Day Thirty-Four (4th of July)

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

There are no fire works when you're homeless. In fact, holidays really, really suck. Both the library and #1 are closed and #2 doesn't open until 11am. Kitten Lady is banned from Whole Foods, Safeway, Pioneer Square,  Rite Aid, the Max train, and just about every place in Portland. The only place left is Fred Meyer which is on the other side of the bridge and inconvenient but goddamn if she gets caught stealing rice pudding there we'll all starve! The funny thing is that these places didn't press charges. When they saw that she was stealing rice pudding and cookie dough they laughed at her. She's only banned because she's done it too many times.

As we are waiting for her boyfriend to appear we sit on the sidewalk, violating our two block rule. I see a lady walking a few blocks away eating a giant bag of cotton candy. "Oh my god, cotton candy looks so good right now." I say, "I really want some now."

When the lady passes us she asks, "Do you want some cotton candy?"
"Hell yeah." I say.

She drops the whole bag in my lap.
"The whole thing?" I ask.
"Yeah." She says.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"Yeah."
 She keeps walking and I barely have time to yell thank you. It's one of the more unusual things that has happened to me lately. We wonder if maybe it's poisoned or something but we devour it anyways.  I say, "Today is going to be a good day. It can't get any better than being given cotton candy randomly for breakfast.

We walk to the water front with Houdini. We stop in Peets coffee where I buy a latte and a pastry so we can sit undisturbed and I can get on the world wide web. KL has still not recovered from her three days without sleep so she can't keep her eyes open. I try to drain the latte down her throat but it doesn't help so we go the rest of the way to the water front. By this time her boyfriend has disappeared.

We lay jackets on the group so she can sleep. She falls asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand and sleeps for over two hours. I write and chase after puppies. It's actually really nice. I get to see her and know she is safe but at the same time I am left alone to write and escape everything around me.

When she wakes up and appears functional again we go to #2. Houdini is there smiling from ear to ear. It's awesome to see him happy again for the second time in two days. He's playing pool with some of the other guys and actually looks excited to be doing something other than heroin. He hugs me and says, "Thanks for being such a good friend to my girl. She needs real friends."

#2 is boring so KL shoots up a rinse she has out of a desire to kill time. I'm disappointed but I don't say anything or get in her  face about it. In the end it has to be her choice to get clean and stay clean. All I can do is be there for her.

Rec Group Guy says he wants to throw something together to do for the 4th. In the end he decides that a group to go to Director's Park and run in the fountain is in order for the day. As he's rounding up hula hoops for us to go one of the guys flips out and punches a painting to the ground. He punches three more holes in it and tosses over a trash can. Things like that make me nervous so I edge in a corner by the door.The boy storms out. A staff member complains about the painting. Spades, one of the guys I kind of know, says, "Why don't you just fix it?"

The staff guy looks at him as if he just solved quantum physics or something. He proceeds to drag the painting inside. Spades shrugs. I sit down on the sidewalk against a tree. A guy walks by and drops a thing of daisies in my lap. I look up and he says, "Have a good day," and keeps walking. Daisies are my favorite flowers. They're starting to welt but they are still pretty, still a nice random gift. We go to the fountain. I sit on the edge and roll up my pants to stick my feet in. My big toes still have a little bit of pink nail polish on them from before I was homeless.

Spades and Rec Guy play with the hula hoops. Spades rides his skate board down the street while hula hooping. The boys are then showed up by a little girl who keeps the hula hoop up without stopping for thirty minutes despite the fact that the hoop is bigger than she is. When she finishes Spades and I clap.

I don't feel like being at the fountain long so I go to Whole Foods so I can use their internet. I finally get caught up with Bunny and Spock which makes me so happy I feel high. I really miss my friends. They truly keep me going. Before when I was hanging out with Jesus and not really talking with anyone I was much more depressed. But, when I know they are behind me supporting me I do a million times better.

When it comes time to go into shelter Nazi Man tells me that I have a reservation upstairs. "Come on," I say arguing through the speaker despite the fact it's damn near impossible to understand people through it, "We just did this two nights ago."
"I know," Nazi Man says, "But you have to go up or sleep outside tonight."
"It's okay," KL says when she realizes I'm determined enough to fight through a buzzer, "Just go up. It's fine."
We hug and she goes upstairs. I wait with Houdini.

One of the guys starts being nosy and vulgar about me being moved up against my will. Most people want to go upstairs. Not me. I call him a dumbass so he calls me a cunt. The next thing I  know Houdini is putting his  backpack down and getting in the guy's face, "Apologize." he says. The guy isn't the brightest crayon in the box and so he keeps going.

"Careful," Houdini says, "That's my girl's best friend. She's like my sister. Apologize to her."

I'm actually pretty caught off guard by this. I'm really not sure what to do. In the end I say, "He's not worth it. He's just mad because he's been trying to get in my pants for months."
"Yeah right," he says though his quavering voice proves my point, "I can get way hotter chicks than you."
"Yeah because girls really love homeless guys."
"I don't fuck homeless girls," he goes on, "They all have Gonorrhea."

My clock says 9pm. I push the buzzer and tell shelter Houdini and I are coming up. When I get up there I tell the staff guy with big gauges that I'm not sure what's going on and that I thought I had two more weeks downstairs. He tells me to wait and he'll look up the notes on me to see if he can get me downstairs. I explain that I had wanted to come up until KL went through some stuff and I didn't want to leave her. I explain I am resistant to change and wasn't prepared to come up right away tonight. He agrees to take responsibility for letting me sleep downstairs.

He walks me down and Nazi Man says, "I already told you, we'll bring your meds up."
I don't say anything to him and instead point to Gauges Guy. Gauges Guy explains the situation and everyone agrees to let me stay in Porch Light at least one more night. I get put in my same bed next to KL. She is laughing hysterically as I sing, "I'm back."
"How did you do that?" she asks.
I shrug. We both can't stop laughing that I somehow managed to get back down again. Neither of us really know how I do these things.
"They just can't get rid of you." she says.
"I'm a bad cold," I tell her, "I just keep coming back."

KL tells me that Blue Eyed Staff Man tried to help himself to one of her rice puddings. She got in his face and yelled, "What are you doing?" She said she almost bit his hand off reaching for  it.
He laughs and says, "Yeah she's aggressive about that pudding."
"Tell me about it," I say.
"Have you ever had rice pudding?" KL asks Blue Eyed Staff Man.
"Yes, I was about to have some tonight."
"Not anymore." KL and I both say almost in unison.

One of the guys agrees to clean all the handles in shelter to earn a smoke break. He cleans the handle of the refrigerator so that it's sparkling white. The rest of the fridge is yellow from old tape and dirty. Now that I think about it it's probably really disgusting that we all eat out of that fridge. It was pretty nasty.

I can't stand sparkly knobs on a yellow dirty fridge so I steal the scrubbing bubbles and boiling water and a rag. I scrape tape off of the fridge with a butter knife and scrub it. Apparently it was another Cinderella identity crisis day for me. ;). Blue Eyed Staff Man asks me if I'm trying to earn a smoke break.

"I don't have any smokes." I say, "I just can't stand it."

I spend twenty minutes scrubbing that fridge. It is sparkling white when I'm done. KL can't stop laughing at me. Staff can't stop laughing at me. People think I'm crazy. I think it's funny. I write a sign that says: "This sparkling clean fridge has been brought you by the M OCD foundation. Donations readily accepted" and tape it to the fridge. I go to bed laughing.

--mm