The Nicest Day.

It had been a very long day.

Not that I had been up early.

To the contrary, I had gone to bed late the night before, having made the mistake of taking a nap and then starting working on some writing at 1 a.m., and then being too wired to sleep until 3, so I slept until 11 a.m.

Even given the late bed time, it made for the feeling of being behind.

I had to pack.

Tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I have to take a plane to the east coast to attend a professional conference. So today was occupied with packing and the like.

This involved multiple trips to the drug store for various supplies and travel-size containers.

The truth was: I had never gotten such an early start on packing, having started the day before.

And then there were itineraries and confirmations to print out, and travel arrangements to the airport to cement, and a sudden phone call from my boss with some work-related matters that needed fixing.

So by the time I finished the lessons for the online courses I teach, I felt pretty relieved.

I was packed. I'd accomplished a lot. I was proud of myself.

On my trips to the drugstore I had noticed how fine and pleasant the weather was. But now, as I lay on my bed taking a breather, I realized: this had been a very nice day.

Though I'd eaten enough during the day--and eaten very healthfully at that--I felt like having a reward.

I would have dinner at a favorite neighborhood taqueria: not fancy but tasty and filling.

It would be a reward. Too many calories too late in the day, but a reward nonetheless. I hardly go there any more, though it's only a few blocks away, and so it felt like going home.

It was a nice day, a productive day, and this would make the day that much nicer.

I wasn't in line long before what seemed to be a homeless man was trying to work out an arrangement for something to eat. A young hipster with the requisite skinny gray jeans, ironic T-shirt and hoodie was negotiating what he'd allow to buy the homeless man. The negotiation was complicated by the homeless man's good Spanish and the hipster's weak Spanish.

This hipster also had the distinction of being one of those with Atypical Facial Hair (AFH)--somewhere between Jesus and Salvador Dali.

A deal was struck, but what struck most of the customers was how ripe the homeless man smelled. Everyone seemed convinced it was the homeless man: people made the characteristic face for smelling a bad odor, looked around, then fixated on this man, who was rather gleeful with expectation of his imminent meal.

The fellow who cleans up the tables turned on a fan that blows air outside, and the homeless man looked hurt, even angry.

Around this time, the hippy girl who had been behind the homeless man and his hirsute patron, sat down beside me, and I realized she was pretty ripe, too, though in a softer, fruitier kind of way. Perhaps it was she who was responsible for the odor, as much as the homeless man, or some combination of the two.

The homeless man had tried to donate his can of soda to another customer, who got up and moved so as not to be pestered with this gift.

But now the homeless man was seated--near the hipster and his friends. It seems the hipster would buy the man food, but not share it with him.

Another worker brought out my food and the homeless man's at the same time. Ironically, we'd ordered the same thing--nachos--though his had meat and mine did not. I was thinking how awful it would be if the orders were to be switched, and I, who can afford a more expensive plate, were to get the more expensive meal by mistake.

But the meals wound up where they were supposed to be, and the worker who'd turned on the fans was busing the tables.

Apparently this employee had dropped some leftover food on the floor. The homeless man moved in quickly. He began scooping up scraps of meat off the floor. He seemed to have taken a tortilla off a plate someone had left behind, and he was scooping spilled food off the floor into the tortilla to make a kind of taco from refuse.

At first the customers looked on with horror. But as the man continued his scavenging, everyone looked away. People were looking down: not at their food, just down and away--anything not to see the spectacle of a man in a restaurant acting as if garbage were preferable to the meal that had been bought for him and that sat waiting, getting cold, as he picked up scraps from the floor.

The hipster who'd supplied the now-cooling meal was seated at a table full of hipsters, about six in all. Their clever banter died down. They stopped looking at one another.

I wondered if the hipster wasn't thinking to himself: I will never buy food for a homeless man again, they don't appreciate it, they just don't appreciate it, they'd just as soon eat garbage.

Now the homeless man was in a frenzy.

He was roving around the restaurant gathering every scrap on the floor and adding it to his impromptu taco.

No one could look any more. No one could look at all.

Eventually this mission was accomplished. The homeless man put his creation into his knapsack for a later time. He returned to the meal that had been bought for him, and he began to eat it--with some relish.

By now the hipsters were talking again. They raised their imported beers in some kind of purposefully sloppy toast, as they made witticisms so clever that only they could appreciate them.

A lovely, upbeat song came on the jukebox. It seemed to be in English, which is unusual in such a place. Everyone seemed in a better mood.

Even the homeless man was rocking side to side to the music, seemingly imagining himself part of some wider community. Everyone was having such a good time.

As I headed out, the hipsters were in the process of leaving, too.

When I turned back, the homeless man was smiling. He seemed at first to be foaming at the mouth, but then I realized it was just sour cream. He masticated the beef and sour cream with evident pleasure.

Walking out the door, into the lovely cool evening air, I thought to myself: this is probably the nicest day he's had in a very, very long time.

And it may be the nicest day he has for weeks and months to come.

--E. R. O'Neill