James I. Kruger

Beach Street James I. Kruger

The natural beauty of the fictional Surf City, plus its mild climate, once lured tourists by the tens of thousands. But in recent years it also attracted hundreds of less desirable visitors, street people who turned to panhandling in order to survive. At first their numbers included the truly helpless - the mentally disturbed, drug addicts, maladjusted war veterans, alcoholics. Then came an economic recession and corporate 'down-sizing.' The homeless population swelled with unemployed factory workers, salesmen, engineers, dot com techies, single mothers with kids, teenagers abandoned by families unable to afford them and unwilling to care, and the usual bums who elected to live on the street out of sheer cussedness. Residents could no longer shop on Beach Street, the city's main commercial artery, without running a gauntlet of beggars and drug dealers. Tourism was threatened. Some charged that the transients were destroying the community. Others argued that panhandling is a right protected by the Constitution and cried out that it was not a crime to be homeless. Then, just as Surf City braced for all-out class warfare, street people began turning up dead, victims of grisly slayings. One, two, three - the body count grew. Soon a cry arose: Vigilantes!