June 2000
Like many writers, some of Trent's best stuff wound up being edited. This was edited out of an article the STREET SHEET ran last summer titled "Hate McMuffin," describing an incident where a McDonald's security guard beat up a homeless customer for demanding the same coffee refill that other, non-homeless customers were enjoying without problems. It describes the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots in SF, and anyone who's ever been shit on 'cause they're homeless knows exactly where Trent was coming from. c.m.
If the cause and circumstances leading up to this violent incident are not readily available to the reader at this point, I would like to offer my humble take on all of this. Brother Nicky is homeless. He is treated as a public menace and a general scourge in this fucked up society, but obviously not menacing enough not to take his money from him. He is however, enough of an "eyesore" that his right to a "free" refill of coffee is denied, so he doesn't "hang around" and offend the high standards of your average fast-food glommer.
I also find it infuriating that the "public" these self -appointed guardians are trying to protect from the sad realities of San Francisco 1999 can occasionally step up and prove themselves human beings capable of being sickened and hurt by the way we treat each other sometimes. But who of them speaks for me? Who speaks for Nicky, and who speaks for that man in the suit you think you are trying not to inconvenience? Fuck you and your flimsy, ragged sense of duty. Fuck you and your twisted self- important idiocy.
And how dare you assume you can speak for me, or anyone else. Better yet; just fuck you.