I came home tonight after the buses had stopped running so I had to walk. It was after two in the morning and there were people everywhere, pushing shopping carts, stumbling down the middle of the road, conglomerating in corners, sleeping on the side walk, riding around on mountain bikes... I passed two people sitting on the curb talking, thin like young city trees. The man had his arm around the woman and as I passed she asked him, "why do you say that?" He barked back in a voice ravaged by yelling, "Because it feels good when I say it!" and the echo of the ensuing argument followed me for blocks. The streets were filled with garbage and piss streaks and food and gum and vomit. Between the bigger pieces and piles the sidewalks were sparkled with cigarette butts and syringe wrappers, and the occasional syringe. The steps of the Carnegie Center were moving with bags and napkins and made the building look long abandoned. I passed a new community garden pronounced by fresh bark mulch, planted around the base of lighted, rotating billboard (Grolsh, scratch and win Monopoly, vote for Diamond Shreddies) and surrounded by barbed wire. Police lights flashed from a dark side street. On the other side of Hastings I saw a man seated in a wheelchair, peddling himself down the right lane with the back wheel of an otherwise stripped bicycle, which he held upside down in his lap. A woman was bragging loudly to her friend, "I got Matt, I got Mark, I got Gabriel - he's in jail; I got Junior - he's in jail; I got Rudy who's mad at me but fuck him anyway, and I got Cal. I got six boyfriend's yo! Two in jail!"