Tony calls.
He's been kicked out of his rehab
and is back on the street.
Again.
Hanging out on the same corner
we used to be at together.
We called ourselves
"The League of Extraordinary Bums."
He told me
that I was the
first person who ever
made him feel like being a bum
was Noble.
Our Eskimo friend
Ray-Ray
called me some word
in Eskimo
which meant "Shaman."
Ray-Ray barely ever spoke
and when he did
it was usually in one syllable words.
"Mlbtylsco," he said one day,
pointing his finger at me.
I asked what it meant
and he said,
"You are Priest,"
waving his filthy hands,
"Sha-man-priest."
He only said it once.
Every time I tried to bring it up after,
he didn't remember, or notice.
Which is not unusual for Ray-Ray.
A year later Tony tells me,
with all seriousness,
that I am a street-priest.
We used to sit,
all day long,
on the street,
and watch people.
Possibly thousands a day.
And we'd laugh at the suckers.
Laugh and drink
and smoke and read
and play music
and beg.
All the while the ant-hive-sleep people
would pass by in droves,
The constant herd,
Union Square in SF.
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