the West Wing

The day of your eviction you can be sweeping out the final dust bunnies from the corners edges of an empty apartment, or like me, you can leave everything, except your clothes, piano and computer, behind. Let them haul it away and discard it, all those old books, old clothes and faded postcards. I drove out of that apartment parking lot and into homelessness believing I would never sleep at a shelter. That's what I thought.

I drove to Cal Anderson and sidewayzed parked directly across from the Lutheran Church. Another car camper was there and he explained: "you want to park at the Arboretum because that bathroom stays open all night." It was November. I slept in the car for 2 weeks until one day I woke up in the car and drove to Summit Avenue, the street of my first apartment ever back in 1980, a studio for $160.

That morning doing memory lane on Summit I came to the Curben Hotel. The Curben Hotel is one of Capitol Hill's newest iterations - the apartment/hotel, no credit necessary, weekly rate, $256. For this I rented a large room in this newly renovated turnofthecentury old apartment building with the bathroom and shower down the hall. The Curben has that old school steam heat and there is just one setting; "on". And so much heat comes off that, radiator, that in every room, no matter how cold it is, everyone at that building has an open window. The Curben Hotel community, if you can call it one, consist of a mixed bag of old men, itinerant construction workers, zombiesuque sound mental health client referrals, and my group weird capitol hill people looking for a cheap place to stay. The heat is unbearable. I went from a freezing car to a burning hotel room. After paying $256 a week for 2 months, and getting rental assistance from APCC,  friends, and neighbors I left the Curben Hotel and checked out the Union Gospel Mission.

The UGM is the last stop on the homeless shelter ride. They take in everybody and no one that is non-violent is turned away. I swore I would never go to a shelter. Now I live at one. I've been here for almost 2 months. At the UGM you sleep on aluminum cots. There are 3 sleeping areas: the chapel is the worst.The chapel people have all their bags stored in a locked room all night so they won't steal from each other, same with the people that sleep in the basement room. The dinning room sleepers volunteered and did the cleaning that night so we got to come in early and eat first (I know...social stratification even among the homeless). Dinning room sleepers keep their bags by the cot all night in mutual trust fashion. I met a buddy there, that in sensing my naiveté, sought to educate me......early that evening as we were filing in for dinner he encouraged me: "sign up to volunteer, so after dinner you get to stay inside". I did. I learned. As we bedded down with about 25 others that evening in the UGM dinning room, my buddy turned to me and said "it's like camping out....remember as a lil kid.....campin...this is just like that...dude...we're...just campin out...". Yeah....now that's a positive spin on the situation.

Each day as you passed the homeless on the street, like Adam, you named them, "the old Mexican guy", the "Natty haired Junkie" and "Crazy Jimmy Hendricks Wannabe". Now these former anonymous figures are your bunkmates. "Crazy Jimmy Hendricks Wannabe" is in the next cot over laughing, to himself, uncontrollably. In there, you get the feeling someone may all of a sudden jump up with a knife and run around the room stabbing everyone as they are sleeping. Madness and solitude are best partners and every time you 've seen Crazy Jimmy Hendricks Wannabe (still laughing to himself), he's been alone.

A fat Black man adjust his extra large blue adult diaper beneath his white underwear, and slaps his large rolling belly before settling down on his cot for the evening. Although the present underwear and diaper appear to be clean, he smells like pee already. I admire how even with only a pair of white underwear and a blue diaper on he has managed to retain his dignity. Later that evening, when the subject of fast food comes up the fat Black guy dreamingly reminisces about Church's chicken. In the tone of his voice you can clearly hear the salient overtones of his fast food addiction. Every other night, back at your old apartment, save for a lone emergency siren waning in the distance, has been quiet, now in the new environs, we hear the endless coughing, the choking, farting, more coughing, a hacking cough, a spitting cough, a shitting cough, and more coughing.

One night I'm thinking about trying a shower at the UGM. Upon entering the bathroom, on the floor, a soiled discarded adult diaper....uh...I'll pass on the shower for now......I showered at SCC's Mitchell gym room. It was 7AM. I had a clean empty locker room all by myself. It was the best shower I ever had in my life. They let me in with an old SCC student id card, the attendant told me I needed to pay $25 to use the facilities again....uh... where can I pay?
 
You could tell that this young white dude was at a homeless shelter for the first time in his life. He had his customer service uniform (black shoes, black slacks, white shirt, blue tie) on for the next day already. After lights out, he was restless, laying on his cot for a few minutes before getting up and pacing around the room from his cot to the reception desk and back and forth. No it's not camping I'm in a room full of strangers....I'm supposed to go to sleep? The UGM has people sitting in chairs and sleeping that don't have cots. The YWD keeps tripping by this one dreadlocked brother who's chair extends his feet into the aisle way until the brother tells him "trip over my feet again & I'm gonna fuck you up". The YWD ignores him and keeps pacing until the brother gets mad rises up and ask the YWD to "step outside". As they both head for the door along the way the YWD breaks left into the reception office for staff assistance. Staff calm the upset brother and explain to the YWD "people are trying to sleep...you can't be walkin around in here, steppin on folks" Rattled and confused the YWD left the UGM that night at 3 AM and walked out into the cold darkness.