New Blog

This blog’s on life support. I’m not homeless anymore. It makes no sense to keep posting here. So I started a new blog: Man of Many Words. It’s just stories and things. Real stuff. My life. Your life. This place. People, animals, weather. Books and cars, breathing and giving. Homeless in New Haven will eventually morph to become purely a reference and resource center for folks who need help in and around New Haven. Frankly, I would like to get this blog so refined in that sense that it should become a model for other cities as well. Homeless in New York, Homeless in Albuquerque, Homeless in Minneapolis, Homeless in every place you can be homeless. And that’s everywhere.

Now what about rural homelessness? That’s something I know nothing about. Why doesn’t somebody start a blog about living in the sticks homeless? I’d like to hear about that.

Meanwhile, I’ve got work to do. Check out the new page on this blog titled Resources. There are only three items there, without explanation, as of today. Look for a soup kitchen schedule, a list of shelters, a handy survival guide, places to get free clothing and bus passes, information about family services,free legal counsel, and so on and so forth. If you have any information in that regard, feel free to send it to me at qualitywritingprofessional@inbox.com.

As for my new blog, you will notice there is a donation button. “What a minute,” my regular readers will say. “Didn’t you say you were going to stop asking for donations out of respect for those who need it most?” Yes I did. The reason I am putting a donation button on the other blog is because it makes no claims that I am desperate. To put one on this blog, the homeless one, would be a mite disingenuous. Don’t get me wrong: I ain’t rich. I’m still pretty “poor”. I need money. I am a writer and I need money and I am grateful for whatever anybody can swing. But as always, I write primarily to give people a pleasurable reading experience, so if you don’t want to or simply cannot give me any money, please relax and just read. I hope you’ll enjoy the stories found there.

Happy reading.

Bellissa and Faith

I walked out of the shelter and hefted my suitcase into the back seat of Bellissa’s truck. Together we rode towards Rudy’s.

“I have to ask you this,” Bellissa was saying. “Are you on any drugs?”

“Nicotine,” I replied.

“OK. So, nothing? Because if you need any kind of counseling, any kind of treatment, I’ve got hookups in that department too. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of in that regard too, if that’s the case.”

“No drugs, no nothing. Just me and my karma.”

“OK.”

We ordered our burgers and fish sandwiches (me the former, vegetarian-esque she the latter) and one Schaffer beer each. Bellissa paid. I was grateful. The Wednesday night Rudy’s crowd was a decent size. We talked about moving me into her spare room for awhile, and about what I can do for her in exchange and for how long it should go on. I would move a gigantic pile of sticks and branches from one part of her backyard to another. I would crush and destroy the bamboo-like weeds that had taken over one corner of the yard. I would put together her new entertainment center, install “grippy tape” on the front steps to reduce the chance of someone slipping, and help to unpack a room full of boxes and distribute their contents around the house where they belong. The latter is the only one I never got around to, because it turned out I was out of there and into my own place in a week.

Meanwhile, Bellissa drove me around, bought me lunches and dinners, introduced me to her friends and brothers and her basement roommate, talked with and counseled me about my options for the immediate and near future, and took my thousand thanks gracefully, eventually asking me to stop thanking her. I couldn’t help it. Although I was helping her out around the house, I still felt that yanking me out of the shelter and putting me up for a week was a true gift. She was, and continues to be, a true friend. We laughed, we hung out, we even drank and made merry one night around a bonfire in her backyard. The fire burned an invisible igloo of warmth in the still, cool air of the opening days of April as we sipped on Bud and nipped at a small bottle of Southern Comfort. I felt completely at ease in her presence, yet also oddly responsible and productive.

I continued the blog from her place and considered my plans. Ultimately the blog drew forth a number of Good Samaritans (much like paramedics to a crash site) who offered all measure of things helpful: money, jobs, housing, food and coffee outings for discussing life and its vicissitudes, kind sentiments and powerful words of encouragement. The blog also drew forth a some chastisement from old friends who I had wronged at one point and with whom I had not yet made amends. Even that was OK, as it just felt good to be reaching out and talking to everybody.

Two people expressed doubt that I had ever been homeless. I felt immensely complimented and encouraged to hear that I was just “a professional writer riding a trend” of homelessness and poverty in the literary and pop culture arenas.

Perhaps I never made myself sound desperate enough. Maybe my positive attitude in the face of hardship wasn’t typical. Certainly I was not living in the shelter for very long, but now wait just one minute, fellas. I have known poverty all my life. I grew up on Section 8 housing and welfare checks and grossly early Social Security benefits. When I was little, my mother and I usually had enough money left over for a Friday night donut date at the kitchen table. Silently, gratefully, and full of mischievous giggling, we slurped our half a donut each by candlelight. Dunked into milk sopping wet dripping. This was our treat for the week. I’m grateful for the donut memories.

Welcome to the story of my life: not having much, being resourceful, trying not to think like a poor person, being a chronic spendthrift when you get a few extra bucks in your pocket, only to find yourself broke in a few days and having to pawn something or ration the milk. Fine. Not so bad. Have you ever heard me complain?

Bellissa related the story of how she once asked a poor old man, Rawls, a jazz saxophone player, why he would spend $200 out of his $300 monthly government cheese on a handheld DVD player.

“When you’ve been poor your entire life,” explained Rawls, “you really are not interested in counting your pennies. If you get a little extra cash, you want to get something nice for yourself. You just want to feel normal, like other people.” And then you’re broke for days or weeks and you have to beg people for food. That’s thinking like a poor person. Again: welcome to my world.

