Stare into the vacuum of his eyes

On the way to the bakery around the corner from my apartment this morning, three of the four corners of an intersection had panhandlers. To be fair, or something, one was a gypsy who might have been there regardless of the estado-Spanish economic situation. (Europeans can get really racist about gypsies. It is true that they panhandle, but it's not true that you'll get attacked and robbed blind if you ever go near them.) But the others looked like locals, and I see people like them a lot. They're usually not that young -- 50ish, say -- and don't typically have the grimy look that people who've been on the street for a while get. They may not actually be homeless, but the looks on their faces suggest that they're in actual bad shape and are not just people who lost bets or are doing research for a screenplay or something. Outside of my neighborhood, I usually see them in neighborhoods like mine: not posh but not poor, and not touristy. Maybe those are the places they live(d)? I dunno. I don't think that would be my strategy if it came down to the kindness of strangers, but thankfully that's a pretty big if.