Traffic is deadlocked at the intersection of Clark, Diversey, and Broadway, and as a driver struggles to negotiate a right turn he is suddenly greeted by a short man who, thrusting himself into the middle of the now moving traffic, raises his right arm high above his head, and then pushes his left forward in a churning, chugging motion that seems to propel him into the street.
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Frightened or perplexed, the driver rolls up his window and hits the gas; the little man in the street adjusts his backpack and wades on through the traffic, oblivious to the cars speeding, stopping, and turning around him.
“I’m on a disability pension and have been living on the streets for three years,” Hodge said as he sat down to eat a donated sandwich just off Broadway. “I got a place to sleep, it’s a good place that’s hard to find, near Broadway and Montrose, and that’s where I live when I’m not flying.
“It’s funny,” he said, his large brown eyes gazing sadly onto the street, “but at that moment I thought that I must look really crazy in other people’s eyes, and at that time I thought about getting a job.”
