Last week, I had just stepped out of my office in Manhattan for my lunch break when I heard a guttural groaning close by and to my left.

“NUUUUUUUUUNNNGGGGHH…GAAAAAHHHHH!”

Turning to look, my eyes were scarred, possibly forever, by the sight of a greasy, smelly, dirty and probably insane homeless guy, semi-squatting on the sidewalk next to me. Mr. Stanky had his pants down and was holding the New York Post under his butt like reading the news with his ass was an everyday thing and taking a huge shit. Whatever the guy’s motives (it was the Post…) or mental maladies, rather than stand around and ponder, I quickly put some anti-stank distance between myself and this man in the process of taking a huge dump at one in the afternoon, in front of my office on Park Avenue.

I’ve been living in New York City for five years now and I can unfortunately admit that this moment of fecal fun was not my first experience of being exposed to the bowel movements of the city’s indigent and insane. If you live in here, at some point you’re going to see some skanky homeless person drop one. It’s horrible, especially when you’re about to get food.

You know you’ve reached the pinnacle of stanky homelessness when you cheerily take your pants down on a crowded street and without a second thought, vomit out of your ass. You are a star amongst your peers. You are captain of the fecal cornucopia. No one can touch you, in large part due to the fact that you smell really fucking bad and more then likely do not wash your hands, ever.

I remember walking down twenty-third street, by Madison Square Park one year and finding my way blocked by a toothless and grinning old woman, skirts raised, gushing a geyser of piss onto the sidewalk. I actually made eye-contact by accident. I recall her idiotic glee far too well. It was a happy pee for her, no doubt.

Another time, I was in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, having just entered the Grand Army Plaza subway station, when as I started down the stairs to the platform, I noticed a neatly dressed and elderly black lady with a nice, middle-class, grandmotherly air about her some distance in front of me. Near the bottom of the stairs, she stopped, put down her shopping bags full of groceries, shuffled a bit and squatted. I thought that she was perhaps tired and had sat on the steps to wait for the train as some people do. Nope. Grandma was taking a piss. After leaving a huge puddle, she hoisted her pants and walked on to the end of the platform, toting her purchases.

I can’t pretend to understand the motives of someone willing to violate this extreme social taboo. I guess you could chalk it up to insanity. Perhaps it’s a lack of any environmental sensitivity due in large part by being socially invisible as a homeless person. However, you can argue that it could be intentional by virtue of this same defense. Hey, look at me! I’m taking a shit on your toy poodle! I’m a person! Whatever the reason, be it defendable or not, it’s fucking disturbing.

This morning as I was riding the subway to work, I noticed an old man sitting across from me, or rather, I smelled him first and noticed him second. Trying not to be obvious and pretending to be squinting at the map behind him, I checked him out.

He was old, homeless and crazy looking. His clothes were filthy. His pant-legs tattered. He’d kicked off his shoes onto the floor and his feet were so black and swollen, I wondered if he’d actually be able to get them back on. His shirt was unbuttoned, displaying a mass of white chest hair and an impressive slab of gut, hanging out onto his lap. There was a hell of a lot of dandruff of a frightening flake size residing on his shoulders. He was nasty.

I’m not sure where my fascination with the homeless and insane comes from. I think it’s probably a safe bet that it all stems from me being such a neurotic sociophobe. I look at them and search for myself and not suprisingly, I see similarities. Also, it can be entertaining. That may sound cruel, but considering the probable fact that your children will be poking fun at my smelly, homeless ass on the train, thirty years from now, I feel like I have a right to indulge in bum-watching. Some people watch birds, daveb likes the homeless crackheads and schizos. Each to his own, I guess.

As I sat there trying to be inconspicuious while fishing out my cell phone, hoping to take a picture (I collect photos of the homeless), his eyes locked with mine and I got busted. I smiled and nodded at him. “Fuck you…pooper!” came his reply.

A little startled, I replied with a genial, “Good morning, how ya doin’?” and flashed him the million dollar smile grandmothers and shih-tzus the world over fear and whisper about in the dark of night.

“Stick yer finger in ass and tell me how you doin’, cocksucker!” Mister Personality was showing the love. He returned my smile, minus almost all of his teeth. I noticed that was a considerable amount of what was either food or vomit in his beard. Mesmerizing!

“Well, I’m a bit reticent to do that, if only because we’re in public, but honestly, it’s just not my thing, so I gotta say no to that one, but thanks for the suggestion, buddy!”, said I, throwing him a wink.

He squinted at me, his brain, or what was left of it, chewing over my response. Then, with a huff and jerk of his shoulders, he launched into a tirade of “cocksuckers”, “motherfuckers” and “assholes” intersperced with vague, illucid threats off violence muffled into his beard directed seemingly at no one in particular. The fun’s over, I thought to myself and went back to my book.

As the train came to the next stop, the guy stood up or more like fell upright, if that’s possible, looked me in the eye and said, “Well, gotta go. Take care, bud.” and left the car.

It made my morning.