On a Saturday morning I found myself patrolling a mostly empty mall. Saturdays in the mall are slow and most of the traffic is due to people commuting through on their way to other places. Along my route I was approached by two young boys about 12 years of age, one of which was crying.

"Excuse me sir," One of them said, "There is a man over there and he yelled at us!"

"He yelled at you?" I replied, "Why did he yell at you? Are you ok?"

"Yeah," He replied, "I don't know why he yelled at us, we weren't doing anything. We were just passing by and he started screaming at us."

"Where is he? And what does he look like?" I asked.

The kid sniffed and wiped his tears while he thought about it for a second, "he was a big guy with long hair and he had a shopping cart, he was over there around the corner." He pointing towards where they had just come from.

I recognized the description as Bill.

When you work in the same place long enough you get regulars who you sometimes see more than your own mother. I've spent Christmases, Easters, and even New Year's Eves with our regulars including Bill. The vast majority of the homeless population I've encountered are just regular people with problems who are trying to get by, but Bill was an asshole.

Bill was a 50-year-old, white male, 6' tall, 250lbs, with a long gross white hair with a beard to match. He usually wore a ripped brown t-shirt with a grey jacket, grey sweat pants, and always had a shopping cart filled with his entire life wrapped in plastic bags complete with his own chair which was likely stolen from a local food court though I'm not sure which one. He had an obsession with cleaning products and would often spray any chair he was about to sit on and everything around that he was going to or had just interfaced with. You would often find Bill sitting in an empty stairwell after hours or in a parking garage smoking cigarettes and urinating into a bottle for disposal at a later time. He had issues with his feet and legs which resulted in open sores which were constantly bleeding and reeked of necrosis. Bill seemed to have some seriously debilitating mental health issues but beyond that he was just a mean-spirited asshole. He once raised his hands and tried to fight me because I ran into him by accident while walking from point A to B in the parking garage. He didn't stay in shelters because he had been banned from them for violence and he would often use his size and loud voice in an attempt to intimidate people into leaving him alone, often times it worked.

"Don't worry kid," I said, "I know the guy."

I was not only sure that It was Bill but I was also confident I knew where he was and that it wasn't on our property. It is best not to take your work personally but that is easier said than done when it involves a man yelling at children. I left the mall in search of him and located him just off property.

I glared at him for a second before I said, "Bill, what the fuck is wrong with you? A child?"

"What? How did you find me?" Bill replied.

"Bill, I'm going to give you 3 fucking seconds to pack your shit up and get out of my sight before I stomp your guts out." I said.

"You don't work here, call the police." Said Bill.

"No," I said, "but I'm still going to stomp your fucking guts out you piece of shit. You are trash. NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

Bills eyes were the size of saucers and you could tell he was scared. He paused for a moment and knew he didn't have any chance of intimidating his way out of my wrath.

"Ok, just give me a second" He replied.

Bill packed up his stuff and left the area. This wasn't the last time I saw him of course; this was just one of many interactions I've had with Bill over the years. I'm not proud of this interaction and I wouldn't consider it professional but sometimes this job brings out the worst in people.

What did I learn? - It either takes a lot, or just the right thing, and yelling at children is apparently the right thing to trigger me. Most homeless people have mental health issues in some way but they can also just be assholes.