Nights 1, 2, and 3, PART III: A Typical Day of Homelessness in New Haven (Prison Lite)

When I left New Haven, I didn’t think I would return. I figured I would meet up with my girlfriend in Hartford, spend a week there, make some money editing and writing documents for companies I found on Craig’s List, and then head off for a long pilgrimage to see my family and reclaim my identity. But it turned out I just didn’t have the time to work while I was “getting to know” the girl I had known via email for seven years. She and I had much to learn about each other, even though we had exchanged millions of words over the years. After an emotional roller coaster of a week, she made off for New Mexico to work in her museum, and I contemplated my next move.

After losing my wallet and finding it and realizing I had just hit rock bottom and that up was the only way I could go, I decided the best thing to do was go into downtown Hartford and walk around a bit first, before returning to New Haven with my tail between my legs. I had $26 and some change on me. One man I met on the street told me all about a homeless shelter in Manchester, accessible from Hartford by city bus. I asked him if he knew of any work I could score today and get paid at the end of the shift. All he could do was point me to the McDonald’s across the street. Believe it or not, I went in and applied. In the Address section I wrote my former New Haven address. I didn’t know what else to write. Ultimately I decided Hartford was fine and it could support me, but because I already knew the New Haven underground to an extent, I opted to drop twelve bucks on the Peter Pan bus ticket back to old New Haven.

I arrived back into town and headed for Cafe 9, my old poetry hangout. I used to go there every Monday and perform poetry and rap. Today was a Wednesday, and I planned to go there and use their wireless Internet connection to communicate with my girlfriend and whatnot. When I walked in, my computer fanatic friend and confidant Brian was there to greet me. He bought me a beer, I told him my story up to that point, and we just sat and shot the bull. At one point he offered me a job with his company, but it turned out that was just the beer talking, because he never returned any of my subsequent Skype calls. Maybe the calls didn’t go through; Skype can be dicey. I refrained from asking Brian or anyone else for sanctuary; pride dictated that I would only let strangers help me.

I made my way to Koffee Too, a collegey hangout on the Yale campus. Ran into a pissed off old homeless guy who washes windows and does odd jobs for the businesses in and around the Broadway shopping area. I asked him where the shelter is and how I can get in. The only advice he had for me was “Don’t go to the shelter. Don’t go to the shelter.” Apparently he had had some bad experiences there. I didn’t care. I needed a roof. It was cold outside and the time was approaching midnight.

I asked another beggar for confirmation information about shelter, and he suggested I stop a cop and tell them I need emergency shelter for the night. As if summoned, a squad car pulled around the corner. I flagged it down.

“Yes?” said the cop.

“I need emergency shelter for the night.”

“Okay, let me pull over and get out of traffic.”

“Okay.”

I stood and waited amongst the college crowd coming in and out of Toad’s Place, the big venue for touring acts that come through New Haven. The officer called over to Emmanuel Baptist, got me the go-ahead to arrive late (after the 11 p.m. curfew), and I made off for the place with everything I own on my back and towed behind me in my suitcase.

I walked in. All the lights were off except for those illuminating the front desk. Behind a Plexiglass panel sat a thuggish-looking African American gentleman. I said to him, “I need shelter.”

“What the hell are you doing coming in here this late? You’re supposed to be in by 11 p.m. You ever been here before?”

“No, this is my first time,” I replied. “I asked a cop for shelter and he called here to see if you had room.”

“You’ll have to take a cot.”

“That’s fine.”

“Okay, fill out this form.”

I sat down behind the desk and filled it out: Name, Social Security number, birth date, age. Reason for homelessness. Any drug problems, been homeless before? Where did you come from, what city? Emergency contact number.

I listed my dad for that last item.

“Do I have to fill out the last name and Social Security number sections?” I asked another black man named Jermaine. He explained in friendly tones that yes, I had to fill them out, since I’ll be asked that information each and every subsequent time I check in. That’s how they single out individuals who have broken the rules and were barred from entering the shelter. I introduced myself and he shook my extended hand.