One of the Good Samaritans who responded to my blog, Faith is her name, offered to put me up in an efficiency apartment in her house in exchange for 20-30 hours a week of work around the house. I could choose the jobs as I find things that need doing – raking, picking up trash, doing dishes, general cleaning, painting the unfinished woodwork around the window sills – what-have-you. It would also include feeding the stray cat, Squeak is his name, “because I want you to learn how to take care of something other than yourself,” Faith intoned in all seriousness. That sounded great, so I took the efficiency.

And that’s where I am now. I have a cozy little room – not too little, but little – enough room for walking loose figure eights, a writerly pace of pondering – with my own bathroom and kitchen. This is more than I could have ever hoped for, especially on a work exchange basis. The house is situated right off the New Haven Harbor, which is an inlet off the Long Island Sound, which is an inlet off the Atlantic Ocean. I can open my side door and see saltwater. It comes in violently in big tumultuous waves when it rains all day, like it did three days ago, but when the weather is stiller sits patiently in the cold early April breeze, lapping the shore like a stray tabby cat to its stairway water dish.

Is this the place where I can write my Great American novel about how I am not Great at all, hardly even consider myself an American in the popular sense of the word? There is seclusion and solitude here; Faith, ever faithful, assures me the place is well protected by His divine love. I can write my life and my memories and my nows and forevers, and I can take a bus or walk an hour into town for a little social healing, a healing I need so badly.

But it’s the solitude I love. No sirens can be heard. No nighttime ambulances in a steady procession towards the Yale New Haven Medical Center, almost on top of which I lived when I was over at George and Howe, before I was evicted on sincere threat of violence.

No. This place is peace, here in my “kingdom by the sea”. So I’m grateful, I’m not homeless, and I’m ready to move forward in life. Tell me, please: Is that so boring?

Note: Some names were changed to avoid drama.

Every Day: Character Sketch: Joe

Character sketch: Joe. About 50. Pissed off and in pain all the time. Washes windows for ten, fifteen bucks per business (Au Bon Pain, Koffee Too, etc.), if he can get the manager to sympathize and pay out-of-pocket on a personal basis. Someone stole his tools a month back, he laments, pissed off. Sometimes sleeps in doorways. I saw him on Palm Sunday in the rain in the dark in the town, covered with a black trash bag with holes cut out for the arms and neck.

“Hey man,” I called after him. He turned around.

“Hey man, how you doin’?” He normally doesn’t ask. Curious. We walked together.

“Hanging in there, hanging in there. You?”

His first word in response to that question is always the same:

“Terrible. My whole body hurts. I am in such pain.” It was the rain, doing a number on his various injuries, magnifying them to a brittle, shill crescendo of seeming breaking and accursed, acute specificity. He demonstrated his bastardized bones, first by gripping his jaw in two hands and wrenching it to the side so that a cracking, crunching sound was made, like a sabotaged factory machine. Spectacular.

“Oh my God,” I grimaced. “What happened?”

“Fell off the Coliseum.”

(He was referring to the New Haven Coliseum, before it was demolished early this year. The Brutalist structure was a sports arena and concert venue for the more world-famous touring acts that came through New Haven. The thing was ugly as hell, but many memories were made there. People mourned its demise. When the engineers set charges to it and brought it to the ground in an instant, the crowds cheered from rooftops, parking lots, roadsides, apartment windows. Channel 8 televised the Coliseum’s last performance. The explosions clapped in succession – clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! followed by a couple of thunderous booms! as the load-bearing concrete and steel pounded to the ground. A dust cloud bloomed brown like a dirty cauliflower and evaporated toward the Harbor in moments. Cameras flashed like a parade of paparazzi. I was there for it, because building demolitions are a minor interest of mine, due to studying a certain political event that must remain nameless here for reasons of irrelevance.)

The Coliseum had demolished Joe. Here in the rain he showed me his missing ribs on his right side and the deformed ridge of a bone on the bridge of his nose, glaring fiercely at me for emphasis.

I commented on his trash bag, “I see you’ve gotten creative with keeping the rain off.”

“Gotta be smart out here to stay alive. Remember my old shoes? All full of holes. Feet got soaked. These ones,” he lifted a foot to show me, “cost two hundred dollars new. I got ‘em for free. I’m on my way to tell ‘em I stole ‘em.”

“What? Nah, man, don’t do that. Don’t do that. You need the shoes.”

“I gotta tell ‘em.”

“What. Why. You trying to get right with God?”

“I’m right with God, been right with him for years.”

“So, what. Stealing is wrong, so you’re gonna go shoot yourself in the foot by turning yourself in? Don’t you have enough problems as it is?”

“I gotta tell ‘em.” The combination of desperation and honesty and momentum are what keep this man down, it occurred to me then.

We walked on and paused under the light and shelter of the awning outside Gourmet Heaven, an overpriced health food store, as the nearby church bells clanged the commencement of the 10:00 p.m. Compline service at Christ Church. We discussed the evils of the Grand Avenue Hotel.

“Get out of there! That place is infested with over-the-counter illegal drugs. You better pray nobody ditches their stash in your suitcase when the cops finally come to bust that whole place and burn it to the ground.”

“I’ll get out ASAP,” I assured him. I didn’t mention I had already gotten out a couple of days earlier and was staying with my dear friend Patty in Milford for a week. Joe and I bid our fare-thee-wells. He headed off into the rain. I headed off to Compline, out of sheer curiosity and to meet Patty and a few others to sit together in silence. Not being a Christian, I took the experience in its raw form, devoid of context, for my virgin eyes and ears only, and that’s the best way to do things, in my big opinion.

