June 8, 2011

A quick note:  I appreciate all of the responses to my project, but please do not come out to Tent City to visit.  I do not want to draw any attention to myself from my fellow wanderers.  If you want to talk, e-mail me or message me on Twitter.  If you want to hang out, call me.  I know a great little place with a ton of fluorescent light bulbs just waiting to be smashed.  The song of the day today is "With a Little Help from My Friends" as performed by Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.  Joe Cocker has done more to raise awareness for cerebral palsy than any musician that I know of.

A few notes:

By far the best part of being homeless is the time that I have on my hands.  My situation is far different from most of the homeless population as I work for eight hours a day in an air conditioned office, but that is all I have to do on most days.  Some days I have to run some errands - go to the bank, go to the post office, go to the grocery store - but, that's it.  In my spare time I read, go to the library, hang out with my girlfriend, ride my bike around, sit around and talk with people, or roam around downtown.  Last night, I had a few extra dollars so I went and had a couple beers at a bar while I watched the basketball game.  I've seen a lot of things that I had never noticed before, and have found places that are very cool and unique.  This past weekend, I found a parking garage downtown with an elevator and I rode my bike down the ramp a few times.  It was awesome.  One day, I climbed a fire escape to the top of a building and threw stuff off the side.  Downtown is definitely my favorite place to be.  On weekends or in the evenings, not a lot of people are down there except the homeless.  In the summertime, the homeless do whatever they can to stay out of the sun.  Reading is the most popular activity I've seen among them.  Many have library cards and take full advantage of all the library has to offer. 

The thing that has struck me about the homeless is that they are an incredibly diverse group who are often painted into a corner by nearly everyone.  Some are good people, some are not so good.  Some have jobs, some do not.  Some want jobs, others do not.  Some do drugs, some drink, some are loners, some are social, some have mental problems, some are intelligent, some are stupid, some will be homeless forever, some will get back on their feet, but very few want pity and almost none want to be treated with kid gloves.  These people are adults with a unique set of problems, but they are not that different from everyone else.  I've seen many different people aiming to help the homeless at the Salvation Army, Tent City, Carpenter's Church, and elsewhere and the people that the homeless appreciate the most are those who treat them the same as they would anyone else.  Many of the homeless can talk about current events, sports, travel, and even technology but the thing that they are talked to the most about is their situation.  At almost all of the meals and church services I've been to since I became homeless, I've been asked, in some roundabout way, how I came to find myself in this situation by people that I had just met.  I don't blame the people asking these questions and I don't think that the homeless do either, and they understand why people ask them, but these types of things are not talked about among the homeless.  If you want to help the homeless, ask them what they need and build a relationship with them.  Eventually, stories will come and you may find out how they came to be homeless.  They're not asking you to tell the story of your divorce within five minutes of meeting.  Show them some respect, and you will be rewarded for it.



I showed up to Tent City at around 7:00 yesterday evening.  A group is gathered near the Administration Building.  There's a pickup parked near the front with a sound system running from the bed.  On Sunday night, a group had come out in an RV with TVs and a sound system so that Tent City residents could watch the basketball game.  I assume that this is what is going to happen later as I sit down on a bench with 20 or so other residents.  There's a man speaking in front of us, and I guess that he's about ten minutes into his talk.  I am handed a piece to a jigsaw puzzle by a woman sitting next to me who is obviously with the group who came here tonight.  She tells me that it is my meal ticket for tonight.  I have already eaten, but I decide to hold onto it.  The man speaking is a shorter man with a big, thick beard.  He's like a walking advertisement for Christianity as everything he is wearing has a cross on it.  He stops in the middle of his lesson and introduces himself to me as Stephen.  Part of me wants to tell him that my name is Saul and that I work at a coat check, but I decide that it's too cruel.  Stephen resumes his lesson and it's really hard to follow.  He is not a good speaker and often gets flustered.  He's telling us that we need to find where we fit in at Tent City and then he tells us to try and fit our meal tickets together with the people sitting next to us.  The only person next to me is the woman who gave me my meal ticket, and she offers the puzzle piece she is holding to me.  I look at hers and see that it is a corner piece to the jigsaw puzzle and, since I am not holding an edge piece, I tell her that they don't fit.  I guess she really wants me to participate in the activity as she takes my piece from me and tries to fit it into hers.  Not surprisingly, they don't fit.  She feigns surprise and hands me my piece back. 

