No Need for Occupy

Shall I jump up and down?

I nearly have in a pool hall conversation talking up the inflation of my heart until it burst into desperate agony and glittered for bliss.

The windows to this man's soul were painted crazed red. He spoke slowly of love and hope; and when he left, he killed himself in an unwelcoming picket line consisting of banners, flags, and their motto: "We're People Too! More of Us than You!"
His yellow-eyed friend spoke as a drunken angel, knowing God, and hopeless, bitter that no one would listen to his jokes. He was a funny man.
Exhaustion peered through me, wondered who spoke and why; and he told me which train goes Uptown. He smelled of refuse filth and kept his trash bag of recyclables close to take for petty cash, his fortune, and I don't know how he spent it.
Outside the depot where the bums commune, they called me Guitar Man. I was offered a pretzel, shared a soda with a jobless man, sang spirituals with beggars, listened to a toothless man wail through his clinched hands like the mournful harmonica he claimed not to know how to play;
where I received financial advice from a greasy-haired drifter and was told there is no harm in asking for a dollar to help me get along.

Under the glitter of Broadway show posters, on the grit of its sidewalks, I ducked into a corner store and counted coins for rolling papers, then went back out to smoke,
where passers-by held their breaths until past my cloud, cut their eyes at me and quickly away - too quick to see me nod hello, guessing I would ask for a dollar.

Everyone has a story. Not everyone shares their story for pity's sake.
I've met proud men with nothing.
Is he still in Oregon? Has she lost more teeth? Is he still alive? Did she get what she tried for? Did he quit drinking? Did he find work? Did they all give up? Do they still hope?
They are no less invisible now than before people with money, homes, brokers, occupied Wall Street to complain about losing their money, homes, and financial worth.

Was the homeless man homeless before or after people ignored him?
Did the drunkard realize his friends are in a different town and that he needs to find them?
Did anyone see the drunkard and think to himself, "He needs a friend." Did they ask him what was on his mind?

The red-eyed man said, "I don't need to occupy Wall Street. I occupy space everywhere I am." He grinned with rotting teeth and bought me a whiskey using his savings from his shoe.

Oh, if people could be so fortunate to meet the souls I meet, perhaps the world would change and everyone would realize we don't need more people; we don't need to meet people who are the same as us. There are plenty of people who are people, and that's all we need to know to get along; and that there is plenty of help to offer without doing so under a slogan.