhere else. I kind of want to set up some sort of focused time-lapse photography project because I honestly don't know where these people come from.

  Anywho, most of these new-comers wind up in our neighborhood because the train tracks run straight through the middle of it. I'm assuming that it's a weather thing, you know; people train hopping more when the weather is a little more amicable to being outside, or riding in a drafty boxcar. I'm getting off track though. The biggest problem with this is that said newcomers don't understand some of the unsaid codes of the neighborhood. I wouldn't go so far to say that we welcome transients, but more that we tolerate their existence with a sort of mild disregard. Thus we meet "Beanie Lady".

I actually wasn't present for this episode, but heard eye witness testimony from my buddy "Goggles". Beanie Lady had been in the store, and asked to leave once or twice before, but the third time is the charm as the saying goes.
 
 It was a normal sleepy Sunday, Goggles was chilling out working (no doubt listening to some sort of weird robotic electronic computer funk that I can't stand.....or Shakira....maybe Brittany Spears). Joe, one of our warmly welcomed regular "house-less" fixtures, was sitting next to the window sipping on a cup of coffee as he looked out at the sun shining through the branches of an old growth oak tree in our parking lot. This beautiful, peaceful, kind of pastoral scene was, however, abruptly interrupted when Beanie Lady came rambling through the store. It's easy to spot when somebody is taking some sort of harder drug, and because of her jittery nervous movements I'm kind of guessing she's cranking through some cheap meth, or really low grade cocaine most of the time. Anywho, she was ruckus enough to be asked to leave by our gentle front end cashier. (which, let me tell you, is really hard to do in our store...so once that line is crossed there's really no going back). Now, let it be said....we all have defense mechanisms. Most of us keep them tightly under wrap, which we're able to do because they aren't pushed very hard. But for folks on the road, that button is pushed so hard that it has kind of sunk down into the fixture....it's on a hair trigger so to speak. Not to justify Beanie Lady's response, but to explain it.

Suffice to say, Beanie Lady freaked out and started cussing up a blue streak. Not that abnormal of an occurrence but I can't say it's something that I've ever gotten used to. The problem with yelling while angry is how it tends to make one more angry. So, having worked herself up, Beanie Lady managed to take a swing at the cashier. Let's picture this with some "Matrix style slow motion".

Her knobbed and knuckley fist sailed through the air between her and her intended target.
 The force sending ripples of tiny winds up her arm, blowing her tangled hair gently backwards with displaced momentum.

 The cashier, eyes wide, leans back from the intended strike reeling back onto her heels while her arms move in front of her face to shield herself.

The sun is still shining brightly through the window where Joe was recently seated. But instead of a grizzly man sipping on coffee we see the chair being thrown backwards as Joe bravely jumps in between the attacker and victim. His arms up above his head, Joe gesticulates wildly to successfully ward off the assailant. And....end scene.

What Joe did next is what makes this episode so amusing (no, I'm not tickled by the thought of my co-worker being punched by local junkies)....Having warded off Beanie Lady's attack Joe then turns to Goggles and our cashier and proceed to lecture them on the finer points of discernment regarding the various transients of the neighborhood.
"You can just let anybody in from off the street here" Joe exclaimed as he launched into a history of encounters with Beanie Lady.

 There are, in fact, some instances in which it is helpful to appeal to a pot to identify the varying shades of blackness that a kettle may or may not have. In this case, Joe knows more about his world than I do, so I defer to his experience. There's just something hilarious about one homeless guy lecturing us about letting bums in from off the street. In Joe's defense, he's no bum. Not at all! He takes care of the landscaping around the store, has a great sense of humor, and apparently makes a pretty decent bouncer when he has to. It just goes to show that the existence of "Bad eggs" sometimes highlights the "good eggs" at the same time. Keep that dude in mind the next time you want to apply the same treatment to a broad demographic of society, nothing is uniform when it comes to people.


Thanks Joe, your coffee is on me!