It was hot, it was Monday and the pavement sweated in a blanket of 87 percent humidity.

Stubbing his toe on a homeless man was the last thing Lincoln City council member Tom Hallux needed.

After working all morning and stopping just briefly for a late lunch, Hallux said he was in a hurry to make his 3 p.m. meeting. Crossing the O Street intersection toward Jimmy Johns, tragedy struck.

“The thing just came out of nowhere,” Hallux said. “I had no time to react.”

Police are still investigating the exact nature of the case in order to determine insurance liability, but it appears that, walking in front of the popular sandwich restaurant, Hallux failed to see a man with a sign, hunter orange hat and large beard sitting next to a bicycle rack. He
planted one foot and, readying it for another graceful step, smashed his “sweet little knuckle bubs” into the kneecap of an unnamed homeless man.

“My big toe may never be the same,” he said.

Hallux, 53, said he rarely finds himself in the heart of Lincoln’s downtown scene and was unprepared for the level of stagnancy with which the homeless person was sitting.

“You know when something is so still, it’s like it’s not even there,” he said.

The toe, which Hallux has been wrapping during the day with athletic tape and nursing at night with IcyHot, is expected to recover.

“Something needs to be done about these, these things,” Hallux said. “This will be promptly addressed in the council meeting. I had no idea they were even there, let alone their ability to wreak such havoc.”