Tension

 I've learned that when I see a homeless person without shoes, it means they got so high they lost track of them. I think they take them off because they get overheated, and by the time they come down, they're too far from where they left them to remember.

Yesterday while out walking our dog, we turned a corner and walked through the middle of a scene. My wife doesn't interact with or make eye contact with the homeless if at all possible, so she missed it. 

I also tend to follow that rule, but being a guy am more subject to interactions wanted or not.

In this case, one guy was being pursued at a walk by another, younger guy, who seemed to be preparing to beat him up. The victim had been around for some months, and was a muttering, laughing, muscular young man who appeared to be coping with some intellectual disability and drug use.

I walked up to the pair, and the victim looked over at me and then groggily, hesitantly, began to move in short arcs as though to enter orbit around me. I looked at the aggressor, who decided it wasn't worth pursuing and wandered off.