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.

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 4, Part Deux: Two Reservation Character Sketches

Character sketch: Frenchie. “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.

Character sketch: 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.