There was a scrawny man with a mullet, wearing a logger's flannel shirt. I could only admire the verve with which he pulled off the deal; a little stutter-step, looking for the filth past passersby, then drugs and money were quickly exchanged and he was off down the street. And not looking so very inconspicuous, with his head whipping around to keep an eye behind him. And all this just seconds after I'd seen a cop car cruise by. And thus we experience downtown Portland after the normals' morning commute hour has passed, and the alternate universe of the marginalized claims precedence over the quotidian.

Much the same all over the world, one reckons. I've seen more audacious goings-on in Dublin, but there you also have the fun of being randomly knifed or otherwise assaulted if you're in the city centre of a weekend night.