Urban Diaries
Page 7
This is my reality Mr. President Sir, but it wasn’t always. I too am homeless and I am not going to create some bullshit sob story to garner sympathy for my current state of existence. I am an educated Stanford alum, who negotiated some bad deals, took some horrible risk, a few bad bribes gone wrong mixed with greed, alcohol, and the need to win, all ruined my life. No regrets though. It was fun while it lasted, but if I could have my wife, children, and roof back, I would finally learn how to shut the fuck up and take the deal. Sleeping on the cold, ass, sidewalk using newspaper for blankets and an old, pissy, couch, cushion from a house fire for a pillow is one hell of a reality and ego check. This is not exactly recommended, nor does it remotely resemble anything near comfort. In fact, it makes me miss my 300 thread count sheets and goose feathered pillows that I shared with my wife something awful.
Let me give you a glimpse into how my morning unfolds, Mr. President, Sir. After having my nose hairs singed off from the old man dookeying just a few feet away, sleep becomes just as elusive as some of my grandmother’s seasoned red beans and rice complete with the salt pork for flavoring, some hot water cornbread and red Kool-Aid. Yes, my judgment and decision making is flooded with visions of food because I seem to never get full. I stay hungry, all the time, the thought of eating a nice meal that is actually fulfilling consumes me sometime, yet I wake up and look at the shopping cart which holds everything I own in it, wondering where I will park it tonight. Will it be private, safe, and dimly lit?
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to think about that because it has been 3 days since I’ve had anything to eat. I’ve been out here for a while and I still manage to let Pride get in my way. Today, my mission is to eat, whether that means, digging in the garbage or begging for it, both, which require my Pride to sit down and shut the fuck up. I know that I could never make it a 4th day without something to eat, so a man has to do whatever he needs to for survival right? Both options suck.
I’m sure you’ve never had to scavenge the garbage cans of restaurants and bars that you were once a paying patron, hoping for a half eaten steak or some half cooked pasta. The trick is to make sure you’re in the alley when the buss boy comes to make a drop. You’re almost guaranteed to find food during that time but for the love of God, I don’t understand why the owners have instructed them to chase us away, as if we transients who go “Dumpster Diving” by eating garbage, the scraps from their customers, are somehow in violation because we’re eating free.
Ridiculous.
Begging is not much better. My kind? A college educated homeless man, who is drug free and have been sober for 2 years, is still a “unicorn” on the streets. We’re invisible and those who do happen to see us, take our dirty clothes, unshaven faces, and contact high body odor as traits of a crack-head or drunk. Do you understand how hard it is to panhandle enough money for a decent meal now days? Even for me, somebody who once was able to negotiate for anything I ever wanted or needed, standing out in front of some liquor store, or gas station, or grocery market asking for change and hoping for dollars, just so people can place me in the “dope-fiend” box and write me off as a loser when I’m starving out of my mind is tough. It’s more than tough. It’s shitty, especially when I think of all the money they’re wasting on unnecessary bullshit that they don’t need, like that 3rd Benz, or 5th HTC cell phone, or that new I-Pad or a fucking Snuggie for the damn family dog.
I decide to stand in front of the gas station by the freeway and see if I can catch people on their way to work. If I’m lucky, somebody will give me a few dollars and I could walk across the street to the hamburger stand. But first things 1st, you can’t go begging looking and smelling like death. So I go inside the gas station and ask for the key to the bathroom. Once inside, I can’t help but wish like hell I was back in my nice comfortable home, to shit, shower and shave. Instead, I am somehow predestined to take a “ho bath” using the cold sink water, using a million paper towels and that sandpaper ass powdered soap. I came up on some Free Gillette samples in the dumpster behind Target and I use the sample razor and shaving cream to shave all my facial hair. I take off all my clothes and wash them in cold water with no soap, along with my only pair of draws in the sink. I change into the clothes I washed in Carl’s Jr.'s bathroom 3 days ago, a wrinkled white t-shirt, some old jeans that are 2 sizes to big, and a Lakers cap. And yes, I have to go commando until my draws dry. I take out my small bottle of peroxide and brush my teeth. Finally I’m done.
