My Favorite Injun, Part II

As I first described here, there is a very colorful bum who sits outside my office building, at the Silver Spring Metro overpass. His antics are legendary, at least in my small universe. Today was the coup de gras...a personal interaction with the "Silver Injun." At around 9:40 I gave into my coffee craving, not having any 1/2 and 1/2 in the fridge at work, I decided to walk across the street to Caribou and purchase a chalice of my favorite nectar of the gods. As I walk out of the glass doors in my building, there's the Silver Injun down the walkway...not in his usual Metro location. He sees me 30 feet away and starts a ritual. I wasn't sure if it was tai-chi or an incantation--I guess we'll find out if I die in the next 36 hours. Of course I walk by him as if he's not there. Bums are dead to me, they're not real people. And unlike Haley Joel Osment, I don't see dead people.

As I return with my Organic Light Blend, creamed and sweetened, there he is again...and we have yet another mono e mono. As if the incantation didn't suddenly make my wallet burst forth and spill into his Big Gulp cup, he decides the mumble-yelling "HO! WA! HE!" might do the trick. I walked into the safety of my federal contractor-protected building, wondering, "Did I just hear a dead person?"

My Favorite Silver Injun

I rarely refer to people in non-PC terms. If you don't believe me, just ask my friend the Arian-Mexican Offspring. However, there has been a notable recent addition to my daily routine of taking the Metro to work and along the way passing countless bums. Surprisingly, the bums are not at the Columbia Heights Metro--maybe too much competition pushed them out, or there's just no sense in begging from the poor? Instead, they line up outside the Silver Spring Metro, under the nice shaded overpass in the relatively affluent (for MD) Montgomery County. There is an unspoken code amongst the bums at Silver Spring--one that I very much enjoy: no active solicitation for money. There are the regulars: the disabled Vet sitting on his shiny new mobility scooter with all new clothes, talking on his blue tooth, with a Big Gulp to collect money (ironically, the VA rents two floors from us...he begs from those that pay his disability); the fat black lady who sits on the ground, obviously mentally challenged; occasionally another guy on a scooter. Now there's the Injun. He makes me laugh, so I quite enjoy his recent arrival to Silver Spring.

The Injun sits in his wheel chair, with the characteristic Big Gulp begging cup common to all Silver Spring bums. However, he as a few additions that make his begging style "distinctive." At first he just sat there with a bow and arrow on the back of his wheelchair. Realize this is 20 feet from the entrance of a federal building, and 15 feet from the entrance to the Metro. He managed to escape detection by any security staff for over a week. Amazing. After his ancestral weapons were confiscated, he added feathers in his hair. Granted, I'm never one to undermine someone's attempt at accessorizing, but come on. Feathers? Maybe a nice scrunchie would be better, like JB uses. Now he also pretends his Big Gulp is a war drum and beats it with a pencil to attract attention--coming dangerously in violation of the "passive begging only" code for Silver Spring bums. Chanting would definitely result in a revocation of his begging rights.

So who are your favorite Metro DC bums?