This is another chapter in the new book I'm working on. This was hard to write. I'd appreciate comments and critique if you feel so inclined. Look for the book late winter / early spring 2017.
A day in the life.
What is it
actually like to be homeless? What is the daily routine of a person whose
entire existence is at the mercy of the weather, the availability of shelter,
and the hours of operation of a county recreation center? What does it feel
like, not from a larger statistical, “Face of the homeless problem” level…but
as a man? While others are posting funny “It’s Monday again” memes on Facebook,
and lamenting the loss of another weekend, what is Monday like for a homeless
man?
There is a
routine to it. There is a pattern to the survival mode I lived in for six
years. It wasn’t a vacation from reality, or a break from labor. Homelessness
is work. There are things you have to do each day, just to survive. Because
that is the first rule of being homeless: “Survive.” You have to find that
perfect hiding spot, and when you do, you have to guard it with your life.
That’s key. You need to be safely hidden at night when you try to steal a few
hours of sleep. If you can’t be both safe and hidden, at least be hidden. If
they can’t see you, they can’t roust you for vagrancy.
Hopefully, if
you’re unseen, you’re also safe, but not necessarily. Just because the cops
don’t see you, or the pastor, behind who’s church you hide your car each night,
or the church members who happen to come back to the church late one night
because they forgot something, just because none of them saw you, doesn’t mean
someone else didn’t. Even the slightest sound is a cause for alarm. You just
never know who else is out there like you are, in survival mode, looking for a
place.
The second rule
is “Get out of this somehow.” Because few people really want to be here. True,
there are those who prefer this life. Folks with mental issues that force them
to the shadows and the outskirts of society. I’ve met them. I used to work with
the homeless ministry at the church I attended, (They felt it lent some
authenticity to have an actual homeless man working with the homeless men they
shipped in one night a week during the coldest months) and I met the guys who
preferred homelessness. They eschewed the shelters and the Mission. They
avoided the places where the other homeless would gather. They seldom panhandled.
Most were veterans suffering from PTSD or other mental issues, coupled with
chemical dependencies, losing a daily battle with the bottle. They had a meager
monthly income from the V.A. and that was how they survived.
These men weren’t
comfortable around others for long stretches of time. They stayed to
themselves, carrying on conversations in their heads to keep themselves
company. They were the loneliest of the lot. The others knew them by now and
avoided them for the most part. They respected the fact that these men wanted
to be alone and the code on the street is “Respect my space and respect my
stuff.” You didn’t touch another man’s backpack and if he didn’t want to talk,
you didn’t try to force him.
There were always
troublemakers who would violate these rules. I saw this as well. Guys who poked
fun at the quiet ones. Guys who would rob another man of his last cigarette,
his last dollar, or his last clean pair of socks. They would steal because they
wanted it, and they would steal because they needed to feel superior. Even
homeless people need to feel like they have some sort of power and control
remaining. Sometimes stealing another guys stuff was the only way they could
show it. Alpha males exist even in a homeless shelter or under a bridge.
Sometimes these guys would show their strength by ridiculing
those with deeper problems. They’d find the weak spot in a man’s armor and pick
at it nonstop until the man broke. Often this was violent in nature. A homeless man with obvious mental illness being
pushed to the brink by another homeless man is an explosive mix. You didn’t
want to be near that when it happened.
For the others,
though, the goal was to get out of this situation somehow. That was always my
goal. I wanted this nightmare to end, and end as quickly as possible. So in
addition to the routine of survival, there was the daily effort to find work,
and end this.
Find work.
I have to admit
that as I wrote those two words just now it brought tears to my eyes. Until
2008 I have never had to find work. Work always found me. I was always working.
I have been industrious, diligent, and hardworking since I was a little boy. I
have the natural work ethic that the grandsons of immigrants seem to always
have. At eleven I started a lawn mowing business in my neighborhood, to go
along with my newspaper route. (At a time in America when an eleven-year-old
boy could go out at five a.m. and deliver papers and be perfectly safe.) At
fifteen I started working in a fast-food restaurant.
I graduated from
high school and went immediately to work full-time.
I’d never been out of work in my life. Even in college I
worked thirty to forty hours a week. I’d been self-employed since 1986. I
started a carpentry business and did that until 1998 when I started in the
mortgage business. The mortgage business is straight commission and there is no
room for the lazy. I had to go find every loan I closed. So hard work and
diligence were not foreign to my nature. And yet here I was…jobless.
