among the destitute

My fellow blogger and dear friend CHADFOX recently wrote a post about one of the local homeless that meander the streets of the city named Freddy. It is a sad testament to our struggling humanity that we can exist with so much in the midst of those with so little.

I know these people. Once upon a time, I was these people.

When I was nineteen I was a troubled non-directional wanderer. I didnt want to leave home, I didnt want a job. I wanted to sit home, eat, watch tv and go out with my friends. Not even something so interesting as playing video games. If I did leave the house it was to go to bars or cruising down at the gay beach at night... many nights, if I came home at all, it would be after both my parents had left for work.

My parents tolerated my laziness and patying for as long as any hippy parents could, which I'm sure to say is quite a bit longer than most parents. Several times they threatened to throw me out and let me sink or swim on my own. Any time they did this I would disappear to one of my friends homes, just so my parents would know what they were missing when I was gone.

I would come home days later and the subject would drop... for about a week or so. So imagine my parents going through this same cycle every week for the better part of a year, all the while footing my bill. The year of buildup led to a knock down drag out with my dad and brother. After going out of his way to come and pick me up somewhere, I said something really ugly to my dad when we turned onto our street, and in a moment of stunned disbelief and anger he reached across the seat and slapped me right across the face. And quite deservedly so.

We pulled into the driveway and I bolted from the van, ran into the house and grabbed the portable phone. Pushing my brother out of my way I bolted down the hallway to my room screaming and crying. My dad walked calmly into the house and to my door. He told me to give him the phone and the responding stream of explatives issed from my mouth would have prompted the same O shaped breathless shock on the most hardened of criminals.

I have always had really great legs. And whenever I am complimented on them, I say thank you, its from years of keeping my brother and father out of my room. Really, it was just that one day. I wedged my back against that door and held it shut with my legs as my dad boomed away on the other side. My brother thinking himself clever, came around the house and started climing in my window. He came over to me and tried to take the phone from me (it and the phone call to the police was all but forgotten in the melee). I always refer to this as the moment that my brother realized that he was no longer my bigger brother.

I grabbed him by the throat and while my legs kept my dad from bursting in with a wedge, I held him against the wall until all he could do was call out to dad that I was choking him as he started to black out. All those years of brotherly brawls in which I was the loser boiled up in me and as he started to slip away I yelled at him "YEAH, PAYBACKS A BITCH, ISNT IT"

I dont know what broke that moment apart. What I remember next is barreling out into the hallway after dad and knocking the glasses off his face. We then fought on the ground like dogs rolling over each other and punching at the ribs. We slammed into the front right leg of mom's grand piano, and the ensuing creak of splintering wood tore us apart in an instant and we were both up and holding the bottom of the piano so it wouldnt fall.

That night, as my parents sat in the living room trying to figure out what to do with me, I packed a bag, took what was important to me, and climed out my window and ran away.

My friend Bob from church let me stay with him those first couple nights, but when he kept insisting that I go home and mend things, I decided to move on. A friend of a friend had moved in with his girlfriend, but had paid the last three months on his empty apartment, so he let me move in there. There was no electricity, and no furniture, and I lived by candlelight and canned food for three months.

When the lease was finally up I ended up couch surfing with random friends and strangers until I had over stayed my welcome or as in one case, I was just too terrified to stay. I slept in train stations, on beaches, in backyards, in drughouses, in hotels and in bathhouses. I snuck into the mall twice in the dead on night... And yes, on one or two occasions I even went home with people just so I could be inside and maybe get a shower.

I know what it is to be that low. To have your life so precariously balanced that one thing going the wrong way can change everything. I was lucky. The balance fell the other way for me. My parents let me come home. I went to vocational school, and when I got out and still couldnt find a job, I wouldnt allow myself to fall that hard again. So, I found a job where they couldnt fire me.

When people ask me about my military experience, I usually say two things. First: I wouldnt do it again, but I also wouldnt undo it. Second: I got out of it exactly what I went in looking for, dicipline and organization.

For the last year and a half I spent my work week with these people. Talking to them, feeding them and listening to their stories. A lot of the people that ate at the soup kitchen were just one or two things going wrong away from being like the rest of us. How many times the phrase "if that had just worked out for me..." has brushed past my ears. I know these people are human. I know that even though I cant afford to give them money and I no longer feed them, they are still human and as the animal is want to do, they still crave the attention.

With that I will leave you with my best "homeless guy" memory. A couple years ago, the castro burned. No, not all of it, hell, not even most of it... A guy driving down Castro and crossing Market street started having a heart attack. His vehicle careened across the road and ran straight into a line of motorcycles before colliding with the first car in a line of parked cars next to the castro theatre. The owner of that first car had just gotten in and turned on his car when he was hit. And suddenly there was another car on top of him, and both cars burst into flames. Sparking a chain reaction of explosions as each parked car's gas tank lit up all the way down the block.

Across the street in front of Daddy's there was a Sister Of Perpetual Indulgence and one of the local homeless guys. If you've ever been here, you've seen him. He is tall and lanky and has a tuft of dirty blond hair and usually stands at the castro theatre parking lot entrance tossing off witty bon mots to passers by. These two were the first into action. They bolted across the street, and as the crowds began to fill the sidewalks, you could see them, the drag nun and the crazy homeless guy pulling the drivers from the burning wreckage.

All I'm saying is this, next time you walk past a person like that, just remember, you should at least extend to them the common courtesy of human interaction.