Street Theatre

h Sirens were echoing down the narrowness of Sixteenth Street as I got near Seventh Avenue. I couldn't tell if they were North or South of where I was huffing along in the darkness. It's lighter now in the mornings now that summer has arrived, but there are still a lot of alleys and other hidden places along my jogging route. There was a man in a light grey suit near the corner waiting for his dog to finish taking his morning dump. He had a cigarette in one hand and the leash and his official plastic-pick-up-the-doo-doo bag in the other. Between me and the dog walker a couple walked arm in arm down the sidewalk. She had her hand tucked inside his belt and he had his hand shoved into the right rear pocket of her jeans. They had done this before, what they were doing was less like walking and more like dance. The dog was finished now and was doing a little dance of it's own. A celebration of another successful mission. As the couple passed him, the man bowed low, his plastic covered hand grasping the lumps of dog poo all the while drawing deeply on his glowing cigarette. The dog was pulling at the leash making it difficult for the grey suit to keep up with the poop gathering but he too had done this many times before.

It wasn't until the couple had gotten to the corner that all of us spotted the half-naked black man in the middle of street. He had no shirt on, and it was a little chilly, and his pants were down around his knees. The couple stopped on the corner and briefly looked his way. The grey suit said "Oh, for Chrissakes" or something and then proceeded to take his harvest to the nearby trash basket. The half-naked black man was jumping up and down on a manhole and making a sound like the distant sirens. He was facing away from all of us watching the approach of two or three cars. The couple didn't wait for the light to change, but paced right out across the avenue, the half-naked man never gave them any notice. The grey suit man and I got to the corner about the same time as the cars reached the man in the street. He did some more jumping as they cruised around him, he waved his arms above his head and made that howling siren sound. Grey suit and dog turned right and disappeared into the entrance of a building. I watched the naked man do some spins and some karate punches. He tried to do a kick but couldn't with his pants down so low.

The real sirens were closer now and, as I watched, an ambulance turned onto the avenue and headed towards us. "Ah, they are coming to get him." I thought as I crossed the street. I turned to watch, I couldn't help myself. The ambulance came roaring down the avenue straight for the man with his pants down, the lights, even in the brightening morning light, were brilliant and glaring and the siren suddenly was very loud. The man was doing a kind of jumping jacks with little leg movement while windmilling his arms like one of those old-timey tap dancers. At the last second possible, the ambulance swerved to the right, missing the jumping man by maybe a foot and then it proceeded on down the street and in a moment was gone.

It was quiet. The man stood still for a moment, he still had his back to me. He heaved a big sigh and bent over a little to get his pants up. He shook himself like a wet dog would after getting out of a lake, then he walked to the other side of the street and headed west.

The next show is on the next block.