Man on the street in West Oakland

I had stopped off at a local coffee shop to grab a cup before work. The coffee shop seemed a little out of place in West Oakland, it's hippiesque vibe conflicting with the urban ghetto scene outside its doors. As I stepped out onto the street, pulled my earphone with music back into my ear and began to walk towards my current consulting job at a non-profit industrial arts education warehouse a voice called out behind me, "yo man, you smoke weed?" I don't know why I turned but I looked back to see an older african american man with gray tuggina the sides of his curly sideburns walking up behind me, a half smoked cigarette was cocked with a swagger in his left hand. I answered no but he still seemed to want to talk. "Just had to check before I tried to sell you some," he said. We kept walking. "I used to work for the county," he continued, "I went to school for biology, anatomy, ya know. We used to get bodies down there and I would have to cut them open, man, after I made my first cut I looked around and everyone else was passed out, f*&^in on the floor," he rambled on. After a block he stopped and said, "Yo man, take care of yourself, how old are you? Yeah, we gotta look out for prostate cancer at our age." And with that...he walked across the street...