Offending Strangers

“Bastards stole my pickles!” shouts a man wearing a long, pea-green coat with a bright red scarf, wrapped cast-like around his left arm. He’s on the far side of the street, stomping through late-winter slush. “Mother told me to go to hell but wouldn’t drive me to Blockbusters.”

He must be talking to someone — maybe an acquaintance at the crowded bus stop on the corner — but he isn’t. Blockbusters closed two decades ago.

“You belong in lockup,” he rages, while I wonder how much brain damage or drug abuse it would take to make me seek the attention he demands.

People pass without raising their eyes from their phones, or their dogs, and steer clear as if moved by an invisible forcefield surrounding the shouting man.

“Bed restraints. Sedatives. Padded cells. Dopamine deprivation.” His eyes bulge, unshaven cheeks appear smeared with ash. Heading my way, he steps into traffic. A car honks and swerves around him.

“You’re a mongoose who eats soggy cake,” he says to one woman at the curb.

He raises his middle finger and screams at a man not far from me, “A scaly, grey potato bug is sexier than your pecker.”

Warnings flash in my head: do not react, do not make eye contact. He could easily erupt into physical violence. I consider turning and bolting, or kneeling to pretend I’m tying my shoe.

He shouts at the last person between him and me, “I smell arse on your breath.”

Everyone bears his insults with reserve and fortitude, by ignoring him or looking the other way. Some hold back laughter, while others shake their heads and walk with bolder steps.

At one arm’s length, he stops and stares. A fetid, sweaty stench oozes from his pores. I look straight ahead, as if I haven’t heard him or smelled his body funk, and hope he’ll go easy on me. Time slows. I keep walking; each step brings me closer to the inevitable.

His voice softens. “You’re okay though,” he says as if discovering a crispy apple in a dumpster of rotting produce.

I stumble at the shock of his words. A shudder rumbles through my chest and arms and reaches my fingertips. The injustice. The affront. No insult could have landed more harshly.

The lunatic stomps away while the “arse-breathed man” turns, brow furrowed, and glares at me, as if I’ve offended him.

Dave Gregory is a Canadian writer, a retired sailor, and a fiction co-editor with the Los Angeles-based Exposition Review. Please follow him on Twitter @CourtlandAvenue.