“Mind if I grab some of that bread on the table?” I asked.

“Yeah, help yourself.”

The darkened room was full of men sleeping, or at least resting silently, on couches and cots. In the corner there was a door through which I could see a small portion of the main sleeping quarters, full of beds (about 75 of them). I was in the overflow room, the lobby that also served as mess hall and game room during the evenings before lights out. I slid my suitcase under the cot, all the way to the wall, and placed my backpack under where my head would be. I silently vowed to go for the jugular of anyone who happened to dare touch me or my belongings. I sat down in the dark and ate my bread. Jermaine came over and passed me some peanut butter crackers and a bologne sandwich with a slice of cheap “American” cheese. All this food was delicious to me. I polished off every last crumb and lay down.

It took me two hours to fall asleep. I was trying to keep one eye open for thieves. If someone moved, I moved. If someone got up to go to the bathroom, I opened both eyes, tracing the shuffling silhouette like a sniper. At one point, Jermaine walked over to the TV and turned it on, keeping the volume low but loud enough to keep a waking man awake. The Nature Channel. I don’t remember what animals they were, but I fell asleep to those sounds.

Two hours later it was 6 a.m. and the men were already starting to wake up. By 7 a.m. all the lights were on and I was packed up to go. I didn’t have to put my jacket and shoes and hat on; I had slept in them. I followed a trickle of outgoing traffic into the street from whence I’d come. There in the dawning Thursday I stood with men of all ages, sipping my coffee out of a little Styrofoam cup. Black men, white men, Hispanic men, all mingling without regard to color. One India Indian, who is a born-again Christian. Maybe a couple other major ethnicities, and certainly many subcategories of Human. None of the she-males were there, but I did see one a few nights later, sleeping on a bed. Amazing that they can feel safe here. Young men, old men, and every age in between. Demographics fall short of explaining tragedy. There is no pattern to where it might occur.

Off I went down the street, heading for the coffee shops and the WiFi signals they represent to me.

Thus began my stay at the Grand Avenue Hotel, the Reservation, the Den of Thieves, the Emmanuel Baptist Emergency Shelter Management Services main headquarters, the place where dozens upon dozens of men sleep every night of their lives, and where many more sleep only on occasion. The shelter is one of a handful in New Haven. The other popular one is Columbus House, but the residents of the Den of Thieves speak very lowly of it, comparing it to being in prison. They should know. Many of them have done hard time. The rules at Emmanuel Baptist are strict enough as it is.

You already know about curfew. You have to check in by 11 p.m., but they open their doors at 4 p.m., and it’s a very good idea to get there as early as 2 p.m. to wait in line and thus garner first dibs on the showers while they are still freshly cleaned. Otherwise you have to stand in the dirty water of dozens of hard street people. It’s nearly impossible to get perfectly clean, but you do your best. Shower room privacy is almost as scant as it is in the sleeping quarters. Privacy is in fact the one luxury I miss the most.

During the early evening, you get settled. Take your shower. It’s required upon entrance, and although the paid staff doesn’t keep strict tabs on that, most of the “clients” appreciate the opportunity to clean off the day’s filth. Homeless life is, in many ways, much more active than a life of working. Social services are strewn all throughout the city, so you end up walking a lot, and the meal times at the various soup kitchens occur like clockwork. A typical day might encompass walking to one side of the city for breakfast, making your way to the other side of the city for an appointment with a case worker so you can grab bus passes or drug counseling appointments are whatever you need, trekking back to the other side of the city but a different venue for lunch, over to Labor Ready or Temporary to follow up on your employment application for some day labor and same-day cash, and finally back to the shelter. Other stops might include hitting up your favorite local street grapevine to get the latest news on deaths in the underground family, checking out the weather forecasts for deciding whether your next day’s plans are a viable proposition, grabbing a nap on a park bench, bumming cigarettes and begging for change, stopping off at the free clothing drop-off, and so on. I myself have done much walking, although not necessarily for all of the above examples of activities. My calves are much larger than they were a week ago, and my pectoral muscles have begun taking on the definition they had when I was 20 years old. Homelessness involves real exercise and rigorous maintenance of your schedule. I like to quip, “With unemployment like this, who needs a job?” Showers are therefore a loving godsend.

