setting: downtown portland, under the burnside bridge. (a known crack/heroin dealing area, which just happens to be a max lightrail train stop.) I was waiting for the train.

She was crying. Not you hurt my feelings crying, but the world is ending and I'm the only one that knows type of crying. Her hair was matted and dirty and blond and I never saw her face, she looked down at the ground, her hair a shield from the sun, people, and life. She sobbed.

enter: middle aged man. dark hair, dark clothes, dark eyes. dark soul.

He said, in a very assuming, demanding, incrimitating tone : "Your strung out, again! Come on, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. What do you want? You want a hit of dope don't you! COME ON. Clean yourself up."

The lady was hysterical. She pleaded through tears and a choking throat to nearby companions. (all were clearly transients, the wear and tear of living homeless was evident by the torn clothing and dirt that wrapped their bodies like a flag that said "I'm hungry and you are not.") She wanted to go, and RIGHT NOW.

The MAX train came. I got on. Maybe I will see this lady again, maybe not.