In the church – the same one that has fed me a dozen times – it was cold and dark but lovingly candlelit. Incense permeated the air like campfire. I inhaled the dirty sweetness. All you could see were black silhouettes, mostly just shoulders and heads in the chairs. I sat in the darkness and clasped my hands together in thoughtless meditation as the choir, unseen, hidden in the rafters or the walls or, ostensibly, meant to be emanating directly from heaven, opened up their steady repertoire of liturgical Gregorian chant or whatever it is. I listened to each song and sat and silently thanked the architects of this large building with the vastly arched interior, and wondered at the guys in the black robes – priests? monks? students? What were they? I just sat and breathed and tried to listen for that perfect silence I did not know I had been craving up until that very moment, that moment preceded by the occasional, lonely, echoing cough or a leather jacket squeaking as its wearer shuffled into a slightly more comfortable position in the hard wooden chairs, and then I found it. That perfect silence, as the choir’s sung rendition of the Our Father drew to a close, and, yes, you could have heard a pin drop, or your own heartbeat, or John Cage’s 4’ 33’’ (in which the tuxedo-bedecked pianist lifts the cover of the keys, sets a timer on the lip of the piano to four minutes and thirty-three seconds, hits the start button, positions his hands over the keys, those keys so full of potential sound, not touching those keys, hovering inches above, oh-so-close, and just sits there perfectly still until the timer runs out, and then silences the alarm, closes the cover to the piano, gets up, and walks out of the concert hall to the rapt applause of the audience, some of whom may “get it”, others of whom may not or may just not give a damn), or, again, your own heartbeat, and you thank God for that heartbeat, that percussion in your chest that signals the continuity of life, the non-stop march of the inner human drumbeat, the one that Joe has, I have, you have, Patty has, our companions have – Peter has, Kevin has, Jason has, J has, Faux Paul has – and those not in attendance, our earthly devils and angels, like my ex-landlord Chad (that devil-angel he), everyone has, while we still walk the earth, and it signifies you are still alive, assures you this is not a dream, and fills you with life and blood coursing through your veins, oxygenating your lungs, the air.

Homeless people have it, beating, beating, breathing, breathing, as they settle down into their shantytown between I-91 and I-95 here in New Haven, where the cop brings blankets in the murderous January wind to save a few lives this winter, Winter, with a capital “W”, and you can’t ignore it when it’s windy and snowy and death surrounds you and you’ve got no place to go and your landlord is but a long lost memory of eviction and responsibility shirked and guilt and regret and the raucous battle to forget the memories, memories as deadly as the cold, and you can’t ignore the cold like you can when you live an Overground life with electricity and walls and emergency candles, candles: a quaint item in a drawer full of loose batteries and extra pens without the caps and you’ve got your hot water – hot water! Praise the Lord! – and the extra blankets for the guests who may never arrive but oh boy could somebody use them tonight, my friends, oh my good Lord could somebody use those blankets tonight, for their hearts beat too, my dear, their hearts beat too for yet precious moments, moments until the candle is extinguished and.

Note: Some names were changed in honor of our universal human right to privacy and sanctity of all things personal.

No Longer Homeless

Dear Readers, Friends, Family, Donors, Acquaintances,

I am no longer homeless. Due to the response I have gotten as a result of this blog, I now have the tools I need to get up and off my feet. I have a somewhat permanent place to live, job prospects, and even a little money with which to get me through to my first paycheck.

I have learned so much from the experience of homelessness. This blog will remain open, so that I can continue to catch you all up on what it’s like on the underground. I have many stories yet to recount. However, I will no longer be asking for donations. As I said in my last post, thank you again to everybody who reached out and helped me.

I also intend to continue to compile information and resources for homeless people who might happen upon this blog. One might ask how a homeless person could even read this blog. To that person I would say, “Welcome to the Age of Information.” You might have heard the jokes or seen a comedy sketch about the guy who lives in a cardboard box but owns a cell phone, PDA, laptop, and what-have-you. That would not be too far from the truth. There is also the fact of many Internet kiosks and terminals available at Universities, libraries, and other types of venues. And then there are the people who are doing just fine right now – with a job, a home, plenty of food, and so on – who might read this, fall on hard times sometime in the future, and then be able to refer back to what they read here, so that they might be able to survive and be as comfortable as possible.

I haven’t begun to scratch the surface with regard to posting information about soup kitchens, shelters, bus passes, free clothing, and so on. I am currently working on a new and improved version of the soup kitchen schedule I picked up one hungry day at Community Soup Kitchen at 84 Broadway in downtown New Haven. The changes I am making are designed to improve readability, as well as include updates as far as which soup kitchens are still open, and which are now closed. That will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Again, this blog will remain open, but the purpose of it has changed. More stories to come.

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.

Nights 1, 2, and 3: Prologue: Sweeping up the details for you

As you know, I am a homeless man living in New Haven, Connecticut, the richest state in America. You might have read the blog from bottom to top, wondering why it begins with Night 4. That’s because during the first three nights I was scrambling to survive and gain a foothold in the underground homeless community and navigate the terrain. The following is a chronology to catch you up and hopefully solve any questions you might have about my homelessness and how I got to this point.

