A drunken woman sits forever in the Chock Full o• Nuts on Madison Avenue. Tufts of gray hair fall out of the kerchief she's tied about her head, and her cheeks are puffed-up and bright scarlet. Her bottle is in a paperbag. No one is serving her, but then no one is telling her to move away. So she sits there. Usually, she will tell you, she would be down standing at the bread lines. But not today -- today she met a friend who gave her a few bucks. The money she uses to buy her bottle and buy her turkey sandwich which she will order if only someone will serve her. "I'm just a bum," she admitted. "I used to do nothing before and get paid for it. Now I don't do anything, and I don't get paid for it."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I wrote obituaries for some paper out in the woods •••But they fired me. I couldn't take it seriously. You gotta laugh when you're doing something like that."
Then she takes another swig, screws back the cap, "What are all the laws for they got? It says you're not supposed to bring alcohol into the park, but look at all the alcoholics -- and I'm including myself -- look at them all that come there, and drink. The sign says don 't feed the pigeons, but everyone's feeding the pigeons. No one pays any attention, why do they have all those laws anyhow?"
She looks once more at the waiter who refuses to serve her,
“They won 't have nothing to do with me because they're not very tolerant. They think it's wrong me bringing in this bottle. They 're used to certain things eating their eggs at eight so they can be at work by nine. And work to five. I know that, I used to do it. Then I realized what it was and stopped. Well, I didn 't just stop, I had to leave.”