On a bus today, a white man sat across from me, and for some strange reason, handed me a homemade bracelet and proceeded to start up a conversation. Someone else was sitting beside him, but he chose me to tell his life story to. I couldn’t hear very much of it, but I did catch bits and pieces. And I really don’t believe this actually happened because mental illness among the homeless is real, but on the off chance that his story is true, I’ll tell it as I heard it from him.
He told me that at the age of seven, he went over to his cousin’s house, whom he felt deep affection for, and when he went inside the kitchen, he found his cousin, sitting at the table with a .45 caliber weapon still clutched in her hand, her brains were splattered everywhere and beside her on the kitchen table, was a half full bottle of bourbon.
He just stood dumbfounded and frightened. Finally, he called his dad and told him what he had found, and his dad told him to take everything of value out of the house so that those piece of shit relatives of his cousin, didn’t get their hands on it. He told me that his dad also said to him, “Bury the body.”
Now, remember, this dude says that he was a mere seven years old at the time, had just found his dearly beloved cousin with her brains splattered all over the kitchen and he was told by his dad to steal stuff and bury the body. What this man told me he did was to go find some gasoline and then he set the entire house on fire. When his dad arrived, his dad asked him why he had torched the place. He told his dad that he was not strong enough to bury the body. When his dad found him, he was sitting on top of a sawed-off tree trunk, drinking the rest of the bourbon that was left over from his cousin’s bottle. This was the start of a downward spiral of alcohol and drugs, up to present day, and through many years of inpatient and outpatient rehab and back to drink and drugs. He has never gotten over it.
After that, he took to raising hunting dogs and he told me that one day, he woke up and there was blood all around him. One of the hunting dogs had gone hunting and had savaged a multitude of animals and dragged them back to him. Back to rehab, he went.
This man went on and on and on in that vein and all I could do was stare in open-mouthed dismay. Of course, I handed him some money and told him that I was going to write about his “story” since I showcase the homeless and like to make it personal because people really just don’t care anymore.
People have often told me that I have something that just draws them to me. I can be sitting out on the street, waiting for a bus and someone will walk pass me and then come back, break down in tears, and tell me how their brother died 10 years ago that day, and they just needed someone to talk to. I was that person. I am always that person. I just wish that I had what it takes to really help people. Maybe I am helping in my own unique and special way, and I just don’t know if I have touched someone in a special way with the gift that I seem to have for drawing people to me. It’s been that way all my life.
As much as I rail against whites and damn near everyone else, when I am out and about, it matters not if the person is white, Black, Mexican or what, if I see them in need, they get a meal and/or money from me, as well as a listening ear. Sometimes, that is all that people need; just to know that someone is willing to really SEE them, listen to them and care.
I have a serious potty mouth on this blog. I am completely aware of that and the reason for that is because this is MY outlet for when I have reached MY limit and in here, I can go off the deep end and who does it really hurt? No one really, because those whom I meet on the streets they know the real me, the caring, kind, thoughtful, compassionate and empathetic me. They don’t get the vitriolic virago who writes this blog. They never get that. I would not subject them to that because as I always call the homeless since I was recently among their number, the “low places” friends. “All of my friends are in low places.” That is where I met many of the people whom I now call, “friend,” out on the streets, in low places.
I can’t make any of you who read this blog of mine, care about the people I write about or showcase on this blog, but I am going to write their stories. I am going to showcase the faces of the homeless because they are not just some stinking, piece of hopeless flotsam, drifting about; they are human beings, just like you, who happen to not have a home. But, once, they too, had a home, however, due to circumstances, they no longer have a home. And dude on the bus told me that the only problem he would ever have with anyone is if he saw them hurting someone, other than that, he does not judge people.
