Carefully positioned

Standing here, the regular crowd who monopolise a string of benches are out of sight, along the wall that curves away to my right. They are mostly solid drinkers, and responsible for a lot of police calls out when they fight or urinate publicly, plus they leave a lot of litter, in the form of empties, and fag packets, and butt ends, and they hide their drink and their prescriptions from each other in the flower beds.

I am scared of them, and the way they leer and call at me sometimes as I pass, in a way I imagine they would not act if they were alone. And so I tend to divert round them, feeling an unsettling mix of shame and pity as I do so.