The wildlife is out in full force this morning on Market Street, swarming up and down both sides of the street in ones and twos and threes. As I’m waiting for the green on Ninth a bum stumbles out against the light and steps into traffic without bothering to look, ignoring the cacophony of horns as he slowly shuffles to the other side giving the finger to no one in particular. When I cross to the other side I pop in the liquor store, grab a tall boy and crack it as soon as I step back on the street. I take a pull, wiping my mouth on the side of my hand and stare at an old gray-haired man through mirrored sunglasses, standing by the doorway of the store scratching off a two foot strip of lotto tickets, averting my gaze only after another long pull off the can. At Eighth I wait to cross with a woman pushing one of those little asian lady carts lined with garbage bags and half-filled with bottles and cans. She smiles at me and says “Good morning” and I nod acknowledgment and then I’m moving again, cruising down the sidewalk. I pass the fountain in UN plaza, noticing that it’s actually turned on today as a few street kids stick their heads and shoeless feet in the water. As I get closer towards Seventh, backpackers speaking Swedish climb out of the BART station alongside middle aged junkies holding canes moving so slow they almost seem to float up the stairs and onto the street. As I wait for another light, I see a man on the opposite side of the street wearing only jeans and flip flops and when the light turns and I step into the crosswalk he doesn’t move, just standing there looking up into the sky as if he’s waiting for something. As I get closer I see that he is crying and I look ahead to avoid eye contact. Passing the electronics store, a kid in a bright orange ski cap exits the front holding a giant boom box blasting electro-house beats before jumping on his longboard and sailing down the sidewalk in front of me. Two crackheads pass by me close enough to hear one exclaim, “He only sells twenties, you got ten, right? Right?” and then I’m at Sixth, waiting to cross with a diminutive white girl in oversized sunglasses and a sweatsuit, clutching her gym bag tight to her side. As soon as we get to the other side she breaks towards the strip club, the large Samoan bouncer holding the door for her. As I take another pull off my beer, I pass more crackheads standing in the shade of the buildings, the sun not quite high enough to drive them off the street just yet. Before I know it I’m at the rows of tables full of old men playing chess, intermingled with people selling costume jewelry and bootleg DVDs and books fanned out on army blankets. I find a place in the shade and sit down on the brick sidewalk, facing the action but just off the right of way by the Powell Street station railing. I set my almost killed beer down in front of me, pull out a small ziplocked eighth of outdoor and go about rolling a nice little cone. While I’m doing this, I look up and witness the closest tchotchky vendor engage a woman, the two of them doing a hushed back and forth that I’m too far away to hear. The woman looks both ways down the street before lowering into a crouch and dropping a few bills onto the blanket, the man snatching them up in a flash. Then he quickly reaches underneath a corner of the blanket, looks both ways for cops and holds his hand out to the woman to make the drop, except one of the round yellow pills falls out of her hand onto the sidewalk. Before anyone but me can notice, the woman snags it between her thumb and forefinger, palms it, and hurriedly walks past me and towards the BART station. When I look up at the man on the blanket he’s staring at me aggressively, so I hold up the joint I’ve finished rolling, crack a knowing smile, and silently cheers him with my beer before draining it. I see his features soften and I get up and walk away before he can say anything, walking past the old men engrossed in their games of chess. By the time I get to the corner of Fifth, I can feel the shift and suddenly I’m swimming in tourists, the wildlife of Market Street squarely in my rearview. I spark the joint, the smoke billowing behind me in the breeze and quickly lose myself in the Saturday morning crowd.