My routine was
tiring. It wore me down. It was hard. The day started at about 4:45 a.m. You
have to get up long before the sun because darkness is your ally. You can’t be
seen coming and going or you’ll lose the spot you worked so hard to find. You
essentially spend your whole day trespassing, so when it’s time to try to
sleep, you need to not worry about being discovered. So moving in and out
requires darkness. This is hard in the summer months when the sun is up early
and lingers until late in the night. When you’ve had four hours of fitful
tossing and turning in the passenger seat of a car, you wake up tired and move
toward total exhaustion by day’s end. Sometimes it was that exhaustion that
made sleep even possible at all. I would collapse at night and the first two
hours would be unbroken. But there was always a sound or a nightmare or,
eventually, the discomfort of that folded-down car seat that woke me up. The
rest of my short night would be spent in a series of naps until my cell-phone
alarm woke me and it was time to move on. I rose early to avoid losing my
hiding spot at the church, but it was something more than that. There was so much shame involved. I just
didn’t want anyone seeing me living in my car.
A year later, a
friend found out about my plight and offered me a spot to park on her little
mini-farm in Franklin, just a few miles from the Church. Of course I took her
up on it, but my habit remained. Even after I had a spot to park, and was
welcome there, and was not at risk of being thrown out by the cops…I still rose
before dawn. I was still embarrassed at sleeping in my car. I still didn’t want
anyone to see me.
Thankfully I had
the luxury of a gym membership. Williamson County Parks and Rec has wonderful
facilities. They have four main locations and for $225 for a year, it was a
steal. Thankfully I had a paid membership when my world collapsed. After that,
renewal was cheaper and somehow I managed to scrape together the $150 it took
each January to stay active. So I had a place to shower. I used the necessity
of my going there to work out each day, doubtless the most consistent I’d been
my life. I walked about five miles each morning and then lifted weights,
showered, and went out to face the day. I accomplished all this by about 7:45
a.m.
The internet is crucial when you’re homeless
and job-seeking. So I had to find free Wi-Fi connectivity. These days that’s
easy. What’s not easy is finding restaurants where you can sit for hours and
not spend any money while you used the free broadband.
It’s not their job to provide internet to the world and not
get anything in return, and so I always felt guilty. My favorite spots were the
Panera restaurants in Franklin. There were always other folks there working on
their laptops or having meetings and so I didn’t feel out of place. I’d scrape
together the two dollars it took to buy a large iced tea and then I’d rinse the
cup out when I was finished and bring it back the next day for free refills
without having to buy another one. It’s not the way the policy is designed, I
know, but two dollars was a lot of money to me.
Sometimes, just
eating was an exercise in creativity. There were days when I would literally be
down to no more than the change in my pocket or what I could scrape together
from the ashtray in my car. I would catch a sale on Ramen noodles at the
Kroger. The trick was to buy one “Cup-of-Noodles” and then use the rest of the
money for Ramen noodle packages. That way I had a cup to re-use to make the
Ramen. I would feel so horribly guilty taking my cup of noodles the Panera. I’d
hide it in my backpack and get a cup of hot water from the coffee bar. After
making the noodles at my booth, I’d arrange my laptop, and later when I’d
started college classes, my school books, on the table in such a way that (I
hoped) nobody could see what I was eating. It was humiliating. I felt like a
thief. Looking back, nobody likely even noticed or cared, but I felt like every
set of eyes in the store was watching me and knew what I was up to…and what I was.
There were days
when there simply was no money at all after buying gas. Days when the refills
of iced tea had to get me through until the next day. Or the day after that. I
learned the value of my Sam’s club membership then. When I was down to nothing,
I would go to Sam’s and walk around hitting all the free sample displays. I had
to take my time and not go to the same ones too frequently or the sales person
might recognize me. Now I don’t know if they would ever have said “Hey…you’ve
had enough!” but you just never know. I’d eat samples and walk around the
store, looking at things I could never buy, remembering a better time when I’d
be in this store every week, buying supplies for my office.
Back when I was a success. Back when I was someone. When I
felt human.
There was one
more source of food I’d rely on when things were at their worst. It was
probably the most embarrassing of all, simply because of the people around me.
