Day Eighteen

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS***** 

I wake up tired as is to be expected. I feel like it was years I was away from shelter rather than just one night. I'm out of sorts. I think shelter may in fact be the hardest place to sleep. I take my time getting ready then remember I'm supposed to meet Drummer Guy to learn how to play street drums. I don't want to. I don't want to be rude but I want to be alone. But, a promise is a promise and I said I wanted to learn drums and he said he would teach me. I'd feel bad if I didn't go.

I find him at the crosswalk and tell him I have to go to DHS and eat breakfast at OI. He says he can show me where DHS is and just hang out. I kind of cringe. It's nothing personal. I want to learn the drums. I just don't want to right then. But, I agree. We go to OI then I say I want to go to the library before DHS.

As I sit on the computer I struggle to keep my eyelids open and often doze off on the top of my keyboard. I run out of library computer time so I set up my laptop at the table and start watching Netflix. I use my jacket as a pillow and fall asleep watching The Patriot. I wake up a few times during the movie to find drool on my jacket.

San Fran Man appears next to me at some point and we pass Pistachios and candy back and forth while he plays games and I get lost in other people's lives on Netflix. When lunch comes around he asks if I'm going. I shake my head and get started on some documentary about how schools are ruining American children. I stay awake for that one.

When I finish it's time for dinner. I pack up and walk back to OI alone since San Fran Man left shortly before. Dinner is one of those don't ask meals. I always know I shouldn't ask what the meals are supposed to be but I can't help it. Curiosity gets to the better of me. I ask what the dish is and they tell me it's supposed to be something it does not remotely resemble. However, since I didn't eat anything besides Pistachios and candy since breakfast I figure I better eat something even if I'm not hungry.

I get two or three bites of the suspicious dish down my throat. It helps not to look at it so I read Steinbeck while I eat. It doesn't taste bad. It's just very, very, very, very bland. And I'm a picky eater who likes food to have flavor. Maybe, I'll eventually get over these picky eating habits. They aren't doing me any good.

After dinner I don't know what to do with myself with the library and DHS closed so I go to Fred Meyer. I have been longing for a notebook so I can write when I can't have my laptop with me. Since this is productive I can justify $1 on a notebook. I stand in the school supplies section for a long time oogling and pens and pencils. I open a few pens to see how they write just for the hell of it. I know it's less than legal but I don't feel guilty about it. I should feel guilty. I just don't.

I think about how in a few months the stores will be flooded with back to school sales. Will I be able to partake in those sales this year? It is honestly my favorite part of the year and I always end up buying more notebooks and pens than I'll ever use even though I haven't used up the previous year's supply. I love the feeling of a fresh notebook. It's my very own favorite drug.

I would love for nothing more than to be not only buying school supplies when fall comes but to be buying them with the intent of using them in school. Whether or not that will happen is another question but right now things aren't looking good.

I go to the fountain to wait for shelter to open. I am engrossed in my new notebook when police officers randomly appear. I'm lucky enough that they don't notice me but they take down everyone else's names and run checks on them. They search one of the guys I don't know, sliding their hands up and down his body and digging in their pockets. They find a needle on him. It's clean but they threaten to arrest him anyways. In reality they can't; it's clean. When they finally leave they tell him, "Tell your people we aren't here to cause trouble for them. We came because there was a call."

I know who called because I watch them the entire time the cops are there. A couple are watching from their $1600 apartment, laughing hysterically. I wish I had eggs and good enough aim to shoot some through their open door where they are craning to hear what the cops are saying. I can see and hear them laughing. We were just sitting waiting for shelter and we are treated like criminals. Our only crime being where we sleep at night. We are entertainment for everyone else, who watch and laugh behind the glass of their comfortable, secure, and always open homes.

In that moment I hate them as much as they hate us. I dare you to look me in the eye and say we don't have class warfare in America. Equality is a joke.

The cops leave but that wretched couple keeps staring at us. Jesus does a jig and then starts waving. One by one we start waving at them until they turn their backs and go into their apartment away from the windows. I light my second cigarette for the night. Jesus comes by and asks for a drag.

"You don't smoke." I say but hand him the cigarette anyways.

It's all we say to each other for the entire day. Angry Gay Man comes and asks for a drag too. I give him the cigarette. He asks about the cops and I tell him about the searching and the couple laughing.

"We just have to be better than them." he says, "We have to better ourselves to get off the streets and make ourselves better. Then we can teach him."

It's something I would say so I nod lazily, too many times. I keep my gaze forward at the same spot on the ground. Pot Head keeps ranting about how he's scared Nazi Man or some other staff are going to come and give us nights out for sitting at the fountain. Since it's not a full two blocks away we aren't supposed to wait there, even though we aren't doing anything wrong or illegal. His paranoia isn't ungrounded as a staff from upstairs comes down to yell at us and we scatter. I run to keep up with Pot Head.

"Let's go stand at the warm up spot," he says.
"Warm up spot?" I ask.
"You've never been to the warm up spot? You've gotta check it out then."

We go back behind the Chinese restaurant on the corner of the next block. Pot Head points up to a vent that is blowing out air that smells like old Chinese food and wet dog. He stretches his arms over his head to feel the heat against his finger tips. He instructs me to sit in the corner. I obey and am hit with the warmth of smelly air. It's amazing. It doesn't take long to get used to the stink and I feel my goosebumps on my arm dissolve in this wonderfully warm air.

"How was your day?" Pot Head asks as I sit on my army bag.
"Shitty." I say. I sound like Jesus.
"Why?"
"I'm homeless for one."
"Yeah, but that's just temporary."

He's high on meth but there's a glimmer of that once intelligent Pot Head there, "You've just got to try and have fun with it until you get off the streets."
I nod. It's my old philosophy that I seem to have lost somewhere while trying to keep Jesus happy.
"I'm not a bad guy," Pot Head says, "I'm really not."
"No," I say, "You just do stupid stuff when you're high."
He shuffles his feet, "I know. I just try to have fun. Then when I'm in a shitty mood I take it out on everyone else."
It's a common trend among street kids I see.

We walk together when it's time for shelter to open. We play a few rounds of rummy. While we are playing a girl who was supposed to be in treatment comes in the room. I keep staring at her because I'm not really sure it's her. She has her hair in four french braids. I ask her what she is doing back. She says she didn't like rehab because all they did was sit around and do packets about why they shouldn't do drugs.
"I could do that here with you." she says.

I'm happy she's back and in one piece but I worry. She's two weeks clean but I'm finding it's hard for anyone to stay clean in shelter. The majority of kids shoot up then warn those of us who never have to never do it. "You'll like it too much," Pot Head tells me. I do my best to stay away from those doing drugs but we're surrounded by it all day. I know more about drugs from eighteen days than I ever did growing up with a brother who sold drugs.

For the third night Gang Banger doesn't appear in shelter or services at all. There are rumors going around that he was jumped. Even his best friend has not seen him. I worry.

I watch Ducktales on the stairs with San Fran Man. Nazi Man tells us we have to watch it on ear buds so I turn down the volume until the red chairs open up. Then we watch it with the volume up. We sit in the chairs, not on blankets on the floor. It feels foreign to me and after the second episode of Ducktales I say goodnight and head to bed, where I dream Spencer is a fluffy kitten again.

--mm