It began last year when I first watched an online video documentary about a world event that will remain nameless here, for reasons of irrelevance. I devoted 12 hours a day or more, seven days a week, to studying the aforementioned phenomenon. It hurt me inside like thunder. I cried a lot, my hand over my open mouth, as I read this testimony or that record or viewed this movie or that clip. I learned is that the world was the exact opposite from what I thought it was. Everything I believed was obliterated. It was a lonely and depressing time.

The conclusions and thoughts I formed in that time are not important to me now. The details do not matter. I had to rebuild my world view from the ground up. I decided that family and friends are all that matter.

Yet there I was, failing to reach out to people, ignoring emails and phone calls, isolating. I stopped showing up for work, not even calling in, just letting people hang, skipping band practice, ditching coffee talk appointments, foregoing poetry night at Cafe 9 here in New Haven. My then-girlfriend was so patient, God bless her. I stopped reaching out to her as well. My silence and lack of eye contact tore through her like a hurricane. She moved out of the apartment in January. She’s in Portland, Oregon now, carving out a new niche for herself in the adult care and deli counter sectors of the economy. She’s making a living. Amen.

How could I pick up the pieces? I’m still picking up the pieces. I stopped talking to my sister. My dad and step-mom and mom – they didn’t hear from me for months at a time.

Isolation has always been par for the course for me. It’s what I do. I go away. I hide. I am swallowed by this Muse or that creative endeavor. It tends to destroy me every few years. Do not, however, think for one second that I am some kind of idealist, clicheed artiste. I have a strong marketing background, and can think like a nasty capitalist on occasion. I have offered more than a little advice to businesses that needed saving over the years. Once, I closed a deal that saved an independent newspaper from financial annihilation. If only I could have saved myself too.

Life was very pretty, come 2007. I had a little freelance job with a karaoke company, editing lyrics. I used that money to try and catch up on my cell phone, land line, Internet, and electricity bills. I was trying to play catch-up on my rent. By the time I had lost all but my apartment, I was two months behind on rent. My landlord served me my first eviction notice early this month.

Eviction is a widely misunderstood phenomenon. For those who have never been evicted, here is A Tenant’s Guide to Summary Process (Eviction) in PDF format, published by the State of Connecticut, Judicial Branch, Superior Court. To put it briefly, eviction is a long and drawn out process. You must first be served with an initial notice known as a “Summons” stating when the landlord would like you and your belongings to be gone. He can choose any date he wants. It can be tomorrow. It has to be stamped and signed on the back by a State Marshall. This costs the landlord $35 to process.

But you don’t have to leave. You can stay right where you are, and the law is on your side still. Nobody is legally allowed to touch you or your things. If you are not out by the date the landlord gives in the initial summons, he then has to go to city hall and lay down $150 to file a “Complaint”. This is received on your door as well, or handed to yo in person. In can be either way. Once this second step has occurred, there is a long, drawn-out process in which you have to go to court a couple of times and wait for judgments and so on and so forth. In other words, if you really wanted to be a jerk, you could stay in your apartment for months, and the landlord couldn’t legally do anything to you. Legally.

But legality is not King of the Ghetto. My landlord is, as I have put it before, “Brooklyn to the core”.

Note: Names have been withheld to protect everybody, including me.

Night 6: Another Flashback: Character Sketch: Grace

Grace. In her 70s. Co-host and matrimonial counterpart to Dave, the Taiwanese couple who run America House f.k.a. Mark Twain House youth hostel in Hartford, Connecticut. My beautiful girlfriend and I stayed there March 15th-21st.

Grace’s first words to us: “Hello!” A slight bow, hands cupped together near her waist. “What country?”

“America,” we replied.

Grace served us tea and coffee, compliments of the house. Told us about Soka Gakai, the international association who chants Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Doing so brings peace and happiness, both personally and globally. According to Soka Gakai International – USA:

Soka Gakkai International (SGI-USA) is an American Buddhist association that promotes world peace and individual happiness based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism. Our members reflect a cross section of our diverse American society representing a broad range of ethnic and social backgrounds.

Grace was so enthusiastic and quiet and cute about explaining Soka Gakai. Little lady, thick accent, though she’s lived in America many years. Spoke lovingly about her family. I worked out a deal with her and David to do odd jobs for the hostel: shovel the thick duvet of snow that had fallen one day and thaw-hardened to plastic-shovel-defiant white shale the next; vacuum their entire lobby and stairwell and hallways up to the third and final floor, finishing with the room in which my girl and I were staying; shovel more snow when the street snowblowers strutted fartingly through and nullified the sidewalk shoveling labors of the entire block; and clean out an extremely filthy bedroom on the second floor. That in exchange for a $9/night discount on our $54/night stay rate. I got plenty of exercise as Grace stood by smiling and giggling and watching me put in my honest if meager contribution to the vacation my girlfriend funded mostly all by herself. I had to do it. My girl would have kicked my ass otherwise. Not that I would have minded.

The sweetest thing Grace did for me was when I couldn’t locate my wallet after my girl and I had already checked out. I watched my girl get on the bus, bemoaned and bewailed my fate for a moment, zipped shut my suitcase and towed it back to the hostel.

I rang the bell. I fought to conceal my desperation as I looked up to where Grace stood at the top of the small set of stairs. “I can’t find my wallet,” blurted I. Grace let me ravage my bags in the front veranda (such a lovely veranda, convincing fake plants arrangement and all) in search of my wallet. I emptied out both my backpack and my suitcase twice and found no sign of the missing treasure. She advised I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo while I sought, promising it would help. I did it to calm my nerves. Why not. I booted up my computer and called my girl from my SkypeOut account and had her ravage her bags too and get back to me. She never eventually found it.

