"The Scenic Route"

From Homeless to Haribo.

Have any of you ever been cursed out by a homeless man?

Oh. My. God. IT’S AMAZING!

It’s...it’s so exciting!

Almost a shameful thrill.

Being cursed out by a man with absolutely nothing to lose is such an empowering and riveting experience.

So empowering, that I want to share this particular story with you in the hopes that, you too will feel empowered, because getting your chin checked, (metaphorically, of course) by a homeless brotha is such a rare and humbling experience, that I wish to put you on to something that you probably never knew you needed.

Let me start from the beginning:

I finally had an off day after working a full six days straight and decided to catch a Lyft and explore downtown.

I hadn't been downtown since the Stone Age so I thought it would be nice to try and reconnect with the city, you know, do some sightseeing, check out the new establishments, scope out some brothas, ya'll know the deal.

Any who, after about a few hours of walking around, flicking it up in my camera roll, and seeing that all the brothas I had my eyes on were clearly taken (it is cuffing season, is it not?), I decided to wrap this little adventure up and go home.

But something caught my eye! A CANDY STORE!

You would think that the small brick building with flickering lights and chipped red paint that could easily be mistaken for blood would stop me from entering this establishment, but I walked in anyway.

After buying my half a pound bag of gummy bears, I walked out of the haunted ass candy store and headed towards the intersection to request my Lyft.

I decided to walk across the street and wait for Darryl, (my Lyft driver) in a more open area so he wouldn’t have a hard time finding me, the only black girl on this side of the street surrounded by white men chugging down beer cans while the women stand holding the pack.

Darryl was ten minutes away.

that's when it happened...

...Darryl was nine minutes away now and that’s all the time it took for "Melvin" to read me like the Bible!

Here’s what went down:

When I walked across the street, I noticed a homeless man standing in the exact spot as my pickup location. Seeing as though I didn’t have any spare change, I tried my best to avoid him, (don't judge me on that. The last thing I needed was for this man to think I was lying).

After about five seconds or so, “Melvin” calls out to me and says, “Excuse me ma’am, can I have some of those gummy bears you got?”

Of course he could have some! I didn’t have any change so it was the least I could do.

I replied, “Sure” and handpicked out all the yellow and green gummy bears I could grab and handed them to “Melvin”.

But there it was. The trigger!

Who would’ve thought handing this man yellow and green gummy bears would set him off? But it did, and there was no going back.

"Oh, Hell No!"...

... “What the hell is this?! No red ones?!”, said "Melvin".

“Excuse me?!”, I replied in absolute shock.

“Damn, you selfish ass black broad! You could’ve at least given me some god damn red ones!!”

"Was this really happening?", I thought. Is this old homeless man really verbally attacking me after I just did him an extraordinary deed? What do I do?!

After realizing this wasn’t a drill, I decided to reply to "Melvin". I WILL NOT be disrespected like this!

I felt my attitude and anger creep up in the depths of my soul. I was ready for war!

Now in my mind, I believe I cracked my knuckles and removed my earrings after massaging Vaseline around my eyelids, but this can be neither confirmed nor denied so I'll just skip to the part when I replied in the humblest tone. “Sir, the red ones are my favorite ones. I specifically customized this bag to my liking by making sure there were a lot of red gummy bears. I don’t like the yellow and green ones, so I gave them to you. Now was that selfish of me? Maybe. But I bought them for me. I didn’t have to give you shit”.

Ohh why did I say that?!

I felt my attitude come out towards the ending sentence and I believe “Melvin” did too. I should’ve just ignored this man's complaint.

Hes clearly had a rough life and throwing a temper tantrum about wanting red gummy bears almost seemed warranted.

I set myself up for what came next.

LAWD!

I locked and unlocked my phone about two hundred times, impatiently waiting for Darryl to hurry the hell up! In the midst of tapping my foot and looking at the minutes that constantly separated me and Darryl, I heard in between takes of “Melvin” snatching my edges!

“You black heffa, you....” “I’m the homeless one but your black ass look like you done missed enough meals for the both of us!” “You skinny hoe...” “Your four eyed having ass...” “You blind summa bih”....”You nappy headed black...”

I mean it felt like hours of being ripped to shreds! "Melvin" was coming at every angle of my neck! Just brutality attacking my self-esteem.

Where the hell was Darryl!?

I quickly ran up to the curb to see if Darryl's god forsaken Mazda CX was in sight.

“Melvin” continued.

“Fuck you and those cheap ass snacks!”

“I hope your big black mouth ass choke to death!”

I stared at “Melvin” in amazement. His roast game was impeccable! He must’ve been the popular guy in high school who would trip nerds in the hallway and make “Yo Mama” jokes. I was thoroughly impressed!

Darryl was one minute away now!

Again, I should’ve just ignored “Melvin”, but I'm sure as you all know by now, my awkwardness won’t allow, besides, my knight in shining armor, Darrly, was just around the corner. Oh, I’m saying something!

“Sir, I noticed you say the word “black" a lot. You seem to have some issues surrounding self-hate. Are you, maybe thinking of, possibly unpacking that sometime soon, or nah?”

My comment started a whole other round of missiles that “Melvin” couldn’t wait to fire.

“Fuck you!”... “Shut yo ol’ nappy headed ass...”

But look! There was Darryl! Finally!

“Melvin” continued to snatch my wig, (or as he would put it, "my ol' nappy ass hair"), but I no longer gave a RATS ASS! My five-star rating knight in shining armor was only a few feet away.

I ran...(wait, PAUSE, who was I kidding?), I LUNGED my ass to the car door of Darryl's Mazda CX while "Melvin" continued to fire his rounds. But his words no longer hurt. They were nothing but distant voices.

I yanked open the back door but hesitated before going in.

Why? What in the hell could possibly be stopping me from entering into this vehicle of safety?

Aww hell, it was GUILT.

I slowly turned from the car, knowing that in just a few short moments I was going to highly regret this decision. But there was no turning back. The guilt was shaking me harder than a Category seven earthquake.

I grabbed a few more gummy bears, (ALLLL THE DAMN RED ONES, BY THE WAY), and shoved the rest of the bag into "Melvin’s" chest.

“Chill out!", I yelled. Showing "Melvin" that I had just about a damn nuf! "You can have the rest.”

I turned to get back into the car and heard “Melvin” start up on round three.

I closed the door and Darryl sped off. Maybe he could sense "Melvin" and I's little dilemma. I know my neck sure did with the way Darryl took off like that!

Approximately ten seconds after leaving my "newly sworn enemy", I thought about something. My self-esteem had just been viciously attacked! Shot down! Challenged, even! I was appalled.

And with all the trauma I just experienced, I came to the conclusion that Darryl was actually accomplice adjacent.

In my opinion, Darryl was just as responsible as "Melvin" was, and for that, I told Darryl straight up, “Aye, you ain’t getting no tip!”.

©2022, Arien Simone