Street Stories: Pro & Con
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
*’Til Death Do Us Part On his way to the drugstore, Ubiquan came to the corner. Across the street, a man was jumping and screaming infront of a food vendor’s cart. People around the frenetic man quickly scattered and looked frightened. Ubiquan asked the two hefty subway cops standing at the subway entrance on the corner where he was standing about what was going on. “A guy is stabbing himself,”one of them said. “Can’t we do anything?”, Ubiquan asked. “What ya gonna do? If you go near him, he could stab you.” “But, can’t you shoot him in the shoulder or leg to get him to stop?” “Naw. If we did that, we’d be liable for trying to kill him.” “Can’t you go over there and try to talk him out of it? You’re armed if he tries to go after you.” “Naw. Better to let him do what he wants to do.” “But it’s a life that could be saved”, Ubiquan said. One cop shrugged. The man fell down, grasping at his chest and neck where the blood was oozing. Ubiquan called 911 on his cell phone and waited for the ambulance to arrive to see if the EMTs could save him. But the man wasn’t moving when they got there. One of the cops said, “One more.” The vendor closed his food cart, checked his pickup out of a nearby garage, hooked up the cart and towed it away. The city sanitation crew came with power hoses and washed away the blood. The concrete dried. As far as anyone knew, nothing had happened.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
“It was a two-way conversation: he told me his story as I asked questions and listened. People passed by. Some gave him money, most didn’t. No one stopped. ‘See, fella,’ he said, ‘I need more than money for food and things. Yeah, I need that too. But I also need people to hear me.’ That day, I opened my ears and took the time to hear people on the streets talk.” (Excerpt from The Reason, Michael Roy’s explanation for writing these stories.) Michael Roy carefully listened to the men and women who inhabit the streets of Philadelphia, America’s fourth largest city. Whether they lived on the streets or passed by, these people had vibrant stories to tell about their lives that were waiting to be written. Thirty-four of their stories are in the pages of this book. You will read about the mayor of the square, the couple who returned to the Reading Terminal Market to celebrate their anniversary, protesters and protest rallies, a woman who lives on a bridge, bus conversations, the men worried about justice, finding pizza slices to give away, a comedian’s life and death, a former Peace Corps volunteer, the men who helped another ex-convict get a job, a priest who interred a man’s ashes in a park at night, and other stories.
About the Author
No author information.