Grace let me search the bedroom my girl and I had stayed in. I scanned every square inch of floor, my nose to the ground like a bloodhound, to no avail. I felt I had surely lost my wallet, my precious, precious wallet. If I had left it at the Irish pub the night before, as I suspected, I felt there was no way in hell it would still be there. I bid Grace adieu with as much aplomb as a man without a pot to piss in could muster.

“You wait,” said Grace. She disappeared into the hostel and came back out with three dollars and a small plastic baggy of change and some wisdom. Some kind of cloud lifted from her eyes, and a stern, otherworldly gravity locked my eyes to hers. This was a serious side of Grace I had not seen before. I froze and listened to her loving foreboding:

“I am old woman. I have seen a lot. You are young. You are strong and you are smart. You get yourself good job. You have to be good man for your girlfriend. You get yourself good job and live good life. Chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. When you chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, you get good things coming to you. You are going to be okay.”

When she was finished talking, her sternness melted to a sad smile for me. I looked at her and almost cried, cupping the money she had given me between both hands held chest high, as if in prayer to her. I bowed my chin. “Thank you. Thank you.”

I turned around and walked towards the Irish pub, letting the first warm-cool wind of our first warm day in a wintery week wick my tears away before they could stream down my winterpinked cheeks. I walked towards the Irish pub, rolling that huge case through snow and across streets and down sidewalks and over snowbanks and puddles and rivulets of dirty melt, chanting quietly, not hoping, not believing, just walking.

There it was. The Half-Door Irish pub. I walked in, already resigned to the futility of the act. A middle-aged man at the bar, a young female bartender in a white shirt and black pants.

“I came to pick up a wallet I left here last night,” I said to her, not even sure if I had indeed left it there. Maybe it had evaporated. Maybe God took it away from me to teach me yet another incomprehensible lesson.

The bartendress started looking in the drawer under the register.

I scouted out the first bench my girl and I had sat on the night before, sipping our one cider apiece.

Nothing at the first booth. I moved to the second place we had sat in, a half-booth.

My eye caught a dark space at the edge of the bench I had sat on. Before I could even say “wallet” my hand had darted and snatched the dark space up. I opened it.

The twenty bucks I’d need to eat and buy my bus ticket back to New Haven. My ID, Social Security card, and New Haven library card for emergency Internet access in case I ever lose my laptop; my old University of Minnesota student ID card with the photo of an eighteen-year-old version of me I can still relate to in some ways, if not in his innocence, then at least in his mischief smile; various receipts and little pieces of paper with scrawled phone numbers and email addresses and websites; my bank card, Blockbuster membership card, and CVS pharmacy membership card I had acquired earlier that week to get a discount on the canned soups that my girl paid for; a little stack of other people’s business cards. All there.

Five-second inventory complete, I held the black synthetic canvas wallet up in triumph and expressed my elation to the the bartender and lone afternoon drinker. They were both so happy for me. How could they not be? I had just salvaged my last remaining, pathetic little anchor to The World; my excitement was completely obvious. I towed my suitcase out of there with the strut of a 1970s disco pimp. It was at that moment that everything in my life became perfectly clear to me.

I felt some message had been completed and delivered to me. I felt the whole universe had been telling me the story of my life as I lived it, and the story was a stern tragedy, and the story was now complete, and another one was beginning. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out. I rejoiced at the sight of cars on the road, turning at stoplights and going wherever-the-hell cars go, the little storefronts and nice restaurants. The melting snow all over, the gigantic snowbanks for lifting my suitcase up and over and building more of my upper body strength. I knew more color was coming into my face. I smiled. I looked skyward and laughed a few times, quietly, as I strutted and marched, respectively, strutted and marched, depending on the terrain. I gritted my teeth some too, chin down, eyes forward, my gait straight and sturdy and No-one-can-stop-me-now and Thank-you-God and certain of my future. I was alive, here in this strange land of Hartford, Connecticut, where everything looked the same as anywhere else in Urban America, just arranged differently, and where nobody I knew could be found. My mind began opening up and these words began coming to me a la The Matrix, when all that data just keeps streaming down the screen and you can read it and identify it and know its significance and love it like it was your own creation, and you had to put it all down on cyberpaper because it is your duty and your purpose and your salvation. I realized my luck had reached rock bottom and was now on an upswing.

The luck of the Irish pub.

I made a mental note to call Grace up and tell her I found my wallet. She would be sweet and kind and terse and prescriptive and brief and busy and accented and beautiful like an old woman who has seen a lot in her long life.

I have yet to call her. Why am I holding back?

Night 5, Part Two: Concepts and Concerns in My Experience in Homelessness (A Partial Glossary)

ACC: Ambulatory Containment Console. Big suitcase with wheels. Blue, small rip in near the bottom, telescoping tow handle. I towed that blue monstrosity around town my first two days, then learned I could keep it at the shelter daily, as long as I return the next day. If you leave your allotted one bag on your bed and do not return the next day to claim it, the staff will automatically throw it out during daily maintenance and cleaning procedures. Sometimes they will leave it alone, but a rule is a rule, and if it gets in the way, it’s gone. Three nights ago I saw two guys rummage through the dumpster out back in search of their tossed belongings. They didn’t complain. They knew the rules. Another hazard is that one of the residents will steal or rummage through and select items for themselves to keep.They are good people but they are desperate.

