Day Six

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

I am beginning to realize how unconditioned I am to this lifestyle. My legs are sore from all the walking and I'm more exhausted than I knew I could be. The exhaustion is perpetual. I wake up tired and I stay tired. There is never time to recover. By 8:45 in the morning we start walking and we don't stop until 8:45 at night. I have not yet been able to find a place to do laundry and everything I own is dirty either from wear or from the rain storm we had the other day. I shower daily but I'm self conscious of the smell from putting on dirty clothes immediately after showering. (Jesus sniffed me and said I smell fine but I don't believe him).

There is often the misconception that people choose to be homeless. Yet, in the youth shelter I have yet to find someone who woke up in the morning and said, “Being homeless sounds fun, I'm going to be homeless from now on.” Maybe, we made decisions that led to the homeless life but that was not our intention.

There are certain parts of homelessness that are choices, at least in Portland. For example, no one in Portland has to go hungry. DHS freely hands out food stamps, almost everyone in the shelter gets at least some. On top of that there are at least a million different places to get hot meals. Through youth services alone I could have three or four breakfasts a day if I wanted to and that doesn't count for lunch or dinners. If anything street kids are highly overfed. If you see someone in Portland holding a sign saying, “Hungry” you can just about guarantee they are lying. And personally, I resent that as do a lot of us in shelter. Shelters and day services may not offer the best meals but they are warm and usually healthy meals.

We also have access to showers. I can't speak for adult males but I know where any woman in Portland or anyone under the age of 25 can shower for free. I can understand the hesitation to use the showers at the woman's shelter due to lack of privacy but the youth showers are private and secure. However, I also understand why some might not want to shower because it's pretty useless to shower then put on dirty clothes.

The lifestyle is still hard though. We have to carry everything with us. The only belongings we are allowed to leave at shelter are medications. And we are constantly on the move to stay out of trouble for loitering. My legs hurt from all the walking. Sometimes even while I'm walking I have trouble keeping my eyes open. Jesus said he had the same problem at first. We don't loiter because we want to disrupt businesses but rather because our legs are tired and it beats trying to sleep on concrete or panhandling.

Before I was staying in shelter people would let me pet their dogs when I passed them on the street. They didn't stare but made eye contact. I could make pleasant conversation with anyone if I wanted. Now, they look at me with my dirty clothes and suitcases and pretend they don't see me wanting to say hello to Fido. They stare and they don't look me in the eye. I'm a problem child again. An “it”.

God, that word makes me shiver.

Today, on the max an old man with a beard and glasses kept staring at Jesus and me. Jesus was being his usual silly self and talking in funny voices. I felt Creepy Beard Man's gaze on me and wanted it gone.

“Dude, you're making people stare.” I said loudly to Jesus but looking Creepy Beard Man in the eye.

“I know.” Jesus said.

Creepy Beard Man faltered and looked away. Damn Right I thought.
I wasn't done with him yet though; I felt no mercy. I wanted to make him feel the same amount of awkward I feel when I see people staring.

“Now they're just trying their hardest not to stare.” I said keeping my gaze on Creepy Beard Man.

Creepy Beard Man didn't so much as glance at us after this and we spent the rest of our ride hanging out heads upside down and staring out the window to get a different perspective of the city.

I had to deal with Salvation Army bullshit again today. Again they were not just rude but also troublesome. They forced me to wait for forty-five minutes just to tell me no one would see me (again) today. They have officially put me off for a full week.

I asked Mother Goose if she can just take things from here as far as dealing with them goes and she said tomorrow we will fill out a release form so she can talk to them for me.

Jesus and I sat at a park bench and tried to figure out something to do for our hour to spare. Playdate PDX was the only thing that really came to mind and we didn't want to do that two days in a row. It might start looking suspicious if we spend every day hanging out there.

In the end we decided to try the historical museum as I had heard it was free for Multnomah County residents. The poor guy at the front desk seemed much too excited that someone wanted to see the museum. We actually felt bad for him but it worked for us as he easily overlooked our baggage and Jesus' not Multnomah County ID. He gave us quarters to use the lockers so we didn't have to lug our stuff around.

Not everyone is all that bad. 

