murder and create

There is a homeless man in my neighborhood who wanders the streets in an almost stereotypical manner.  He dresses in coarsely-textured, earth-toned, torn and oversized clothing, his long matted hair falls not to his shoulders but rather radiates softly around his head, and he walks crookedly, always talking to himself and gesticulating madly.  He is indeed simply mad—schizophrenia, I imagine, though never violent, never even aware of the real people around him.  But here’s the thing—if you stop and look at him, really look at him in a way that you have probably never looked at a homeless man before, you will notice that he is a very handsome man.  He is young, mid-thirties at most, and if you can imagine his face scrubbed clean and shaved, you realize that he has a face that could make good impressions.  And as you think this and sympathize with him, you wonder if, in the end as in the beginning, it all comes down to physical beauty.