bullshit and a drunk guy

I am sitting with a drunk, homeless guy outside of Safeway, smoking many cigarettes.  It is dark and cold outside.  The lights inside are slowly dimming, and the door is locked.

He isn't cold, though, and he starts to talk.  He tells me why he drinks.  A mishmash of different things; a broken relationship, subsequent estrangement from his child, a family who doesn't understand him.  I study his face, and he touches his thick white beard.

"When I shave this off," he says, "I look a lot younger."  I see that he is lonely, and nod.

I listen some more, then think that someone at home might be worried about me, so I hop on my bike and say goodbye.  He hugs me, and as I pull away he struggles to keep up with my bike but is too drunk.  I look over my shoulder and smile.

"Call me!" he yells, even though he has already told me that he doesn't have a phone.  In this moment, I think, he is wishing he is somebody else.  I kind of am too.

So much bullshit, you know?  Sometimes I want to just cut it all out and get to the fucking point.  Albert telling me how his wife didn't like him farting in the living room, and how he sometimes wakes up and doesn't know where he is. This is the easy part.

It's the bullshit that's exhausting