The Kroger around the corner from the Panera in Cool Springs that I frequented,
always set out cookies and coffee for their customers. They set them by the
deli department. Some days, when I had no money and didn’t have the gas to
drive over to Sam’s, I’d go to the Kroger. I felt too embarrassed to just walk
in and head for the cookies, so I would pretend to shop for a few minutes,
sometimes, to keep up the appearance, I’d even pick up a few canned goods. I’d
walk around like a shopper, then head over and grab a couple of cookies. I’d
walk around for a while longer and do it again. When I had four or five in my
pocket, I’d return my canned goods to their shelves and head back to Panera. I
always felt terrible taking cookies from the Kroger, mostly because this
particular store was in a rather affluent area and the customers were always
well dressed and well-heeled. I felt like an intruder into their neighborhood.
No one ever said anything to me. I am sure nobody ever noticed me taking the
free cookies. But I noticed. To me it
wasn’t crafty or smart. It was just survival and I was tired of just surviving.
I guess they’re
funny, these stories. And maybe they would be if I was 19 and this was my
college life we were talking about. But we’re not. We’re talking about a
forty-five-year-old man. Someone’s dad. Having to come up with ways to find
food. Even now, three years beyond this situation, it breaks my heart. It hurts
to write these words about myself. It hurts to see the image in my mind of me
skulking away from the Kroger with a pocket full of sugar cookies, and calling
that my dinner.
Beside finding
food, part of each day was the job search. I always did this part first,
because I’d hoped that my resume would find its way into some early-rising
employer’s email before anyone else’s did. Each day I would search the job
websites. Each day I widened my search just a bit. At first I’d hoped to find
something similar to what I had been doing. I knew the mortgage industry was
all but dead in those days. But I had managed sales people and I had run an
office and I was a very good teacher and trainer.
Each day I would send out my resume to eight or ten or
twelve possible employers. Each day I would not hear anything back. I never
stopped trying. I don’t remember many days going by without my sending out
resumes. But no one replied. The economy was terrible then. Unemployment was
high, and the outlook was pessimistic. The president, for all his talk of hope,
offered nothing in the way of solutions. He ignored people like me.
Days became
months. Months, unbelievably, became years. Hope became a numb spot in my
heart. A faded memory of a time when I had a career and when I walked upright
like a man. Not the stoop-shouldered, vagabond I had become. Hiding in plain
sight. Trying my best not to look homeless.
After my morning
routine of sending out resumes, I would write. Writing became my solace. My
voice. My safe place. I had always loved to write, and in happier times, long
before, I was an entertaining, humorous writer, making my high school teachers
laugh with my wit. But I also enjoyed the crafting of a great sentence or the
impact of a weighty story. Blogging had just begun to get noticed. I started a blog.
I wrote about life. About being a dad. About my faith. I wrote about the world
out here where I was living. But I didn’t write about being homeless. Not for a
long time. I think it was because I was trying to not be homeless. I was trying not to be the voice of a demographic.
I was trying to be more than a guy in an unfortunate situation who was
journaling his plight. I didn’t want to just be a “homeless writer.”
It wasn’t long
before I felt like maybe I could have a career as a writer. If not full-time,
then at least in conjunction with whatever else I was doing. I worried that if
I only wrote about my homelessness, I would be pigeon-holed into only ever writing about homelessness…or other
social issues, for the rest of my life. I didn’t want that.
I would write in
the mornings, perhaps as a means of relieving the pressure of sending out
resumes and not getting a response. I’m sure it was -in part at least- a means
of just saying the things I would say if I had someone, anyone, to talk to. I wrote
a lot about my divorce and my fatherhood. I wrote sometimes revelatory things
about myself. My search for my own father, and the subsequent disappointments.
My search for work. The way I missed my home in the country. The way I was
missing my daughter growing up. I wrote to give vent to the pain that built in
my heart every day.
After writing, if
I had gas in my car, sometimes I would go to the little park nearby. I would
walk. Walking became therapy for me much as writing had become. In fact, much
of what I wrote about in those days was formulated on those early morning walks
at the rec center, and often it was digested on the mid-morning walks at
Pinkerton Park. I walked to think. I walked to escape from the thoughts I was
thinking. I walked for hours sometimes, just hashing out my situation and
trying to find the escape hatch. I walked sometimes, just to keep moving,
because sitting still made it feel like this whole nightmare would catch me and
consume me. I walked sometimes, just to stay away from the lot that was
befalling me.
It was lonely.
More lonely than I have ever been in my life. I had conversations with no one
else but myself. I can understand how that can drive a person to madness if it
goes on long enough. No one counters your desperate thoughts. Nobody holds your
sadness in check. You voice those things to only yourself and nobody says “Come
on man…I’m here. You aren’t entirely alone.” I had friends I could call, but
they all lived somewhere else. Or the ones close by had jobs and families and
they didn’t have time for a homeless guy sitting on a bench in a city park in
the middle of the morning. They cared, but they had no idea how really desperate
I was and so there was no urgency. And I felt guilty even asking them so I
never did. So I walked. Alone.
