I worked as a valet parking cars at a club in the heart of the rough Tenderloin district of San Francisco, CA in 1995. Because I was the valet I worked outside on the street waiting for customers. A crowd had gathered and it was a homeless traveler being held up with an ice-pic by a well dressed junkie. The young drifter said he had no money and he looked broke. But the dynamics were the strange part. It appeared the junkie with the pic wanted to let him go but he had to save face being watched by the crowd that had noticed them. He (junkie) knew his reputation was at stake so he had to stab his victim to keep his image on the street. So he made dramatic but superficial wounds so the poor drifting kid would live fairly unscathed and he did not lose his name publicly because of the people watching. The sociology of inner city street dynamics-