Community Soup Kitchen: A large side room in a church where you can eat lunch five days a week, 11:30 am – 1 pm. The same non-profit organization also serves breakfast at a different location on Saturdays. It is located across from the Barnes and Noble bookstore in the Yalie shopping district of the Broadway crossroads. The staff is paid, not volunteer, and it is the only soup kitchen where second helpins are not given. This is OK though, because they serve every single day of the week except Sunday.

Curfew: Most shelters have entrance and exit deadlines for each day. At Emmanuel Baptist, you must be in the shelter by 11 pm to get a bed. Even then, you’re not guaranteed entrance, because the place can fill up. However, during the winter months, or whenever the weather is below freezing, if they have room, they will not turn you away if you come in late. It’s a good idea to arrive early if your schedule allows. You can enter as early as 4 pm, but men start lining up at 2 pm. That way you get first dibs on the freshly blast-washed shower room. In the morning, you must be out of the shelter by 7 pm. If you are still in bed at that time, a staff member will most likely say, “You’ve got seven days,” which means you are barred from entrance for a whole week. You’ll have to try and find another shelter, a friend or lover or family member to stay with, or a nice plot of concrete under a bridge or something. You could die of freeze or violence if you sleep outside. Or you could wind up on someone’s private property like Frenchie did (railroad yard) and get charged with trespassing. Therefore, you should probably observe curfew if possible.

Den of Thieves: My name for the Emmanuel Baptist shelter. Upon entering, and when people find out you’re a newbie, they shower you with warnings: Watch your stuff, Hold onto that bag, People will steal that, etc. It’s probably the very same people who give you the advice that do the actual stealing. I’d bet you a dollar on that.

Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK): The most popular night spot for dinner. Its location floats from church to church up and down the one block of Temple Street directly behind the New Haven Free Public Library. Just look for the people going in.

Emergency Shelter Management Services: The name emblazoned in blue over the front doors of Emmanuel Baptist shelter.

Emmanuel Baptist Shelter: The official name of the shelter where I am staying. It is located by the African American projects on Grand Avenue in the Fair Haven section of New Haven. Emmanuel Baptist houses seventy-some beds, plus a handful of cots when the place fills up. The shelter is staffed by black guys predominately in their 30s and 40s, most of whom are gregarious and helpful and command the respect of the men who stay there. The main sleeping quarters appears to be some sort of huge former factory or garage or warehouse; the conversion to a homeless shelter was well done, it appears to me, as the concrete floors are clean and smooth and the temperature control is plenty comfortable. The lobby or lounge area is in the front, with the attendants stationed right by the front entrance to the shelter. I don’t know how long the place has been operating, but I do know it is many years, if not a decade or more. A hot meal is served every day at six. Despite the name, Emmanuel Baptist shelter is funded primarily by city funds.

Family: One of the top three concerns of most homeless people. The other two are jobs and social services.

Frenchie: The nickname of the French expatriot who stays at the shelter. Excerpt from March 25th Character Sketch entry: “‘They call me Frenchie.’ He’s from. Guess. According to Frenchie, he fought in the special forces in Viet Nam, has a 19-year-old son who attends UCLA on a full ride and who he speaks with every day, blames his wife for robbing him of millions of dollars and a gigantic plot of land, took pictures for National Geographic, and has an IQ way higher than 150 (I had guessed 150). He showed me his Medal of Honor. “I had two but someone stole the other.” Frenchie slept on the top bunk adjacent my top bunk my second night on the Reservation, as Frenchie refers to the shelter. He is not too far off base in this playful moniker. Only instead of Indians, we are whites, blacks, hispanics, a Frenchman, and an India Indian. When Frenchie cracks a joke, he laughs at himself heartily and swings a hand out for a sideways high-five with Lawrence or Larry, a black man and Frenchie’s good buddy. Frenchie chatted me up my second night.”

Gary: An aging white guy with bad teeth and a generous spirit. Pours some of his two-liter of Coke into your Styrofoam water cup at the soup kitchens if you ask him. Works at a grocery story in North Haven, a suburb of New Haven. He catches a $23 Greyhound bus and buffet package for the Mohegan Sun casino almost every payday. Usually checks into a room and blows the rest of his money on bingo. A.A. and N.A. guy. Member of the Church of Latter Day Saints (known by non-LDS members as Mormons). Friendly. Able to perceive subtle humor and laugh at it.

Grand Avenue Hotel, The: Gary’s name for the Emmanuel Baptist Shelter.

Homeless Person: A man or woman who sleeps in shelters, with friends or family, or outdoors. He or she often has a job or sometimes two. Some homeless people are part-time.

Labor Ready: A day labor staffing agency on State Street. You can stop in and apply Monday through Saturday, I believe, during regular business hours. You have to fill out a bunch of tests and questionnaires, along with tax forms and other bureaucratic minutiae galore. You also take a keyed-in electronic multiple choice test of 73 questions. Example question: “When is okay to punch someone? A. When they annoy you, B. When they hurt your feelings, C. When they boss you around, D. Never.” Apparently, this personality test full of obvious questions actually weeds out a full 25% of applicants. Isn’t that incredible? That basically means that 25% of those who apply at labor ready have sociopathic tendencies. The rest are fine, from what I hear.

Laptop: The only object of market value I own. Almost nobody knows I am both homeless and in possession of a laptop. People know I am homeless and people know I own a laptop, but those people are rarely the same person. When I am in the Townie or Yalie world, I blend in with my Yuppie duds and laptop. When in the Homeless world, I blend in by wearing loose-fitting clothes and keeping my laptop Top Secret.

