The word from the street
TONY
“Didn’t your mother teach you to excuse yourself when you burped and there were other folks there?”
PHILIP
“Maybe, what’s it to you?”
TONY
“Just checking. ”
PHILIP
“All right, she did.”
TONY
“So … ”
PHILIP
“So, excuuuse me.”
TONY
“Now that’s better.”
PHILIP
“Can we not discuss this anymore?”
TONY
“C’mon Phil, I’m just trying to help you with your manners.”
PHILIP
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Clemens.”
PHILIP
“What do you remember about being a kid?”
TONY
“I was a fun kid, you know. I had friends and I had a good lot of them. Things were different then.”
PHILIP
“You’ve still got lots of friends …”
TONY
“Well maybe I have lots of friends now but its different when you’re a kid, you know. You can just have fun. Nowerdays when your a grownup, people need your help, and mostly I can’t give them what they want but at least I can smile and tell them ‘hello’ or ‘have a nice day’ or something. That perks people up, most of them anyways.”
This exchange is from sometime before Christmas, though I don’t know which year. The Arthur Rachman painting above reminds me of one of the most unbelievable of Tony’s many unbelievable experiences:
PHILIP
“Is there anything you don’t especially like about Christmas?”
TONY
“Well there’s one thing, when rich people should be helping poor people more like the good Lord told us. There’s something wrong with being a Scrooge, especially when you’re talking about single mothers and their kids. You gotta help if you can, if you know what I mean.”
TONY
“OK, so you know the guy who ratted me out the other day, I mean with those tickets I got?”
So I forgot to tell you that he’d already come and told me he was going to report me to the cops. So you know what I did? I gave him a quarter! Man, was he surprised. He called the cops anyway, you know.”
TONY
“Remember that guy, the one who was missing his marbles, you know, the guy we talked about on the blog a few months back?”
PHILIP
“The one with the scraggly brown beard and the hair? He’s doesn’t seem to be around anymore.”
TONY
“Well they decided to help him so he’s in the Clarke. Now he’s got to deal with all those crazy shrinks.”
Homeless Man Speaks 