Destitute and beyond desertion, the King street homeless gathered to farewell one of Barrack street's own. Grant Childress, considered a rookie for having only spent the last quarter of a decade slumming the streets, was put down in a quiet ceremony with few, if any, passers-by stopping to smell the pungent aroma of urine soaked rags void of riches.
Filming of Superman Returns captured the eyeballs of the many gathered around the Barrack street locale. Their noses, eyes and ears all choosing to block out the misery and the lot in life considered invisible and a mere nuisance. A nightmare best experienced in televised transmissions only.
Hope at hand, yet beyond their reach eludes many like Childress, a vagrant to the world and an anomaly for statisticians.
Gertie Nelson, assumed head of the King street posse, addressed the small crowd with the stock standard elegy, ending on a finite, "Times with hope were never really satisfying." Attendees throwing handfuls of free coffee beans over the open grave. Taken from a bag left outside another local Starbucks coffee whorehouse. Gloria Jeans was too far a walk.
Hope, though, was inconsequential and irrelevant to their plight. As the day rolled away, they again would be those that feed the stomachs of rodents and feral pigeons. Meaty and raw with humanity bleeding dry. Far more filling than the disgusting putrid shanks of potatoes.
Yet despite all appearances and realities, they had hope.
Written on Monday, 18 April 2005