As I look at myself in the graffiti-laced cloudy looking mirror, I realize that I’m neat and clean, but still a homeless muthafucker about to beg for some money for food. I’ve been on the streets for about 4 years and it’s still hard for me to accept sometimes. I did everything right, but so fucking wrong. I graduated with a degree in Business Finance from Stanford in which I went on to become a successful CFO for a multi-billion dollar corporation. So right. Using those same principles in Business Finance and applying them to my marriage? So fucking wrong. Making side deals with the competition to make extra money even though I was already bringing home 6 figures? So right. Getting drunk and bumping my gums about what I was doing to Eric Gilmore, my boss’ son? So fucking wrong. Helping my best friend, Dr. David Quincy by fixing his books to hide all of his fraudulent disability claims? So right. Allowing him to take the fall and full responsibility by himself with him losing his practice and landing in jail? So fucking wrong. Capitalizing in the real estate market by buying a 5-bedroom mini-mansion with a 3-car garage in the neighborhood with the best schools for my kids? So right. Capitalizing in the real estate market by buying a 5-bedroom mini-mansion with a 3-car garage in the neighborhood with the best schools for my kids that I knew I couldn’t afford? So fucking wrong. Making a lot of money? So right. Not saving a damn dime or putting away any for a rainy day because I was too cocky and thought the shit was going to last forever? So fucking wrong.
So I stand here checking out all the cars pulling up trying to size up the people that I think will actually give me money and which ones are going to tell me to “Fuck off!” Again, Pride is somewhere logged on to HUSHDAFUCKUP.com taking advantage of its newfound membership.
I stand at this gas station, feeling sorry for myself, from 6:45 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. and I manage to beg for a total of $6.31, all coins, not one-dollar bill, and you know what I realize? People are stingy as fuck and it has nothing to do with how atrocious the economy is. They have always been stingy to transients like me. It’s not their faults though. American society has programmed them to think that every person living on the street is a drunk or an addict; therefore, giving a dollar or two to someone who says, “Please help get me something to eat” is really secret code for “Please help me get high and/or drunk today.”
I should know. I damn near invented that code in the early 70s. Yes sir. I was the guy with the $2,000 Brooks Brothers suit on, Peal & Company Wingtips, with a nice Apple hat looking like I just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad complete with a copy of the Wall Street Journal in my hand. That was me, that guy, a man who would not even look at a homeless person. They were invisible to me, much like I’m invisible to them now. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for the $6 bucks I hustled because usually, it’s significantly lower.
I go over to the hamburger stand and order the “breakfast special”, hash browns, eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, and a cup of coffee for $5.50 plus tax, $5.95. I devour it, but I’m not full. So right, but so fucking wrong. The rest of my morning (and my day for that matter) will be spent trying to figure out where I’m going to sleep tonight. Sometimes if I could hustle up a dollar or two and I want to treat myself, I park my shopping cart in the alley behind the laundrymat down the street, and ride the Main Street bus from the first stop to the end of the line, and back again.
You have no idea how much time I can kill just by riding the bus and what kind of undisturbed sleep I can get. Sometimes I just eavesdrop on all the conversations between bus riders and I listen to them bitch and comp
lain about things I miss, petty things, the same things that I took for granted. I listen as they talk about how riding the bus sucks, which is hilarious to me because that’s usually the highlight of my month, when I’m able to ride the bus.
As I walk back to the spot where I slept last night, I see some young, black boys, 3 of them, beating the shit out of a homeless woman like she was a man. I stop in my tracks and just stare for a minute in confusion not wanting to believe that these fucking illiterate ass imbeciles, pretending to be thugs are jumping a woman, all 3 of them.
