Honor Among Vagrants

"I'm a friend!" screeched one vagrant as he thew another vagrant to the ground. "I'm a friend!"

Yesterday when I was walking home from work I noticed these two beating the shit out of each other beside the Park Street fountain. I adjusted my path to take me around the opposite side from where this vagabrawl was going down.

"I'm a friend!" screamed the first vagrant again. Other vagrants standing around said "Let him up" in hushed throaty tones. But the first vagrant was having none of it. The other vagrant lay stiffly on the ground on his back, while the first vagrant jumped around on top of him. And finally we (we as in all the passersby), who had missed the beginning of this fight, got more information: The first vagrant screamed, "How could you think I'd mean anything by it!??!" He screamed this in agony, the agony of someone whose car has just cruelly been driven into a lake, and then he resumed slamming his buddy, his pal, against the concrete.

So this wasn't a dispute over the half-empty Starbucks cup some officeworker had left on the curb, or a stray nickel, or even an old mitten. This was about honor. Something had been said in jest, but not received that way.

I imagine it went a bit like this:

"Haha," the first vagrant laughs, pointing. "Look how shiny your baldino is."

"What?" retorts the other vagrant. "Why you talking about my baldino? You're a fucking asshole, talking about my baldino."

"I'm just kidding, I didn't mean anything by it."

"I thought you was a friend, but you're talking shit about my baldino."

"AAAAHHHH!!!!" The first vagrant erupts and lands a punch in the other vagrant's toothless kisser.

It was funny to me, at first, that these people would care so much about their reputation. But, on second thought, what else do they have?

The first vagrant is a friend, goddammit. And there's a puddle of blood on the sidewalk to prove it.