Stephen stumbles through his lesson for a few more minutes when six motorcycles come through the gates of Tent City.  They pull up right behind the benches we are sitting on and everyone turns to look.  Stephen gets flustered and tells everyone to pay attention to him again and we will see what these intruders are up to in a minute.  Stephen finishes up and the ringleader of the motorcycle club comes to the front.  Stephen introduces him as his good friend, Darryl and I am disappointed that we don't get to witness a brawl in which the winner is allowed to show good will towards us.  Darryl is a large man in every way imaginable.  He's got long, grey hair and a long beard to match.  His beard parts slightly at his lips and you can barely tell that he is always smiling.  He's got a loud, booming voice and a flare for the dramatic that becomes obvious when Stephen hands him the reigns.  Everyone on the benches snaps to attention as Darryl tells us a little bit about himself.  He says that he does some prison ministry and a few guys shout out that they saw him there.  Darryl then begins his speech on rising up from what you're in.  He has passion and conviction and I get the feeling that he has done some rising up of his own.  Darryl's sentences are short and choppy, and he ends most of them with "amen" spoken in a quizzical tone like a Christian Canadian.  A few of the black guys shout "Amen!" after a statement that they particularly like.  Darryl speaks for about ten minutes and then asks some of his friends to come to the front.  The guys that showed up on the bikes get up and stand next to Darryl as he asks us to bow our heads.  Darryl begins his prayer giving thanks for the day and for all of the people there.  Gradually, it seems that Darryl is speaking more to the crowd than to God, and I see that I'm not the only one confused as many residents raise their heads to watch Darryl talk.  This doesn't clear things up any as Darryl is wearing sunglasses and I can't tell if he's peering down at the ground or out at us.  My question is answered when Darryl gives a definitive "amen," but I guess it's too late.  I hope my raised head did not void the prayer and Darryl tells the crowd that anyone who wants some special prayer to come to the front with him and his friends.  A couple men rise to receive some.  I watch all of them, and it seems some of them do this because they feel pressured, but one guy in particular is obviously in turmoil.  He's nearing seventy and is this guy incarnate (minus the star, of course).  I cannot hear what he is saying, but he talks to one of the guys for a few minutes and then receives some prayer. 

After everything has quieted down up front, Stephen comes back up and thanks Darryl and all his friends for coming out.  He thanks us for our attention and announces that it's time to eat.  I stay seated, and the lady next to me encourages me to go get some food.  I explain to her that I ate at Rosa's because it is Taco Tuesday, but she doesn't seem to understand.  She tells me again to go get a plate and I decide that maybe I'll just get some water to placate her.  I sit back down next to her and we talk for a little while.  She asks me a little bit about my past and what I'm doing in Lubbock.  I tell her my lies in a few sentences and we begin to talk about her son.  He is twenty-two and lives in Dallas.  I can hear the worry in her voice, but get the feeling that the only thing that will make her feel better is to hear that I am nothing like her son.  We talk for a few more minutes and I tell her that I need to go to the store.  She tells me that it was nice to meet me and I tell her that I'm glad she came.  As I walk to my bike, I hope that these people come out again.

I come back to Tent City at around 11:00 and sit down at the benches up front.  Some of the older guys are still awake and I listen to them talk for a while.  We hear a ruckus at the locked gate where two residents are wanting to come in.  They are obviously drunk and in high spirits.  When the gate is unlocked, they stumble in and I can see that it is a younger guy of about thirty and the old man that went forward during the service today.  The younger guy heads inside to eat some of the leftovers from tonight and the old man sits down next to me.  He tells me that they went to some abandoned house behind a nearby gas station and drank quarts of beer.  We talk for a few more minutes and I have a hard time understanding what he says until he adopts a sober attitude.  He tells me that he is against organized religion but that he believes in God and Jesus.  He proclaims that he wants to do things his way but that the area between finding God within yourself and letting God take over is difficult to find.  I'm glad I've found someone that I can empathize with and I tell him that I doubt anyone has all the answers as he nods soberly.  We sit in silence for a few moments while others talk amongst themselves.  "I gotta take a shit!" he announces loudly and he stumbles to the bathroom.