The passerby walked up to Dr. Ity, delicately touched the sole of his sneaker against  Dr. Ity's shin, and then immediately scooted back, laughing.

It was not an impressive kick. 

"You guys want an example?" Tank Romero asked. Tank then delivered a kick violent enough to make Dr. Ity's shin flinch up.  

The young man approached because someone who goes by the name Drunk Jake was holding a sign that said, "Kick this guy in the legs for $1."   There was an arrow at the bottom of the sign. It pointed to Dr. Ity.

"The offer is for them to kick him, or we'll kick him for 50 cents," explained Tank Romero. 

If people wanted to kick Dr. Ity themselves, rather than just watch, then they were supposed to pay a full $1.  

However, the group let some people get in a few kicks for free, just to be friendly. 

"Tank" Romero, 19, his 24-year-old year brother, "Gutter," ("The one that looks like he's from the gutter," Tank explains),  Drunk Jake, 18, and Dr. Ity, 23, are a group of close friends who, if it isn't obvious at this point, declined to give their real names, instead preferring to go by the nicknames they affectionately call each other. 

On an afternoon in late May, they took public transportation from Azusa, their hometown, all the way to Hollywood and Highland, just to take turns being kicked  by strangers. They picked the location because G.B.H., a punk band, was scheduled to play in Hollywood in June.

This was how the group planned to pay for concert tickets.

"Hey, you can dread slap this fool for a dollar," Tank yelled at a black man with long dreadlocks.  The stranger laughed but kept walking.  

Someone with a clipboard stopped. He asked all four young men to fill out a form. Afterward, he gave them each a cloth bag that held a t-shirt, shortbread cookies, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a condom. 

They kept and shared the food. Everything else went on sale. 

A magician and his girlfriend stopped by but turned down Tank's condom offers. 

"I have like 2 million [condoms] in my backpack," the magician said, before performing card tricks. 

Most of the people who stopped seemed more interested in just chatting up the group than in actually kicking anyone.

One girl told the boys about her former life as a street kid.

Dr. Ity said he had just been released from jail two weeks earlier. 

"Some dude I knew, was talking shit to one of my friend's sisters," he said. Ity's account then goes as follows; the shit-talking led to a fight; he used the padlock on his belt in the fight; the police came and charged him for possession of a deadly weapon (the padlock being the weapon). He said he was in jail for almost two and a half months.

"This guy came out ripped," Tank said, referring Dr. Ity.

Dr. Ity said he used to earn money from working in a shop for two years. 

"Then it closed down. Then I got arrested." 

Tank complained that begging for change is difficult in a touristy area like Hollywood. He's had more luck in Azusa, his hometown, even though the people there are poorer.   

"People that don't have money give it up, it's weird," he said.  He thinks race may also play a factor. 

"Azusa is full of a bunch of Mexicans ... And, like, because I'm Mexican, I get a lot of money from Mexicans."

They needed to come to Hollywood, however, to buy the tickets in person.

"We don't have computers and shit, dude," Tank explained. "We don't have credit cards, either. We don't have any way to buy our tickets. "  

Tank attracted the most attention on the sidewalk that day.  He had the loudest, wittiest, sidewalk cat calls, made friends the fastest with any stranger who was interested, and was the one most eager to have an article written about him.

"I want to entertain your website," he said.  

Though he's only 19-years-old, he said he's been out of high school for two years. He said he just stopped going, so his dad kicked him out of the house when he was 17.

"My mom's not around. And my dad, he just doesn't like me. He doesn't like any of his kids." 

Though Tank and Gutter are the only ones who are related, they said they consider Dr. Ity and Drunk Jake to be like brothers, too. When they look for a spot to crash, they claim it's always a four-person package deal. 

"I wouldn't leave anybody," Tank said. "I wouldn't leave any of these fools."

They don't call themselves "homeless" even though the living situation they describe sounds a lot like homelessness. 

Tank is philosophical about his life situation. "I'll make a spot [on the street], that's like, damn, I live better than some people who have houses."

He knows that he and his friends come across as deadbeats to strangers, but he blames that mentality on  general adult stuffiness. 

"You ever notice, in this whole world, everything is run by old people?"

 

Tank also found a plant nursery to stay sometimes, he said. He said the gardeners don't mind the boys sleeping in the nursery as long as they clean up after themselves.

"They liked drinking with us," Tank said, adding that the group also crashes together on friend's couches when they can.  

"I never had a place of my own," Dr. Ity said. "I always had a place to stay." 

But they don't consider their families' houses to be an option.

"My uncle hates me, my aunt's starting to hate me," Drunk Jake said. 

Tank said he didn't regret raising money for concert tickets, instead of something practical, like food. "We don't have to worry about that. Food's not our main priority."

Instead, Tank's main priority is having fun. He is also concerned about the fun being interrupted by police officers.  

"Cops can harass you, just like walking down the street, doing my normal thing, you know?" Tank said. "And if they want to, they can just stop you and be like, 'What's up? Stop. Let me see your ID. You know where you're going? You have anything on you?' And most of the time, you're going to be doing something that's going to be bad."

Tank said he had to go to the police station just a week earlier, after a police officer searched him and found marijuana. 

"They just gave me another ticket for not going to court."

He said he can still get girls even though he sometimes sleeps on the streets.

"As long as you try to maintain yourself."

He looks more or less like a teenager into punk-rock, not a bum. He said he last had a girlfriend about four months earlier. 

Tank talked most enthusiastically about what he sees as corruption in the police system, the government and the mainstream media. He is hopeful about the future, however. His dream career would be in Hollywood, where he could act, produce music or perhaps write screenplays.

"I want to do it all..you'd think I was nobody, right?"  

He's interested in comedy and would like to cast Dr. Ity in a starring role. 

"That's a character right there," Tank said, referring to Dr. Ity.   

I asked how Tank and Gutter could afford cell phones without jobs or help from their parents, or without something illegal, like drug-dealing. 

"What we're doing now," Gutter said. That is, asking for change.  "I got a job for, like, one time, but it was for a day only." 

Gutter also cut his hair so he could try getting work at Jamba Juice or El Pollo Loco.  He said he hoped to receive financial aid from a local community college so he could go back to school. 

Tank insists that no one in the group sells  any drugs. "We don't do drugs except weed," he said. 

The kicking came to an abrupt stop when the boys  suspected that a McDonald's employee was calling the police on them. Not wanting to have another confrontation with authorities, they immediately left for Coffee Bean, and then sat on a staircase inside a parking garage. Though they hadn't yet counted their money, it seemed unlikely that they would get kicked enough in Hollywood to fund the entire group's concert tickets, which cost about $20 a piece. 

"We had fun though," Tank said. 

Five weeks later, Gutter responded via text message that he had started school at community college. He crashes at the nursery and friend's couches about five days a week, he wrote.  "But I'm still alive."

The concert worked out after all, Gutter said. The entire group got to go. 

How did they pay for the tickets?

"Same thing we were doing when you saw us!"  

All photos by Amy Silverstein. Top: Drunk Jake, left, and Tank Romero wait for strangers to approach.

Second from top: Dr. Ity, right, holds the kicking sign, next to Gutter Romero. 

Third from top: Gutter Romero and Drunk Jake chatting with another passerby.

Bottom: Dr. Ity

Reach reporter Amy Silverstein here.