Luke was a “Crusty.” That was the not-so-affectionate term given to people who were homeless not through circumstance, but by choice. He had abandoned the 9-to-5 lifestyle in favor of train-hopping, hitchhiking and panhandling. Luke’s homelessness was a statement against “the man.” He despised the government and he was not afraid to let everyone know it. His life on the streets was a form of passive activism. And his rebellion made him feel free. But Aria knew what he did not. She knew that a Crusty’s rebellion was not freedom. It was not choosing a life for what they wanted. It was choosing a life against what they did not want.

As they walked, Aria listened to Luke, and studied him carefully. Unshaven and unwashed, he hid his blatant irresponsibility beneath a head of sandy red dreadlocks that fell just below his shoulder blades. It was not that she disagreed with his opinion on things. In fact, she agreed with pretty much everything he said. It was just what he had decided to do with that opinion – that was where they parted company.

She could not work out whether she liked him or hated him because of the mixed message of his entire state of being. She felt guilty for the resistance that she felt toward him because he was being so incredibly friendly. In fact, when she thought about it, the friendliness he exhibited was advocacy. This made her feel simultaneously supported and looked down upon. It became clear to her that he saw people like her as the underdogs in society. And he had joined them with the same forced philanthropy and imposed-but-false equality as the whites who had joined the Black Panther movement in the 1960s.

She hated feeling pitied. She hated it when the surface of things did not match what was underneath. It was clear that Luke’s sense of equality with everyone else on the street was just a surface veneer and that under it, he saw himself as their hero – and maybe their savior.

Aria followed just behind Taylor and Luke, next to Palin. She watched them talk and agree with one another about the plethora of conspiracy theories that had caused Luke to abandon his mainstream life. She could feel the rapport building between them. Taylor was thrilled to have someone to talk to. It was obvious to Aria, watching them talk, that she had deprived him of his need for verbal stimulation with her tendency to be silent. In Luke he had found someone in the world even more apt to dominate a conversation than himself.