There are so many people like this ‘dude on a bus’ that I have met, have shed tears of rage over the fact that we leave people out on the streets to die, and we don’t even care. Thankfully, though, there are bus drivers who will give these people free rides because oftentimes when they get up on the bus, they ask the driver if they can get a courtesy ride, the driver usually says, “Yes.” If the driver says, “No,” when I’m on the bus, I pay for their ride. Am I wealthy? Y’all know the answer to that, but as long as I have some money on me, if a homeless person needs bus fare, they got it. If they need a meal, they got it.
When I was homeless for eight months, I never begged. I was too stubborn and despite being broke as shit, hungry as hell, I would go days on end without touching a morsel of food or drink, but I survived. One day, I was at Weis Food Market, picking up some water and a few items of food to take back to my hotel, and the water was so heavy, I dropped it on the floor, sighed and bent down to pick it up and a voice said, “I got you!” It was a white lady coming towards me from the other end of the aisle. She bent down and picked the water up, placed it on my walker and asked me if she could give me a ride home. I broke down and cried because I had to tell her that I was homeless and that thankfully, for the next few nights, I was able to afford a hotel. She told me to wait by the exit door for her after I had checked my groceries out and she drove me back to the hotel. She gave me the name and number to her church and told me that she hoped to see me there on Sunday. Of course, I never went since I don’t believe in organized religion. But I will never forget her doing something nice for me.
Another lady saw my homeless signs that I had made to showcase homelessness and she came up to me and asked me if she could buy me lunch, I thanked her profusely and told her that even though I was now ‘housed’, I was on the streets protesting with my signs to bring awareness of the plight of the homeless to the attention of the masses. I still go out on those streets with my signs. Every dime that someone hands me, even though I tell them that I am not panhandling and that I am just trying to keep the fact that mass homelessness is more of an epidemic than people think, I give it back to the homeless. But that’s me.
And so, I told this dude’s story, as much of it as I could catch since a bus is loud and I couldn’t quite catch it all. He told me his name and even though I asked for it again, and he told me, I just couldn’t quite catch it. But I hope he knows that I will never forget him, just as I will never forget any of those whom I met when I was homeless and in my current endeavors to bring the plight of the homeless to the forefront. I will never stop, and it is not just because I could be in that same predicament again since I have been homeless more times than I can shake a stick at, it is because I care!
Be Me Day After Day!
I long for warmth and a touch
from another human being.
I’ve been alone for far too long,
and my humanity is fleeing.
I’ll soon be like an animal.
I’m headed down that route.
I’ve seen so many lose their mind.
there go I, without a doubt.
But I live just like an animal,
when I forage around for food,
and settle down in doorways.
In my pants, the shit has oozed.
I’ve not the niceties of life.
This is my reality.
Can you stomach what I do?
I’ve got no time for pleasantry.
Did you think I’d stay the same,
when I’m outdoors, night and day?
How would you feel if you were me,
just what would people say?
If I’m not human, neither are you,
when your pets are cared for more.
They’re not put out on the streets.
Nor are they ever shown the door.
Will you stop and just consider,
that I shouldn’t live this way?
Can you imagine what it’s like,
to be me, day after day?
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland
I am also going to add this. When I was coming back home, the bus passed by a stop that has been closed for over a month, and at that bus stop, were dozens of what looked like folks from south of the border. Those people were congregated at a bus stop as though they had no place to go. Buses have been instructed NOT to stop at that particular bus stop anymore and what’s troubling is that this particular bus stop was one of the most used bus stops in the area. One street over from that bus stop is this!
A homeless encampment that has a majority Black population. So, those south of the border, who have come here in hopes of finding a land of ‘milk and honey’, are afraid to congregate in homeless encampments of those who’ve been homeless here for decades. We’ve got segregated homeless encampments.
The picture below is a homeless encampment of mostly Native Indians. I guess soon, those from south of the border will manage to find a spot and throw up a homeless encampment. The situation is beyond sad for ALL groups.
So, folks, as the poem goes, “Be ‘them’ day after day.” Could you stomach it? Could you survive? Could you maintain your mental health? I hope you never have to find out if you could or not.