Though no one really knew his name or how he came to be, everyone knew who he was. With the crinkle of a nose or a disgusted glance, you could tell the topic of conversation without even hearing a word. Some threw spare change into his worn Dixie cup in passing, some cringed and crossed to the opposite side of the street to avoid the stench steaming off of him.

            He sat on the sidewalk with his head and back pressed against the brick wall of Pete’s Bakery. The man wore a helmet of black hair, greased down from months of soil, sweat, and grunge, a healthy polished shine from natural oils. His cheeks were ashen, dirt caked and smeared from nights of lonely tear shed, his beard tumbled in a mass of knots and strangled public hair down his chest. Under the ragged carpet was a soiled Bob Marley shirt, the greens and yellows faded away years ago by the beating sun, and below that were camouflaged cargo pants. He wore Birkenstock sandals, some straps kept together by fibered string, his long yellow toenails reached out from under them and curled around the tips of his feet. The stink that hung about him was nauseating, to say the least. It mixed of sharp whiskey, tobacco, body odor, and searing urine. His evergreen jacket laid beside him, dusty, the edges of holes frayed out over the material. The sun caught something metal, sending a piercing ray reflecting to the opposite side of the street. If one could bare the smell and the look of the broken man, they’d squint over the jacket to spy a purple heart.