Here’s to the vendors of Real Change. The beautiful and the bold. The ugly and the undefeated. The sweet and the sour. The loud and the proud. The quiet and the calm.
The ones who insist and persist and aspire to their personal best. Who Are the Grace of God by Which Therefore We Go.
Here’s to Willie, whose roadside fan dance and team patch mania is all about the love. Who caresses his cash and folds it like a fist to be held lovingly in the light.
Who is too tough to die.
Here’s to Ed, the Mayor of the Safeway, who rules the sidewalk with his cigarette and chair, and has said “Have a nice day” at least a million times and counting. The Ed abides.
Here’s to the poets who are no more: Cynthia Lee Ozimek, Earle Thompson, Robert Demalvaine. The street intellectuals who made me cry with beautiful words and drank and drugged to dull the pain but could not escape. If there is life after death, they are writing it all down.
Here’s to the Ravenna Buddha, whose beautiful bravery and bottomless love for the True Jesus inspires even the atheists to live in the light.
Here’s to R&B, who never gave up and finally found something better than heroin.
And to Michael Hall, retired.
Here’s to Craig, and all the other Willy Lomans of the street, who always keep on keeping on, no matter what.
Here’s to Levi, the beloved survivor of so much, who was once so much younger and so filled with arrogant pride and rage. May you bend but never break.
Here’s to Robert Hansen and Michael Garcia, who, too, were well-loved. Who found themselves through work and friendship and each died rich in their own way. Here’s to Karen Norcross, the coolest Queen of No Shit who ever rode a wheelchair. And TJ, the one-lunged imp, who tenaciously loved the only life he had.
Here’s to all the hangdog panhandlers with a paper, who still think they’re begging, because that’s what they know.
May they someday find their dignity and stand a little taller.
Here’s to the ones who could sell ice to Eskimos, whose charm brightens our days and lightens our wallets.
Here’s to the con men and the one-paper bandits I’d rather not know about, who might get fired but will always get by somehow.
Here’s to all the ones whose hard work has gone unrewarded. Who played by the rules but got bad hands again and again. Who never thought to shoot the dealer. Who still, despite everything, just want a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.
May there one day be justice, and may we all work to bring that day soon.