Once inside and settled into your assigned bed, cot, or couch, and once showered, you might have some spare time to watch one of the three televisions or exchange the latest street news with your assigned neighbors before dinner is served at 6 p.m. Like well trained dogs, we line up, grab paper plates and forks (never any knives, not even plastic – too dangerous?), and accept the day’s slops. To be fair, the food is often quite decent for mass-prepared fare, and sometimes it’s even downright delicious. You might run into lasagna, cream of broccoli soup, Asian salad with peas in the pod, chicken wings, and so on and so forth. The menu is different every night. This level of quality – i.e., not too bad at all, in fact – applies generally to all soup kitchens in the city, whether they be run by the shelters or by the churches and city employees.

After the meal, you have nothing but time on your hands. Try not to disrespect anyone. Don’t start any fights. Don’t use the staff bathroom. Don’t even try to leave the shelter. These trespasses will get you barred from entrance for seven days to a year to life. Just chill. The TV in the front room usually has a basketball game or other sport, or perhaps the news or Law and Order. (Irony, anyone?) The two televisions in the main sleeping quarters, the back room, will both be turned on in a spirit of noisy cooperation, one set to Law and Order, the other set to a movie, perhaps Conan the Barbarian, as they did six nights in a row.

Many of the men opt not to watch TV, instead just falling asleep right after dinner, so they can wake up in time to get in line at the day labor agency at 4:30 in the morning. Other men meander about the sleeping quarters, talking to each other, laughing and cracking jokes. You might see two of the staff members playing round after round of speed chess, the timer set to five minutes; they will completely blow your mind with their brilliance at the game. The Hispanic guys (better known as Spanish, actually) prefer dominoes. Sometimes the staff will intermingle with the inmates-I-mean-clients.

There are “smoke breaks” every hour on the hour, in which the men are allowed outside to smoke for five minutes in the back parking lot. If you open the back door during any other time, you could be barred from entrance into the shelter for seven days. If you are barred entrance from all the shelters in town and you have burned down all the bridges you ever had in the city, you will have to find your way into a jail or a hospital emergency room and sleep sitting up, before someone kicks you out. Otherwise you sleep outside. If it’s winter, you freeze and you die, and the other homeless people will talk about you for the next few days, and that’s your funeral.

Being locked in is not such a bad feeling. Think about it. There are drug dealers in the shelters, and all kinds of drug fiends. If people could come and go as they please, chaos could ensue very quickly. It would become impossible to search everybody coming in, which they usually do at least on a spot-check basis (bags and a bodily pat-down), and more and more contraband would find its way in. I don’t know about you, but the fewer people coming and going from the shelter, the safer I feel in their midst. Not that these are bad people. They’re just street people. Akin to wild animals, they do what they have to do to survive. At the same time, they will readily help you out and get your back for you. If they already have some spare cash on them, they will let you know if your wallet falls out of your pocket while you sleep, rather than taking it. This happened to me one night, and I promised to buy the Good Samaritan a pack of Newports in a gesture of appreciation. He accepted this with a nod and a good-natured fist bump. He knew full well there was a great chance I couldn’t afford the smokes, but I still want to get him back for the good turn he paid me.

Lights are turned out at 10 p.m., and the TVs are generally shut off at 11 p.m. Everyone goes to sleep, if they’re not sleeping already. Things get all quiet and peaceful. You might hear some loud snoring. If it’s a Friday or Saturday night you might hear a couple of guys arguing with each other, one of them drunk, as I witnessed last weekend. Technically, drunkenness will get you barred from entrance into the shelter, but they’ll make exceptions depending on whether they like you.

At 6 a.m. your day starts all over again, and for many it’s like that movie Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray. The same day, over and over again. But is daily repetition and redundancy so different from having a job and a house and a wife and kids and an Overground life? Many people live the same day over and over again, at all strata of the economically-based class system. Some problems are universal, don’t you think?

