With all this around me; the lights, the sounds, taxis honking and moving swiftly up 8th Avenue, bums asking for money, crazies pleading for sanity, I stop and take it all in. Like a kid at Christmas time, I am fascinated by it all. And, the thought of where I might sleep tonight has not even entered my mind.

I’m too busy with the here and now. Looking at the starving and afflicted. People in need of love, understanding,  cash, opportunity,  something to get through this life of hardship and broken spirit. In need? I am here to give.

An insane woman talking to herself, I give her a twenty. A man on a bicycle traveling the wrong way on a one-way,  I give him a ten and tell him to change course. He yells and gives me the finger; I love this town.

Never have I seen anything like it. Sure, Chicago has its ups and downs, the poor and the very poor, the rich, and those with way too much, with no time to spare, it seems. Always busy placing fingers in pies. Licking frosting off cakes. New York has those in abundance and also the sinners and saints trying desperately to get by. And with six hundred bucks in my pocket,  which one am I?

Don’t fool yourself, David. You’re still a bum. Give some more cash away, you fool. Spend it all tonight and wake up tomorrow to start anew.

This is my mindset. Never half way, go all out and start again; broken and in need, looking for another Thomas Schmidt,  another Gladys, another Cleo. Surely I will find them. I always do.

Mania is sweeping through me. I stopped in a diner on 42nd Street and ordered a coffee with lox and cream cheese on a bagel. It is the best meal I’ve ever had. A true luxury in my stomach. Purple onion flavor mixed with cappers and tomato; a feast. And the coffee with lots of cream and sugar. I will last all night, giving this metropolis my all and then some. Why not? Why not, indeed?