Yesterday was my 60th birthday. Happy birthday, bum.
I am sitting in Forsythe Park when it hits me that today is my birthday. I am 60. I’m drinking a 50 cent “senior” coffee from Burger King, which seems appropriate, and relaxing on a bench in front of the ugliest fountain I have ever seen. Plaster Pans spit water through their flutes, inelegant plaster geese shoot streams of water from their beaks, and the whole is presided over by a plaster statue of a woman in flowing robes lounging atop a very tall pedestal in the center. She is neither beautiful nor ugly, a classic example of Middle American kitch, formless, anonymous, boring. She wears no expression worth the name.
Nevertheless, tourists are lining up to have their pictures taken in front of this monstrosity as if it were somehow worthy of inclusion in their book of memories. Well, maybe it is. Maybe their book of memories is so bland, so empty of cultural or personal meaning that a picture in front of a monstrosity is better than nothing. But I suspect it is simply that they think the fountain beautiful, that they harbor the same stunted, morose, stultifyingly inane sense of beauty as the sculptor himself.
I read on a plaque that in 1988 hundreds of thousands of dollars were subscribed by the wealthier families of Savannah to “restore” this fountain to its original condition. I shudder. Had I been asked to donate at the time, I would have said, “What? For that? Let it crumble. Better yet, I’ll donate if you promise to rip it out and start fresh. Hire a sculptor with some talent. As it is, that thing would be at home in a trailer park or a Lillian Vernon catalog.”
I imagine I would not have been admired by Savannah folk for my taste.
I move on. It is early morning. The park is full of people (it is Saturday). The are bicycle-riders, dog-walkers, hand-in-hand strolling couples, frisbee-flyers, Japanese picture-takers, and a German husband and wife arguing over…something. She is dressed in a tight stretch blouse that doesn’t hide much (which is OK because she doesn’t have much of anything to hide anyway), lime green Capri pants, and sandals. She rolls her eyes at her husband’s opinions the way every woman ever born did, glares skeptically at him across the top of her sunglasses, and follows him with a sigh. He is as fat as you’d expect, with close-cropped white hair and brown tie shoes polished to a high shine. They could not be more out of place in this park on this morning than if he were wearing a tuxedo with a polka dot cummerbund.
It’s odd, this feeling I get that I am half tourist/wanderer, traveling to see the sights, and half homeless bum, lounging when I should be frantically working, or at least looking for work. The pack on my back screams “homeless man”, though only a few short years ago I would have been taken for a traveler, on the road, discovering (or re-discovering) the America of my dreams and nightmares. Now it is assumed I am busily avoiding work and am living off a govt check, as if there is such a check, as if it would be large enough to live on even if it existed.
There are many out here who do get checks, usually SSI disability checks. Usually they deserve them, sometimes they’ve scammed them. Mostly their checks are so inadequate they have to live on the street anyway because they don’t get enough to afford an apartment, no matter how small. If they manage to find one their tiny check will cover, there’s nothing of it left after the rent is paid and they must depend on food stamps and soup kitchens to get enough to eat. The myth that everyone on welfare is living the high life may be pervasive in some conservative quarters but there’s more substance to the story of the tooth fairy.
Last night I spent in a mission because there were supposed to be heavy t-storms accompanied by serious lightning. I don’t think it happened but I wouldn’t know. I was locked up on the second story of a near windowless concrete blockhouse trying to sleep on a top bunk in heat so intense I would have preferred to be out in the frying noonday sun. There was a fan blowing at the other end of the room but whatever air it was moving stopped moving long before it got to me.
If this is the high life, give me the low.
Philly - Nate
It is a long night. I wander the streets but Philly seems to have closed down even though it is barely 8pm. If there is action, it is somewhere I can’t find it. Even the mall down the street closes at 9.
The wind is bitter cold. I am wearing two shirts, a heavy, hooded sweatshirt, and a thick winter coat and still I’m freezing. I see homeless guys on every street, some of them stretched out in doorways, sleeping. They’re usually wearing sneakers and thin coats though everyone seems to have a wool knit cap pulled down over their ears. The lucky ones have gloves.
The ones who are awake center on me like rats on a dumpster – as a source of food (or cigarettes) – moving on me with a cheerful smile and an outstretched hand. Sometimes, depending on an immediate reading, I give them some change or a smoke. Sometimes I give them nothing. They are unfailingly polite whatever my response. One of the ones I turn down goes out of his way to tell me not to blame myself, it’s not my fault if I’m broke. Many assure me that better days are coming. “They have to.” Almost all the men are black.
As I return to the bus station a tall, wide black man approaches me with a plastic bag. It is full of DVD’s he wants to sell me. He opens his pitch with, “Sir, I’m homeless and I’m hoping you can help me out by buying one of these DVD’s. They’re all brand-new, not second-hand. See? The plastic wrapping’s still on them -”
I interrupt to tell him he’s wasting his time. “I’m homeless, too.”
He looks me up and down, disbelief written all over him. “You look awful good for a homeless guy,” he says.
“I just got homeless a couple weeks ago. These are what’s left of my good clothes.”
“Oh.” His demeanor changes. He smiles and his eyes wrinkle in sympathy. “Sorry. Lose your job?”
“Yup, and where I come from I couldn’t get another, at least not one that would pay the rent.”
“I’m Nate,” he says, then hesitates. “You got any money?”
I think, Here it comes. The pitch, the hit. “Some,” I say carefully. “Not much.”
“Enough for a room?”
“No, not near that much.”
He shakes his head. “That’s too bad. You a newbie, you don’t belong on streets like this. You sure you got no place to stay?”
“No.”
“Better stay inside the bus station, it be damn cold tonight. You freeze out here. Just keep movin’ so the bulls don’t roust you. You still got your ticket?”
“Yeah.”
“Show it to ‘em if they hassle you and they’ll back right down.” He sees my expression at the thought of spending the night in the bus station dodging security. “It’s your best shot. You don’t wanna be out here. Not tonight.” I must look truly depressed. He smiles again. “You beat it, you ain’t gonna be out here forever. Better days are coming.”
He’s a nice man but I’ll believe it when I see it.
