It was 10:30pm, and South Rio Grande Street was alive with
activity. The corner there was the gathering place of the city’s homeless
population. It’s the kind of place I would have purposely evaded on any normal
night, the sort of dark corner that people cross the street expressly to avoid.
Tonight though, I was headed straight for it.
With my
heart pounding in my chest, I tried my best to stay true to character. I was
wearing some tattered sweatpants and a couple of mismatched jackets I bought at
a thrift store the day before. I had rolled around in the mud of our front yard
before leaving to add some detail to my disguise. I faked a limp in my right
leg, which added greatly to my look but made it painfully slow to move
anywhere. And last of all I carried a blanket and an empty water bottle in a
white trash bag.
The trash
bag was a dumb idea. (Nobody uses a trash bag. You either have an old backpack,
gym bag, or shopping cart.) Nonetheless, I quietly shuffled in among the group,
keeping my head down and avoiding eye contact at all costs. Around me, I saw a
circus of characters go by. Colorful wardrobes, eccentric hair and beards, a
variety of strange smells. I found a spot against the wall, squatted down, and
listened.
“Hey sorry
but, can I have two drags of your cig?” I heard somebody ask politely. He was
denied the favor.
I watched a
man dive headfirst into a trash can and then pop out saying, “Anybody seen an
iHome? Come on, let’s be honest, anybody seen an iHome?”
No more than five minutes passed of
this before things got really interesting. Squad cars suddenly appeared. Out of
my peripherals I counted at least five, lights flashing white and blue. My
heart began to race again. The officers came out and their leader began shouting orders.
“All right, you all can’t stay
here. Let’s go!”
At first the homeless herd’s
reaction was slow. Most continued their aimless wandering too and fro. When
anyone resisted, verbally or otherwise, the cops were there. I saw two officers
turn the corner and return with a man between them, handcuffed. At this point,
I realized it was time to move out.
Not wanting to leave far from the
shelter I was trying to enter, I decided to make a round of the block. When I
came back, I saw the officers clearing out the last of the squatters. They
appeared to be trying to revive somebody from his drugged unconsciousness. What
I admired most was that there was nothing violent about it all. It was very
calm. In fact, it seemed to me to be almost a normal occurrence. As if this
round up was some sort of nightly ritual.
After asking a few people I found
out where the men’s shelter was. Around back. As I made my way there, I
realized I had come to into the darkest, shadiest alley I’d ever been in my life.
It seemed to be the setting from a movie. Grim figures in small groups spoke in
hushed voices. Smokers and druggies all over. I saw a man standing still,
looking emptily forward, and twitching. On my way to the back door I had to
avoid a couple piles of fresh vomit. My senses were overloading. It was at this
point that I saw one of the strangest things yet.
Near the back door, I noticed a man
who was different from the rest. He carried a large gym bag, and on it was a
blanket neatly folded. His body language gave me the feeling of someone very
confident. He was relaxed, calm, with a big smile on his face. He was
conversing with another man, about how he was planning on going to somebody’s
house for the night. His style seemed so out of place to me. He might not have
become homeless by choice, but he sure seemed to have embraced it.
In the end, I made it as far as the
staircase before heading home. I realized they were registering everybody who
entered the shelter. I knew that if I went any further, things might get
complicated.
On the train ride home, I reflected
on my experience. What I gained was a new appreciation for the variety of
homeless people. You have the quiet ones, the loud ones, the drugged ones, and
even the “lifestyle” ones. You have the nightly arrival of the cops and the
nightly opening of the doors to the shelters. I heard more profanity in two
hours than I had in maybe a year previous. But I also heard singing. And
laughing. And conversation between friends. I guess you could say that life
goes on, however bleak the situation.
I came home that night with a
newfound appreciation for my blessings. For having a home to come to. A bed
that was my own. A family. A hot shower. Even just a cold glass of chocolate
milk. Everything seemed at once vivid to me.
Moral of the story: stay in school
kids.
