He stood on the corner telling every woman that passed that she was beautiful.
Its true he was drunk. Its true that if the woman smiled he asked her for change, and sometimes he got some.
His friends said he shouldn't do it. They said it was sexual harassment and he said it wasn't. His friends said he should tell men they were beautiful too, so he tried it. He got punched by a thin man smoking a cigarette. He fell into an oleander bush and lay there for a while, thinking. When he got out of the bush a big weather tanned woman was sitting on his bench, the one with the real estate ad on the back. She had a grocery cart with her. It was filled with packages wrapped in black plastic bags. She had a small terrier like dog. The woman was dressed in splendid rags. She had the face of a Valkyrie.
``So, Mr. Indian Man - am I beautiful?''
He looked into her angry blue eyes, at her vast brown and red face, her enormous body made strong by her daily struggles up and down the freeway embankment. He wondered where she found the food to stay so huge.
``You are more beautiful than any of them,'' he said. He wondered how he'd got himself into this situation.
The shopping cart woman smiled. She had very few teeth (how did she eat?)
``I had a man tell me that once,'' she said, ``but he's been gone a long time.'' She looked at him speculatively.
Time to leave, he thought.
``Hey, Mr. Indian Man -'' she held out a cranberry muffin.
He was hungry and not drunk enough any more. He sat down beside her and accepted the muffin.