“The winos from
downtown have a
new system.
What they do is
go to therapy once
or twice a week
and parlay that into
a month’s worth of
bus tokens.
Now you see them
at the stops jingling
coin they’ve gotten in
trade and hawking
the rest for walking
around money, buying
essentials like butts
and booze. I seen a
guy cadge half a case
of Thunderbird doing
that at the Northern
Blvd. stop alone.
These days you gotta
watch out for a rummy
with a bus pass from LA:
that’s a demon from hell.”