Jacket - edited version

I gave a homeless man a jacket the other day.

I was out with a bloke I met at Fire and a few of his friends; 2 gays and a fag-hag.

A jacket had been left on a chair in the pub in Leicester Square we were sat at. It was a hoodie, lined with fake-fur. It was there for over an hour and no one had returned to claim it. I had also covered it up with my own jacket, my thinking being: okay, it's now mine. I’ve lost plenty of stuff in London. London is now giving back to me. Awesome. I’m always cold. This would be perfect for me. And cheaper than flying to Trinidad for the winter.

A long-time homeless guy wandered up to us; straggly beard, knotted eyebrows, fierce expression. He was selling a local magazine and we all chorused sorry, we're on plastic. I said hey, you should take this jacket. Someone left it here and it's been ages. They’re not coming back. He took the jacket and continued to ask me for money. Would it bankrupt you to give me some cash? He asked me. I said no, but I’m unemployed at the moment, I can't spare any change. And – more to the point – I just gave you that jacket. He said it wasn't even yours to give. It literally cost you nothing. Why can't you give me some money? I said if you don't want it, you should barter it, swap it for something else (thinking of all my street kids in London and Honduras who would use the jacket as currency and acquire a car by the end of the day). He said "are you making fun of the homeless?" and I believe he may have wagged his finger at us.

The fag-hag, the 2 gays and the bloke I met at Fire had been chuckling throughout the exchange but the finger-wagging tipped us all over the edge. The now reluctantly-jacketed but still very much homeless man repeated his accusation of mocking the homeless which I guess we sort of were by then as the situation had become very comical.

I was sorely tempted to say, well give me back the jacket then if you don’t want it, beggars can’t be choosers, as it would have been very funny, though more than a little cruel.

Prior to that, I should have thought it impossible that the act of giving a homeless man a jacket could have created anything other than a bit of world peace. But apparently it annoyed the crap outta him.