As I stare at the police car driving slowly pass and notice that the dumb ass officers are just watching like spectators, I grab the bat out of my basket and run over to help her. I never intended on using it because I was sure that the least these officers would do, would be to get out and help the woman who was being beaten and tossed like a rag doll; after all, it is their job to protect and serve. They stopped the car, stared for a few minutes, and pulled off. Again, I never intended on hitting the dumb fucks, but as a man, I couldn’t just do nothing, so I just swung the bat a few times to scare them off. The punks ran, like I figured they would.
See, we have a code out here on these streets: WE TRANSIENTS TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN. We look out for each other because it’s more than obvious nobody else will. Nobody else cares. Just last week, that same woman gave me some aspirin and the couch cushion which is my night pillow when I was complaining of a headache. I don’t even know her name but that was the nicest thing anyone had done for me since I been out here like this. I sat with her and nursed a few of her cuts but couldn’t do anything about her black eye or her spitting up huge chunks of blood. When I asked her why they were jumping her, she said that they took her son’s backpack and wouldn’t give it back to him while they were walking from the bus stop. The idiots teased him for being homeless. As his mother, already feeling guilty about their situation, she hit one of the boys in the nose, and then they proceeded to beat her. I don’t think in all my years of existence that I’ve ever witnessed anything so savage and brutal.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen plenty of street fights, and being a Black nerd in the neighborhood where I grew up, I even participated in some brutal ass whippings defending myself, but I have NEVER IN MY LIFE seen a woman get beat like her life was so meaningless. Beaten to the point where she just balled up on the ground, unable to defend herself while three punks treat her like one of those clowns with the sand in the bottom? RIDICULOUS! Her, her two boys, and the invisible, over paid ass Metropolitan Police patrolman are what prompted me to write to you Sir.
Too bad, my best friend, Dr. Quincy was not around. The press painted him as a crook, but he had a heart of gold. Yes, he committed disability and medical fraud by allowing cash patients to pay anywhere between $150 to $500 for whatever they needed whether it was to be put on disability, stress leave, or if they needed a doctor’s note to return to work or school or even a medical marijuana card; he would sign off on all that shit for the right price. Even so, he helped a lot of people that were really sick or fucked up and had nowhere to turn. I mean, we got HOSPITALS, (much needed HOSPITALS at that) closing down in our very own neighborhood. What did you expect people to do? Stop getting sick or injured? Go to another hospital in a different, more affluent neighborhood? How about DIE? Isn’t that an option too cause that’s exactly what happened to that woman today.
Her life would have been spared if Dr. Quincy was around. Dave would have saved her regardless if she was homeless or not. He always went out of his way to help us, down trodden folks. Sometimes, he let people sleep in his office until they were well enough to leave if they couldn’t afford a hospital stay. I know for a fact that he delivered the babies of many illegal immigrants. He also treated a bunch of gangbangers from gunshot wounds when they were too afraid to go to the hospital, but everyone thinks he’s just a crook.
You know what? Maybe if the system wasn’t so fucked up, maybe if we did have universal health care, he wouldn’t have had to go rogue. Yes, my friend, Dave (and I’m not ashamed to call him that) went to Home Depot, found 6 Mexicans, male and female, paid them $200 each to go apply for Medi-Cal and bring him the cards. He then used those cards to treat people like the woman who was beaten today. He treated anybody he could without insurance and charged it to one of the bogus cards.
Dave would have treated her tonight, Mr. President, Sir, and maybe she wouldn’t have died. I found out about an hour ago, she died from internal bleeding in the free clinic waiting room. What the fuck kinda shit is that? Wasn’t it bad enough that she was homeless? Nope. Nobody gave a fuck. Wasn’t it bad enough that her daughter was lost in the system, shuffled from foster home to foster home, and now, nobody knows where she is or what happened to her? Nope. Nobody gave a fuck. Wasn’t it bad enough, that she was so scared that her boys would be lost in the system, like her daughter was, that she had them living on the streets with her to protect them and keep her family together? Nope. Nobody gave a fuck. Wasn’t it bad enough that she suffered the beating of her life defending her sons? And now she’s dead? Nope. But somebody does give a fuck, not just her sons, but I give a fuck. Yes, I care, and so should you. You should give a fuck too, Mr. President.
