Pamelita, at the corner

Fled the bar just now to sneak a cigarette before the Stevie Wonder set. I'm told there's a convention. I just showed up for Stevie. Anyway, I wound up sharing the last of a pack with a notoriously quiet homeless woman who tends to haunt the corner of 4th Avenue and St. Mark's Place. She tells me her name is Pamelita, something she's either conjured or convinced of, and has an appetite for nicotine that rivals my own.

Taking into account the substance traction, she's probably in her late 40's to early 50's, sporting what would be heavy Marlboro lines on a face belonging to someone who eats regularly but on hers are shallow paths through loose sand. She wears striped leggings beneath a smoked-beige dress, has the remnants of a Jets jersey wrapped around her shaved head, and her mouth -- whenever we talk, she will inevitably open wide and insist that I put my nose close, as though to prove a point -- smells like sweaty dick wrapped in a gym sock.

I give Pamelita a cigarette and plop on the sidewalk next to her. She picks her nose and mutters incoherently for a time, punctuating what I'm sure she thinks are sentences with screams of "Your mother's cunt!" Given the Tourette's, it's tough to hold a conversation, but I get around to asking her about what she thinks of Obama, of the hope and change and progress he aims to bring to this nation, if she's even heard of him, or has any idea about what everyone inside is so interested in.

She knows who he is, knows what he talks about, knows what's happening in the country and in the city she calls "home." She also doesn't care. Not at all. She wanted nicotine, money, and a drink. When I ask her why, she just shakes her head, takes a deep breath and smooths the persistent wrinkles out of that dress.

I refuse to approach this from a utilitarian perspective. Especially while holding down a corner in a crowded Park Slope beer bar, surrounded by people who needn't think twice about whether or not they can afford the drink in their hand. A society's values are best discerned at its fringes. Almost 3/4 of a million American citizens were homeless as of 2005. Let's try to remember that as we revel in what's been said the last four days, what will be said over the next two months, and what will, or will not, be done in the future.

Cheers.