Fyodor disovers the writing of Louis Wittig.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Homeless

I really hope the Dr. Strangelove allusions aren't a constant.

Five months before this I only took trains for fun. I lived in Los Angeles. Behind their raw eyelid rims, Southern California street floaters had a pronounced gentleness to them. The most amiable descended from an ancient stereotype – the naked, laughing island dwellers who ate ripe fruit right off the trees and huddled under Precambrian-sized leaves during downpours – the kind Columbus described in his journals.

Once I was stopped by a weathered, grandfatherly black man pushing a shopping cart half-filled with empties down the street. He only needed a minute. He babbled about his Air Force career, his family (“They say I’m an alcoholic…I am an alcoholic, though. I never miss a day…”) and some land he owned before he pulled out his wallet, revealing a wad of twenties, and offered to take me to lunch. Halcyon days indeed, and so clear.

Days like this were the beginning of the end though.

For instance: a burly, distressed-looking black man was working the side entrance of a parking garage in Pasadena, following a flowing crowd of tourists with a pained expression. My girlfriend and a troupe of her friends I was meeting for the first time were just ahead of me when I saw him and reached into my back pocket for my wallet, pulled it out and opened it wide. Reflex. As soon as I started it was too late to go back, to shrug in solidarity or mouth “Don’t have it, sorry.” He couldclearly see a bill, though he couldn’t see what it was; he couldn’t see Andrew Jackson, jaw clenched tight and gaze, usually off to the side, this time flush with embarrassment. No pain, no….I patted myself on the back and folded the bill for discretion. If I could get a few yards away and nobody noticed it would be fine. To no avail. As soon as the bill was in his palm he lurched forward and wrapped me in his meaty arms.

“Thank you man,” he said, gently rocking me back and forth, people still streaming by, slapping his hand on my back. “Thank you.”

There were other incidents. Ambling down Wilshire Boulevard on a sweaty afternoon I found myself at a crosswalk. On the opposite curb was an elderly, bent Asian woman in a moldy fisherman’s cap. She had just pushed a shopping cart up a hill. Something in my head lit up. I gulped the rest of my Coke as we waited at opposite ends of the crosswalk. It was next to nothing so far as giving goes, but symbolically, that was the more important thing, symbolically it was perfect; quiet but palpable, with a touch of wizened understanding, maybe dignity too. This is definitely the right thing to do, I thought. As the signal changed and we drew closer, I saw her front teeth – at an almost 90° angle relative to her gums. Pitiful. I dunked the empty bottle into her cart in one smooth motion.

What’s this?” She let out a confused half-snort.

“Uh, oh, I’m..." I noticed, before I bolted for the far curb, that her grocery cart was half-full of groceries. For the next block I whispered, “I’m so sorry” over and over.

Here's more Wittig:

Arresting Development
Arrested Development returns, and conservatives should rejoice.

It’s Commander in Chief G. I. Jane
ABC takes a look inside the liberal id.

Citizen Wittig has his own website offering freelance writing, copywriting, and editing. Check out his "Unpublished Masterpieces" here.