I urge you not to judge homeless people too harshly. Yes, of course it’s their own fault. Of course my situation is a bed of my own making. I’ll lie in it and take my punches like a man, because I earned this. But it’s very important that you realize how important these people are to society. Many of them have jobs, sometimes two or more. And yes, many of them are drug addicts. Others still are mentally ill and incapable of functioning in society. The other category – the one I’m in – is just guys who have made a few bad mistakes and are currently paying their debt to society. Call it Prison Lite.

Note: Some names have been changed or withheld to protect their identities.

Nights 1, 2, and 3, PART II: Chad

Character sketch: Chad. My former landlord. Lives in the tastefully-decorated basement of the apartment I rented near the corner of George and Howe Streets in New Haven. 41 years old. Flaming gay black dude with a paunch and a cheap bronze grill (a few front tooth caps). Brooklyn, born and raised, ten siblings. Accent is a hybrid of ghetto tough and queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy. Has lived in New Haven for 15 years and owned his house for ten. Used to work at Ikea in the kitchen display section until he was fired a few months ago. Now does very little but hang out with very young ‘hoods (18, 19, early-twenty-some years old), who pleasure him in exchange for money and sanctuary from whatever life they lead. Knows how to navigate both the ‘hood and the bureaucratic Overground.

Up until I fell behind on rent, Chad and I were on good terms. We were chummy, and would crack jokes, and I would leave him to his little life of debauchery. He respected my space and I never had a problem with him. Before I fell behind on rent, Chad and all his tenants (all black, making me the token white resident), really appreciated my rap stylings, and would on occasion request a live performance on the front porch. I always obliged happily. The woman on first floor, Sue (50-something, Section 8 renter, has a boyfriend of Puerto Rican Chicago jailbird origin) especially liked my poetry. Last July 4th we had a barbecue party in the back yard; my white friends and their black family members and friends mingled politely and had a nice time. All was good.

My former girlfriend moved out of the apartment in January of this year. We used to split rent. So now I was stuck with an $800/month burden, and I did everything I could to pay it, along with all of my other regular bills, most of which were in arrears. Chad brought in someone to be my roommate so I could catch up; I thought this was very generous and proactive of Chad, and I have nothing but gratitude for his patience and willingness to work with me. The roommate paid his fair share and respected me and smoked his “L” every morning and every evening. (An L is a long, skinny marijuana cigarette crafted of a hollowed-out cigar, in case you don’t know. For any teetotalers who might be reading this: it’s completely harmless. But let’s not debate, OK? It’s irrelevant, and for what it’s worth, no, I’m not into pot or any other drugs, whether they be synthetic or organic.) Things were peaceful still, and the roof over my head looked salvageable.

Then the karaoke lyrics editing job ran out. At almost the exact same time, all my financial and work-related karma returned to me. As I said in a previous post, I lost my cell and land line phones, my hardwire Internet connection, and finally my electricity. I received a notice from Chad on my door – the initial “Summons” or Step One in the eviction, formally known as “Summary Process”. It gave me six days to leave the apartment. Talk about short notice. He had previously expressed no desire whatsoever that he would like me to vacate. I protested, arguing that six days was not enough, and that the stated date of departure was the exact same day as when my girlfriend was going to be coming to visit me for a week in New Haven. It was the worst possible timing for my admittedly deserved comeuppance. “Give me one more week, I pleaded.” Chad wouldn’t budge. He told me the police would come and arrest me and throw my things onto the street in six days if I wasn’t out by then, but I had a feeling he couldn’t legally kick me out on six days’ notice. I thought it had to be at least 30 or even 90 – regardless of his moral rights. I was behind on rent. But I had nowhere to go on six days’ notice, and the prospect that I would not have a place for my girlfriend to sleep when she got into town just killed me inside. I repeated my protests to no avail.

It was at this point Chad started losing his marbles. As his house was up for review by the City, Section 8 was sending him no money for floors One and Two of his apartment. As previously stated, he was fired from his management job at Ikea. That left him with no income but my roommate’s $100 a week. Chad got desperate.

