freedom, a wonderful thing... So, I was downtown, just minding my own business, just riding my stick - not even breaking laws with it, ya' mind - when I got in a scuffle with the man. No, not The Man, but the man I ran into, the one with the grocery store cart and the day old breath. He looks right at me and I nearto melt away. He goes "hey, slow down. You gotta share these sidewalks with us slow folks." I had to actually stop and think about how to breathe again right then or I would'a just turned blue and fell down instead. To say he was really gross would not do him justice. He had that long stringy hair, the way it gets after at least a month of no water in it. It was brown under all the dirt and grime I guess and his face was covered with a similiar substance. His beard went from up top a his cheeks all the way down to his nape, something I had never seen before then and so it really freaked me out. He had sores on his face from cold nights spent outside and a look in his eyes that said, "well, what do ya' want?" I noticed the scar running from his right eye down to his earlobe as I stared at him, like a punker's chain, but much more masochistic. What was left of his clothes were dark from the layers of dirt clinging there and tattered at the edges from the repeated use as a snotrag. He had on a thin coat, like a baseball jacket, and an old hawaiian style shirt. It looked like blue clouds on a white island motif, but my mind wasn't really focusing the way it usualy does just then. It could'a been blue island, white clouds. Anyway, he also had a pair of black workout shorts pulled over a pair of khakis - his lower half looked like a cigar wrapper on a Emmet Kelly special. So he and I collide as I round this bank building corner just by tenth - the nice part of downtown, eh? I'm not going too fast and he's just kinda shuffling 'long when wham I goes down head first and he just kinda shifts his weight. It's like he's ready for sudden impact all'a time, cause he just takes it. I get up soon as I can and apologize. He says what he said, and starts to go 'long. I gotta get my head checked, but I offer him a swig from the remains of the snapple juice bottle I got in my backpack from that morning. I was savin it for later when I'm resting but his face tells me he could use it too. He thanks me when I pull it out to show him, and carefully wipes the top off on his cruddy sleeve before taking his swig. It's a long and deep one and before I know it there's nada left for me. He goes a'head and hands it back to me, saying his thanks and turning to leave at the same time. I just toss the empty in the nearest garb-can as I skate off. Its like he and I were two ships passing in the night - like the titanic, and the world's dirtiest little tugboat, but with a mighty thirst for something like lemonade in a clean bottle. theend