The guys gathered around Juan Carlos’s coffee cart watched a desperate move on the Grand Concourse this morning.

A woman trying to catch a bus bolted across four lanes of traffic. She sidestepped a delivery van and just missed being clipped by a garbage truck before reaching the other side through a wave of screeching tires and screaming horns.

The guys shook their heads.

“She might be nuts,” someone said, “but she’s got guts.”

“Maybe she’s late for work,” someone else offered.

“I can’t imagine any job being that important,” another said.

“Are you kidding?” someone snapped. “A job is all that stands between any of us and living on the streets. Lose your job, lose your home, lose your life. I would take a chance like that if I was late and the boss might fire me. Any of us would.”

They all nodded.

“I guess keeping your job is worth just about anything these days,” someone else said. “You just have to calculate the risk and give yourself the best chance to make it.”

“So it’s kinda like stealing a base?” another asked.

“Not exactly,” someone said. “It’s like stealing home.”