Washblog

So I am in Seattle, and I was in one of those neighborhoods they're trying to urban-villageify... without the transportation, of course. There's actually some sort of police locus just blocks from where I was.

So when I went into yon random storefront, I didn't see the guy passed out on the sidewalk. When I came out to get on my motorcycle, he was there. He looked like some biker kind of guy, in that he had a leather jacket and no shirt, and in his passed out condition he'd taken off the jacket.

So, this guy in a wheelchair is rolling up to him and saying "hey! buddy! wake up!" and stuff. Guy who is lying on the pavement is not moving. He's got some dollar bills in one of his hands though.

Wheelchair guy doesn't look like a crack smoking wife abusing miscreant. He's wearing a cowboy hat and is reasonably well attired; but you can tell he calls that wheelchair home.

So this odd drama is going on behind me as I put on my helmet and my gloves.

So drunk guy is not going to wake up. Clearly. At this point wheelchair guy maneuvers so that he can reach down and grab drunk guy's cash. Whereupon he swiftly wheels away.

I spent a moment processing this. When I looked up, someone who had just gotten out of their car, as well as someone who was in their car and waiting for the light... we all looked at each other and it was electric: "did we just see that?"

And what are we going to do about it?

Today, I saw a cripple in a wheelchair steal from a drunk. How much more Dickensian can it get?