MCU: Mobile Containment Unit. Backpack. I take it with me every day. My laptop is in it, along with my headphones and computer microphone for talking on Skype. Only one man at the shelter knows I own a laptop: the man who searched my bags on Night 2. I told him not to tell a soul. So far so good.

McDonald’s: You can get a free, no-obligation-to-buy-anything-else, small, Newman’s Own coffee with cream and sugar at the Fair Haven location across from C Town Supermarkets off Grand Avenue between the hours of 5 am and 8 am. This is becoming a morning ritual for me. One of many ways to save the money you earn at your job and get up and out of the system eventually.

Overflow: A shelter on Howard Avenue, at which I have never stayed.The guys at Emmanuel Baptist speak of Overflow in positive tones. There are fewer rules there than anywhere else, but there are fewer beds.

Part-time Homeless Person: A man or woman, but usually a man, who stays at the shelter on weekends or just occasionally. Oftentimes a woman will kick her man out of her apartment for whatever reason – usually for a combination of not paying rent or contributing financially to the household, coming home drunk, and getting into an argument.

Paul Kaiser: The general New Haven case worker for the destitute, known by hundreds of poor people across the city. His office is in City Hall. Call and set up an appointment. Show up, tell him your hard luck story, get 20 free bus ride passes and whatever other services or information you’re looking for. I love his name. I think I will nickname him Kaiser Paulhelm, because he is a powerful man to know. I have not met him as of this writing (March 26th).

Poppy: Term of endearment, mainly Hispanic. Similar to buddy, man, dude, etc. One man actually just calls himself Poppy. Excerpt from March 25th Character Sketch entry: “Poppy. Hispanic. 41 years old. Rotund. Face like an arrangement of fresh baked pastries. I chatted him up outside the shelter. He launched into this story: At age 18, his mother suspected her son of heroin use. She made him strip naked. Affronted, he told her, “If you find a hole, I’ll go willingly to jail. If you don’t find a hole, you will not see me for a very long time.” She did not find a hole. Sixteen years passed. He showed up drunk at his mother’s home then. “Who are you?” she said. “Don’t you recognize your own son?” She was elated and bowled over and proclaimed her love for her son. Then he met his younger sister. “Who are you?” she asked. “Don’t you recognize your own brother?” She grabbed him and held him and cried and cried. Then his uncle: “Who are you?” “I am your nephew. I respected you. You never respected me. Now you will respect me.” Then his grandmother. She half-fainted onto the couch. “She is 97 years old today, she is still alive.” Poppy stays in touch with his mother to this day, seven years after reunion.”

Race: Perhaps the most racially integrated sector of society is the poor and homeless. Read that last sentence one more time. Are you surprised? Do you believe it? There are plenty of whites and Hispanics amongst the blacks. And in the shelter, I see ZERO evidence of racial prejudice. If colorblindness were possible (and it is most certainly not, nor should it ever be), the poor and the homeless would be the ones to achieve it. The bottom of society doesn’t waste its time with shallow racism. It’s plainly counterproductive. I’m starting to think racism is the product of middle class and rich people who are bored and looking for something to bitch about and blame their own psychological vapidity on. Perhaps the cure to racism is for everybody to give up all of their worldly belongings and then try to survive for even a single week. Don’t get me wrong; poverty is undesirable and I would not wish it on anyone. I do not hate rich people or middle class people. I just think personal desperation and devastation builds character. A side effect of this proposal would be to eradicate racism.

Reservation, The: Frenchie’s nickname for the Emmanuel Baptist Shelter.

Shower: Upon entering Emmanuel Baptist, you are required to take a shower.

Soup Kitchen Schedule: A detailed, Monday-Sunday, Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner schedule of all the available soup kitchens in the New Haven area, with locations and times. Includes two lunches during the week for women and children only. You can pick up a schedule at the Community Soup Kitchen; just ask. With this schedule I have stayed alive. The meals are always nutritious, respectably tasty, and well balanced, often including dessert, coffee, and other precious luxuries. In fact, I eat better now than I did before I was evicted.

Townie: A person who is not a student and who works for a living and rents and apartment. This type of person can generally relate to the characters you might see in sitcoms. Typical Americans.

Underground: The unseen system of sustenance and survival used by homeless and poor people.The underground contains shelters, soup kitchens, case workers, free bus passes, free clothing, and so on. Word of mouth is the chief means of communication and urban navigation. If you don’t talk and you don’t listen to the grapevine, your chances of survival in the underground plummet. This use of the term is not to be confused with that of independent artists and musicians, who, when they say “underground”, really mean “not marketable.”

Yalie: A Yale student. They generally stick to the cleaner, commercial areas of town.

Night 5: Notes for a Tale of Three Cities: Culture Sketches

I’m still homeless, of course. I’ll let you know when that changes. At this point I think I’m the only homeless person in New Haven who owns a laptop. I’m writing this from Koffee on Audubon, the official “arts street” in New Haven. I worked here for a couple of months when I first moved into town in August 2004. One of my co-workers still works here, after graduating from the Culinary Institute. Just a moment ago, I asked him if he remembered me.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “I don’t remember your name, but I do remember you.”

I told him my name. We chatted. His co-worker, a brunette girl with glasses, joined in the conversation, which took a turn towards the subject of publicly funded WiFi for the streets of San Francisco. I thought that was a great idea, and quipped, “Hell, even homeless people could get online then,” which turned out to be the perfect setup for what the girl said next:

“Although if you’re homeless, would you really have a laptop?”

