Coins

 My neighbor has been having trouble with people across the street from her house. 

She lives on the corner next to both the club and the land the shelter is on. 

She called me the other day because a homeless woman who was sharing a tent with a homeless guy got out completely naked in broad daylight and was just hanging out. 

So I went and talked to the diner staff who said they'd been hearing complaints.

A day later I walked down there again, to see what was going on. Three homeless guys were piled up under the club awning. One was slumped over on his stuff, high and passed out. Another was as glazed as was humanly possible, and a third was leaning against the wall seemingly not high at all. 

I offered each of them a chocolate foil-wrapped coin from kids Christmas stockings, and told them quietly we would prefer they not smoke their drugs so close to our homes.

The least high guy started to get Constitutional on me, and during the course of his insistence on his rights bit into the chocolate. After chewing it a little bit he began to act as though it was the most awful thing he had ever tasted, and looked around for somewhere to get rid of it. 

I felt like for a moment I could see the thought of spitting it at me cross his mind, but he either didn't or decided not to. 

I'm pretty sure he didn't care so much about the chocolate as he did about making me uncomfortable and therefore less inclined to push it about them moving on.