I apologize Mr. President Sir, please forgive me for not properly introducing myself. My name is Percy McDonald but all my friends and business associates address me as “Price”. The nickname goes all the way back to my days at Dunbar High and Stanford because I was the man that could get you anything for the right price, boos squares, reefer, an essay, a prostitute, a clean credit or background check, clean piss, references, whatever. I had the connections and negotiation skills to make things happen. I am hoping that this letter reaches you and my persuasiveness reaches its all time pinnacle, because I am in dire need of your assistance, not in the form of money, food, a place to stay, or anything material.
I’m a man. I can and always will be able to fend for myself, but there are millions of others like me that can’t, like that woman and her two sons. They were a family and had no business being on the streets. Why is it that we can constantly keep sending troops to all these countries on the globe in a feudal attempt to police the world, but we don’t even admit that there is a severe HOMELESS problem in this country? Like I said, I will be fine. I’m going to pull myself up by the bootstraps and make it. What I need you to do is acknowledge that there are over a million children in this country who are homeless and live in conditions just like I described on a daily basis, if not worse. I need you to recognize out of that million, two-thirds of them (do the math…that’s about 600, 000) worry about not eating. Since when is it a child’s job to worry about meals? Imagine my morning that I just described for you, with two children to feed, and clothe, and bathe? These stupid ass thugs are going around beating up homeless people for sport in front of police officers and nobody gives a fuck because it doesn’t affect their lives, right?
Oh but it does Mr. President, sir. It really does. The gays are allowed to get married in some states in this country, right? The illegal Mexicans and illegal immigrants are allowed to receive healthcare and welfare in other states, right? And I can legally fire up a joint just by showing a Medical Marijuana card, right? Well then I ask, are homeless people not citizens of this country? Do they not deserve to be treated with the fairness and same rights as say, a pot-smoking, gay, illegal Mexican? Why don’t the police PROTECT and SERVE the homeless too instead of disregarding us and shooing us off as if we don’t matter?
Don’t they know that all of us aren’t convicted felons, or drug addicts, or mental health patients, and damn near all of us can still legally vote in this country. Yes, we are still taxpayers, on the days we actually can afford to pay for anything. We still have a voice. You would be surprised at how some of us keep a keen eye of what’s going on in the world and we actually vote in every election, local and federal. We are still Americans, whether we’re accepted as part of society or not.
Mr. President
Sir, I am very familiar with the age old rumor that all people of African American decent somehow know each other, and with both of us being Black, we know this silliness not to be true. On the other hand, I am asking that you do consider my race because I am speaking to you as one educated black man to another, so that maybe we will have some relative as kinsman of an understanding.
I do ask that you consider my race when I say that we are lacking Black leaders in this country and even though I’m homeless, those ambulance chasing negros, I- NEED-A-HAIR-CUT Sharpton and I’M-A-REVEREND-WITH-A-BABY-MAMA Jackson do not represent or speak for me. I am asking that you take heed of my story and imagine yourself in my position and what actions you would take if you were me and faced with the choices I’ve had to endure.
I am asking that as a man, not just a black man, but in the spirit of humankind too, that you not turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to a problem that this country seems to ignore, let alone does it seem to have has a proper defense against. I know you have a full plate Mr. President Sir. Hell, we live in the best damned country in the world with subpar health care, a fucked up economy, and an expensive ass, never ending war. Our education system and parents are failing, as kids are dumb as shit and are being bullied to the point of suicide and organizing school shootings. Our political system is failing as you can now pay to win an election or to be a candidate, even if you have no clue what the issues are. We’re fighting a so called, “war on terror”, an invisible “war on drugs”, and a non-existent “war on poverty”.