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 | A Weekend of No Home Pt. 1
entry by ChaseofSpades
7/25/2008 7:49 PM
| This journal entry has nothing to do with UE, and happened about a month ago, but I need to write it down so I can remember the story because it was one of the most insightful weekends of my life.
I headed to Austin, TX for the first time in my life from the Big D. I'd heard all about the liberal city, but I had no idea what I was in for. I'd been given a weekend job working on a movie and decided to get a hotel and see the sights.
Unforturnately, a four day shoot became a one day shoot because of rain and other circumstances, so I had the entire weekend to myself (less the last day). So I hit the infamous 6th street in search of a bar. I got dresses up in my finest duds, a pearl snap shirt and old jeans with my Chuck Taylors, and did my hair up into my trademark mohawk. I was ready.
I got out there and was taken back by how LIBERAL this city is. People smoke pot right in the streets. I wasn't out there for more than twenty minutes when I had a guy walk up and very loud offer me a dime bag. I responded, "I'm knew here...How did you know I wasn't a cop?" He replied, "If you were a cop you'd have bought some."
Don't really know what to make of that. I'm just stating what was told to me.
So I ended up going into an old fashioned dime museum like the kind that P.T. Barnum would run, but never made it into a bar.
I met a homeless man that changed my life. He said, "Spare some change for beer?"
"Sorry buddy, got no change."
"Well, spare some beer for a change?"
I laughed my ass off and promised him that I would find him later that night and when I did, I'd buy him some beer.
I walked around a little bit more and was shocked at the amount of homeless people there. I decided against the bar and went to buy a 6 pack of Sparks Beer. Walked over and found the younger homeless man.
"I'm a man of my word. Now where do we drink these?"
His name was Nicholas. He was in his late 20's with a buzzed head, and old, dingy white t-shirt, and some torn up kakki shorts.
He took me over to a bus stop where there were lots of homeless men and women. Me and him popped a top and he challenged me to a chugging contest. apparently, the homeless and can put em back. We ended up sharing with a few more homeless and got a good buzz.
I told Nicolas that I have a fascination with the homeless and would love to find out how it all works. Why people are homeless, how the live, what it's like. He was more than happy to give me a tour.
Thus started my two days of being homeless.
He showed me what it is like to pedal for money.
"You look too...clean. Ain't nobody gonna think your hungry."
He took off his dingy shirt and then took off his even dingier undershirt. He handed me the beater that had at one time been white and told me to put it on. Right there in the street I took off my shirts and put it in a bag of his and put on the nasty shirt. At first I thought I must be crazy. At first I thought about how gross this was. At first...well...I just didn't care. Guess I might be a little crazy.
He messed up my hair and told me my jeans were fine (I laughed at the thought). And then I started begging.
This opened my eyes.
There was a group of girls that looked at me as I asked them to help me eat. They laughed a hearty laugh as they walked away. My starving pleas fell upon something worse that deaf ears.
Later a man spit at me. He missed, but he defiantly got close.
The looks that people gave me broke my heart.
Then Nicholas said something that I wont ever forget.
"If you were wearing your clothes with your fancy hair and a wallet full of money, you could go into one of the bars and all these people would be your best friend. You'd buy them drinks, they'd buy you drinks. You'd tell jokes, they'd laugh, and both of you would forget about everything that is fucked up out here. You'd be locked up in there and yall would all be buddies. But come out here, be down on your luck. Be starving with no money, and the couldn't careless about you. Think about that."
That was the first night of my homeless adventure. The second night was much more dangerous and I was lucky to have walked out with my life.
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