The man who peed on my cart...And others like him

Location. Location. Location.



Downtown Portland is one of the major hubs for food carts, feeding the masses of hungry office workers, bike messengers, students, dilettantes and miscreants. A veritable petri dish of grumbling bellies all waiting in long lines for some quick, good, hot off the grill deliciousness.



I'd say that most of my downtown customers were very pleasant and eternally grateful as I doled out the sweetness. Eyes wide and glazed over with a fine mist..perhaps a tear of pure joy..their lips perched and glistening from horny salivary glands.



Unfortunately, I've also been the recipient of not so nice, creepy, stinky, slurry, pukey, poopy and yes pee...eee people. I quickly learned not to be surprised by anything. Whether it was sweeping up piles of used drug needles, tearing down ramshackle cardboard fortresses, garbage, The Book of Solomon...whatever I've seen it and much worst smelt it:(



Now the people behind these gifts of joy are just as warm and fuzzy. The methadone clinic was just a hop, skip and a blow job from my cart and we are talkin about some true characters. A quick story...

In my spacious 8x12 trailer I had a unique window to the world outside and when it was slow I sat back and watched. Through fat billows of carbon monoxide smoke parked a rumbling...barely alive, beat to all hell Ford pick up truck. Choking from the fumes, my eyes stung as I blindly tried to close my window. Inside the truck sits two small children, one around twelve years old with a horrible pneumatic cough that rattled so deeply in her chest and sitting on her lap was her baby sister. To her left was her father who was chain smoking impatiently waiting for mom to come out of the clinic. Finally, she appeared skin and bones, no front teeth, sunken cheeks and greasy hair she grabbed her little one from the truck and creeped over to my cart. I opened my window and tried to put the brightest smile on my face as I realized that her little girl was so horribly cross eyed...I can only imagine as to what was the cause? In her toothless lisp she ordered a cupcake and quickly paid. I watched in awe as she devoured the chocolate cupcake, licking her nicotine stained fingers...not really caring that chocolate was smeared on her face and t-shirt. She looked up at me and smiled.

"That was an amazing cupcake!"

Wow. That was fucking surreal. I had only wished that her addiction was to sweets and not the poison that she put in her veins or smoked. I had hoped that she would of shared that made with love cupcake with her children, but instead in her own drug driven selfishness I'm not even sure it crossed her mind.

to be continued...