On March 13th, 2007, I knocked on Chad’ door.

“Who is it!” he bellowed.

“Will!” I shouted, so he could hear me downstairs in the basement where he lived.

“What do you want!”

“I’m staying in the apartment for an extra week,” I replied, and started to walk away. He emerged from the house, looked me in the eye, and said, “This is the kind of sh** that will get you seriously f***ed up.”

“What do you mean, f***ed up?” I demanded.

“I mean violently f***ed up,” he replied. “Like in the hospital f***ed up. I can do it myself or someone else will do it.” Fist to palm he pounded, drilling holes in me with his eyes from six inches away. I stood my ground.

“I’m going to the police and telling them you threatened me.”

“Fine. You do what you do. I’ll do what I do. Don’t touch my f***ing door.” In he went.

“Don’t lay a finger on me,” I shouted after, and took off for the Housing Clerk’s office, located in the courthouse on the Green.

The housing clerk gave me a copy of the Tenant’s Guide to Summary Process (Eviction) (PDF format), satisfactorily answered all my questions, and suggested I go to the police regarding Chad’ threat. She assured me I had the legal right to stay in the apartment until the case was heard before a judge, and that the landlord would go to jail if he touched me. “Thanks,” I said, and took off for the police department.

Unfortunately, the police department was too busy to file my complaint. The FBI had just the day before performed a sting operation and caught some crooked cops red-handed in taking bribes from crack dealers. The cops were in no mood to hear about my physical safety; everybody’s job was on the line at headquarters. I turned around and left.

I was supposed to meet my girlfriend at the Bradley airport outside of Hartford in two days – the exact same day I was supposed to be out of the apartment, according to Chad’ first notice. March 15th. The Ides of March. That’s when Julius Ceasar’s good buddy stabbed him in the back. Perfect timing. Ultimately, I decided that Chad meant business and that the law had nothing to do with ghetto codes of honor. If I didn’t leave, I’d probably end up in a wheelchair, a coma, or a coffin. Worse yet, I could have pulled a Raskolnikov (see Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoyevsky) and landed in prison. I opted for homelessness.

I packed my backpack and huge suitcase hastily. Laptop computer, battery charger, headphones, microphone. Cell phone (off but with important phone numbers stored inside) with the charger. Assorted toiletries, paperwork, old bills, keepsake birthday cards and other little mementos, the little gifts my girlfriend sent me for my birthday. Clothes, a box of bank checks. Soup kitchen schedule, other helpful information. Phone numbers and other contact info like email address and websites. An umbrella. My head, my heart, my body.

Everything else was left behind. I didn’t care about the bed, the dresser, the desk. The love seat and the chairs and the stool – no big loss. My books and CDs, my small collection of small household tools in a bucket, assorted knickknacks, the clothes and blankets I couldn’t carry, all my pots and pans and silverware and ceramics and everything. I didn’t feel bad about them. I even sold my mint condition 4-in-1 printer/scanner/copier/fax to a guy on Craig’s List for a paltry $17. Fine. No big whoop. I’ll let them go.

What I really felt bad about was leaving my former girlfriend Robin’s art behind, as well as the guitar that my brother gave to me in late 2004, making me promise to “keep it in the family.” I turned to a great friend, Moyer, with whom I share a downright spiritual love of hip hop, and asked him to take the art and guitar, and love and care for those items in stewardship. He accepted the charge with a solemn vow to keep them safe. Moyer and I, along with my roommate and the roommate’s brother JD had one last ceremonial cigarette. We said our said our goodbyes. I turned around and walked down the stairs.

On the way out, I approached Chad, who was standing on the curb next to ever-diplomatic Moyer, and I cracked this joke: “Can you give me a ride to the bus station?”

Moyer laughed. Chad didn’t. “No!” was all he said, averting his eyes. Off I went down the street, shaking a fist of solidarity at Moyer, who returned the gesture. I didn’t think I would ever return to New Haven.

Note: Some names have been changed or withheld to protect both them and me.