I just gestured “Good point” and grinned. I got back to my laptop and chuckled quietly to myself. I am so tickled. Why yes! I am homeless and I have a laptop! I tell very few people. I used to be in the Townie world of New Haven. I worked regularly, had steady jobs and things, and paid the few hundred bucks for the roof every month. I used to read the Music Event listings in the New Haven Advocate and Play, considering this concert or that one, noting the price, and being able to pay for that once in awhile, with drinks on top. I ate at restaurants. I had a place to store my stuff, and the luxury of being able to acquire something without having to consider how heavy it is over the long haul, or whether it will fit into my MCU (Mobile Containment Unit, backpack) or ACC (Ambulatory Containment Console, big heavy suitcase with wheels, kept at the shelter daily upon risk of theft).

The biggest difference between the Townie world and the Homeless world is the subjects of conversation. In the Townie world, topics might include bands, television, movies, the Internet – just media in general. The Townie world consumes mediated information about far-off places. The Homeless world, on the other hand, tends to discuss survival tactics, family issues, the weather in great detail, and things that happen in the local streets. Homeless people watch plenty of television – there are three in the Grand Avenue Hotel alone – but they watch passively, opting not to discuss the show when it’s over.

The two worlds overlap, passing one another in the streets and complexly intertwining in an interdependent relationship. Townies pay the taxes that pay for shelters, soup kitchens, free bus passes, and other little services and objects that don’t seem so little to the homeless person. In return, homeless people take the day labor jobs that townies would never even think of stooping to do: factory assembly, beer delivery, that sort of thing. Minimum wage, no benefits, but the day labor places usually pay the same day or within 48 hours. Immediate cash now is what homeless folks need. There is little room for planning. When your dam is all full of holes and your house is built under it, the last thing you’re thinking of is changing your lifestyle; all you can do is press your fingers onto as many of the holes as you can muster and hope someone comes to help you soon. By the time you get a break, you are exhausted. You are so grateful to kick your feet up onto your cot and watch Conan the Barbarian for the third time at the shelter and fall asleep not long after nightfall.

Despite the interconnectedness of these two worlds, townies don’t really notice the homeless. The homeless, however, do notice the townies, as most of them came from that world. Very few of my shelter mates were born or raised homeless. Usually they started out just fine. Poor, perhaps, but fine, with an apartment and a little mad money. They fall off for a number of reasons. It’s almost always their own fault, from what I can tell. But the improper thing to do is to blame or shame them. The proper thing to do is learn about them and discover their psychology for yourself, and find out exactly how a person takes that first step down the wrong path and keeps on walking. In fact, take a look at your own life. What goals have you fallen short of?

I wanted to keep this blog how-to-ish and anecdotal, but I am in a musing mood. The title is Tale of Three Cities. I have spoken just a teensy tiny bit about two of them. Here in New Haven, the third is Yale.

Yale is, of course, very famous. Many rich kids attend. To be frank, not all of them are rich. Here at Koffee I worked with a Yale music major by the name of Zack, whose parents were going all-out broke sending him up the Ivy. He was a real straight dude, scruffy goatee and all. Helluva guy. My favorite co-worker here. However, Zack stood in sharp contrast to most of his Yale colleagues. Decked out in their finest club gear, Yalies get piss-drunk in the clubs on Crown Street every weekend, puking here and there, not saying thank you when you open the door for them, blabbering on their cell phones about precious little to be concerned about, refrain from tipping any services workers, and so on. They are snobs. I’m sorry. It’s true. Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule. In the coffee shops I’ve overheard Yalies discuss personal things and heartfelt matters, sometimes tempting me to join in the conversation. I have sometimes been thanked for holding a door open. I have received warm smiles from Yalies I have said hello to.

In all love and respect, I observe that Yalies lack the experience of despair. They do not know real hunger, never have. In that, they are farther removed from their animal or earthbound selves than homeless people are. When a Yalie says they had a bad day, it means they got a D on their term paper. When a homeless person says he had a bad day, it means their best friend was shot dead over a crack deal. I urge you, reader, not to judge and say, “Well if he wasn’t dealing crack, he wouldn’t have been shot dead.” You would be right, but only hypothetically. The what-ifs are irrelevant and have nothing to do with the daily, minute decisions a homeless person goes through.

This is not to apologize for anyone’s shortcomings. We all have a certain amount of freedom to choose, even within the limited confines of upbringing and psychology. But oftentimes, Time’s unrelenting march forces quick decisions between two or more despicable alternatives. Once you’re in the system, it’s hard to get out. I see so many old or aging men who seem to have become perfectly satisfied with their decades-long visit to the underground. They are permanent suckling babies. They’re happy and helpless. God bless them all.

In sum: Homeless people are lazy and defeatist and kind and conflicted. They bury their regrets in the daily activities of survival. They are kind and they have a conscience. They are desperate and they are strong and hearty. They are creatures of habit, just like anybody else, and they are generally grateful to be alive. They delude themselves, yet they face Facts and Reality when backed up against a wall. They stare down the Devil. They live and they die.

Townies are ruddy and blissful, light and airy. They work their coffee shop jobs, their janitorial jobs, or what-have-you. They sometimes call in sick to work and lie. They rarely give out change. They sometimes do very interesting things and have diversional things to talk about and waylay their boredom and pervasive sense of slight deflation.

Yalies are intellectually brilliant, experientially naive, cold and ignorant, sweet and innocent, with high hopes for their own futures.

We all have things to teach one another. Do we learn? God bless us all.

Thanks for reading this ramble. It was not a good piece of writing. Therefore, let these words be notes or sketches for later polishing and integration into a larger work.