Shopping Cart Screaming Man

I wrote the other day about the black man who stood on the corner of Howard and 32nd with his shopping cart, screaming his rage against the world. I remember driving to visit my brother, who lived in the neighborhood at the time. This was the year of the electronic tether, but that is another story. However, I will say that I have gained the unenviable reputation of being "in the know" or "au courant" or "up to snuff" about all manner of society's unsavory characters. When someone's being on a tether is in the news, people say to me, "...but you know all about that!" Well, not all about it, certainly. I wasn't the one tethered, for one thing. But I stood next to some one who was cruelly thrown into the undiscriminating maw of the criminal justice system, if that is what you mean. And that is close enough. If you transgress the law, you really do deliver yourself into the hands of the demons here. Charles Dicken's London and Oscar Wilde's gaol have nothing on the horror of the USA penal system, guaranteed to drive your awareness of inferiority deeply within you, like one of Khan's earwigs seeking Chekhov's soul, and to engender a smoldering rage, or your money back. Anyway, I was driving and I hear something. Is it a fire truck or EMS? No. Not quite the right frequency. What is it, then? As I turned onto 32nd, I saw Luther standing on the street margin, shopping cart held firmly in his rather huge hands, and yelling. I could not tell what he was yelling about, but he sounded pissed. When I got to my brother's, I asked him what the guy was yelling about. "Oh, you mean Luther? Nothin'. He just turns up some days and yells." "You've got to be kidding." "No. No one knows why the heck he's pissed off. Maybe...existential despair." I nodded sagely. Existential despair is so much more acute than mere despair. "Does he live around here?" "Nah. Not real near." "Why doesn't he yell around his own house?" "He does. Scott knows a guy who lives by him. He says he always screaming at the top of his lungs." I pondered further. "I don't suppose there is anyplace to care for people like that?" "Like what? Screamers? Nah. There's no place. The psych help you get, they wouldn't let Luther in the front door. Couldn't do anything anyway." "No. I suppose not. Medicate him, maybe?" He glanced out the window at the black stele down the street. "No one cares...he hasn't attacked anyone...yet." It turns out my brother would have dreams about Luther finding a means of expression other than his voice, dreams of him coming in the house at night and whooping him. I suppose I understand why he'd have dreams like that. I wonder whom Luther will be voting for? I suppose the candidate that will deliver the goods.