Some days, there
was rain and I would sit under the pavilions on the picnic tables. The rain
would pour down hard enough that I was invisible under there. Had anyone come
to the park, like the Franklin PD who rolled through every few hours, they
would have never seen me for the sheets of rain that formed a curtain around
the gazebo. Those were the days I could cry. I cried a lot but much of it stayed
inside. But when it rained and I felt invisible, I could let it out. And I did.
I would walk
sometimes all day, alternating between sitting on a bench and walking the
trail. When afternoon came and people who had been there earlier were going home
to their families and their dinner table, I would cry again. Sometimes I
couldn’t hide it under a pavilion roof. Sometimes I had to turn my head as a
stranger walked past me on the trail. “He’s going home,” I would think to
myself. “He’s done his walking and he’s going home to his wife and his family
and his home.” I would think of this
stranger sitting at a dinner table, having a conversation, laughing, smiling. I
would think of him relaxing in his favorite chair, taking his dog out for a
walk, climbing into bed. Then I would think of the car, and the pain in my back
and the stiffness in my neck and the shame.
Some days I would
walk around downtown Franklin just to be near other people. Downtown Franklin
is a beautiful little area dating back to the late 1700’s. Main Street bustles
with shops and shoppers and café’s and artsy people walking around with
seven-dollar latte’s and trendy clothes, talking mainly about the music
industry. I walked among them with no latte, and no trendy clothes. I remember
catching my reflection in a storefront window once. I was noticeably thinner. I
was clean, my clothes were clean. I had shaved. Nothing about my appearance,
save maybe the weight loss, betrayed my homelessness. But I saw it. I saw it in
my eyes, me…looking back at me.
Hollow. Hopeless.
I know myself well enough to recognize all those tears I was
holding back and the memories that were, even in that instant, flooding my
mind. I saw what no one else could have seen that day. I saw who I used to be,
overlaid with who I was now and it broke my heart. After that, I no longer
looked into windows. I no longer could bear seeing my reflection. It just hurt
too much.
Some days I had
some work. I found an odd job from a friend and I was busy trying to earn a few
dollars. I built a chicken coop once for the woman who would eventually allow
me to park on her property. I had never built a coop before and she showed me a
picture and I set to work. When I was done, her mother said it was the nicest
chicken coop she’d ever owned and she’d had them all her life. I was proud of
that. In a world that was spiraling daily and tearing out my hull on the rocks
of an economy that would not relent…I could build the nicest chicken coop this
woman had ever seen. You take your happiness were you find it sometimes.
Afternoons often
approached with a sense of impending doom. No matter what kind of day I’d had,
good or bad, in the back of my mind was that car and those weeds. It was there
like a specter. It was there like the feeling in your gut when your dad pulls
up in the driveway and you got an “F” on your report card and he was about to
find out. It was there like going to the doctor and expecting a bad report. The
car. The weeds. The hiding. The tossing and turning and exhaustion. The
nervousness of racing into the hiding place and hoping that no one saw you one
more night.
The shame.
Afternoons were
the great blank spot in my day. The great void. Summer made it worse because it
was light until nine p.m. and I was tired by seven. Regardless of what time the
sun set, I still had to be up before five to avoid being seen, so summer months
just meant I slept less. A lot of time, if I had gas in my car, I would drive
to my daughter’s school and pick her up. We’d go to McDonald’s for a Coke and
to spend time together. Not too many months after this all began she discovered
I was homeless. I had left my sleeping bag rolled up behind my seat and she saw
it. I couldn’t lie to her any longer. It broke my heart.
Finally, night
was here and time to hide the car. This, for me, was as close to pulling up in
a driveway as I could get. I waited, I circled the church, and when I had a
break when no cars were coming, I made the mad dash for the back side of the
building. There, lights off so no one would see me, I’d back my car into those
high weeds until they sprung back up around me like a curtain. Then came the
waiting. Then the sigh of relief when enough time passed that I realized no one
saw me. Then came the routine of sleeping bags and warm clothes and trying to
find some spot in the positioning of the seat that didn’t hurt too bad.
Then…when I was settled in and still, there came the memories, and the tears. There
was my sleeping companion…hopelessness
And another day
in my journey was over.
