Thursday, August 2, 2018 5:29 AM

An array of salads and other fixings fills the customers' side of the falafel joint's counter. People pile these into their pitas, adding them to what the workers put in. A man my age or older stands there with a half-order, the cheapest thing on the menu. He is wearing an aged, bulging backpack. His sandals are about to fall apart. He may or may not be intentionally growing a beard. He keeps adding the fixings to his half-pita. Each time, he eats what he's put in, carefully not eating any of the pita itself, then adds more. He's blocking the line, but everyone moves around him. This may be all that he's eating today. The workers and customers understand and let him do what's needed to survive.