It was an hour before they closed and before dinner so we browsed the exhibits rather quickly. I leaned over the bars of one exhibits a little too far and set off an alarm, screamed and we both walked away quickly. We found a room with benches where various forms of propaganda about the awesomeness of Portland play over and over again on the walls. It amazes me that people have always claimed Oregon as a good place to escape and start over. We each claimed a bench and watched the ads until we were almost dozing. We dubbed this a good nap spot for the future. 

The bottom floor was full of original artwork dating back to the 1800's.  We scanned these for awhile before leaving the museum and heading to dinner. After dinner we went to the band practice area. We booked the studio for an hour where we showed each other our favorite music on youtube. I called my friend to see if he could take my kitten until I got into transitional housing. He said yes. This was of course very good news. 

After band practice we hung outside with Gold and Rocky to kill time and loiter. Jesus blew up condoms he took from the music center, popping one in my hand. Gold began harassing poor pedestrians and asking them if they jacked off or had ever given a girl a "strawberry shortcake". (This was a fun tidbit I learned. Apparently this is when a guy cums on a girl's face then punches her). Embarrassed I covered my face as they passed by. Most of them ignored her but one man answered with a smile, "Come on now, that's a stupid question."

We ragged on Jesus a little bit for being a virgin. This is nothing new but when I mentioned it was time to walk to shelter he took off and left me. I ran after him to see what the hell was wrong but he ignored me when I called for him and kept walking. I finally chased him down in a parking garage across the street from the shelter. It was a dry, private place to be until the shelter opened. 

"What's wrong?" I asked. 

"Nothing."

"Obviously it's something otherwise you wouldn't have run off and left me."

"I don't know. Certain things just trigger it." He was staring at the ground.

"What's it?"

"I don't know."

I waited, feeling sick to my stomach. I can handle the kids dealing with trying to get their babies back or tweaking out on heroin but this seemingly random mood swing was too much for me. It's harder to fix a problem when you don't know what the problem is.

"I don't know what to call it. Euphoria maybe, but it feels like nothing is real. Like this is all a dream."

I bit my lip. Now, this was something I could understand.

"I pretend my life is a movie," I said, "You know, one of those lifetime movies where everything ends all happy and the person is instantly a millionaire or something? If I don't I can't get out of bed in the morning."

"I don't know how I get out of bed in the morning." he said and left me standing there to go climb the wall on the other end of the parking garage. 

I was afraid he was going to jump and try to kill himself (which would be a REALLY bad idea, he'd break a leg at worst) or that he was going to do something else to hurt himself. He didn't though. When it came time for shelter to open he just walked out of the garage and left me standing in the corner, to try and figure out what the hell was going on.

I took my shower once I got to shelter, figuring he needed time to himself. When I got out he was still moody and sulky at one of the dinner tables. He told me he was having a panic attack and he couldn't stop thinking about it which of course was making it worse.

"My friend and I used to play the question game when we had panic attacks." I told him, "Just ask a bunch of random questions until it's out of your mind. Want to play?"

He agreed so I fired off a billion questions at him as fast as I could think of them. Eventually this worked and he looked like my regular Jesus again. He was so happy he hugged me. I felt pretty accomplished actually. A new kid came in, we'll call him Luke. It just so happens Jesus and Luke knew each other as they went to the same high school. They spent awhile catching up. 

Jesus then decided he wanted to have a piss contest of who had the worse life. I decided to get up and leave the conversation because I hate that shit. I considered going to bed early but he asked to watch a movie so I decided to let it go and watch movies with him. We brought a bunch of blankets out to the chair landing and laid on our stomachs to watch Garden State. We were interrupted twice. Once when they had to bring the police in to file a police report for someone upstairs and again when another new kid came in and needed to get screened. 

We were finally left uninterrupted to watch our movie. However, instead of finishing it we both fell asleep. I don't remember getting woken up by Nazi Man at all. But, I woke up in my bunk with all but my middle sheet on the floor (I guess I fought a bear last night). I asked Jesus and he said that it looked like I was still asleep when I went to my bed because I wasn't responding to anyone. So, in theory this may have been my first time sleep walking. Kind of scary since I sleep on the top bunk and I have no idea how I got up there. 

--mm