Night
You know that entry I just wrote about Malibu hollering my name outside my window? For reference, he doesn’t deem midnight an inappropriate time to do this.
‘Bob! Bob! I need you, blood!’ I should have gone to bed at ten, but there were things to do. I’d wanted to get through the second section of volume two of The Invention of the White Race. I had a mohawk to shave into shape. And, of course, there was deeply neglected blogging to catch up on. So I’d only just settled into bed when ‘Bu started raising the neighbourhood. I considered ignoring him, but I can’t ignore people when they address me directly. Plus, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. ‘Bob!’ Fuck.
I got dressed, headed down. By the time I got across the street, ‘Bu had struck up his act with a group of three potential hipster customers. He saw me coming. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, it’s been an experience, but I have important business to attend to. Thank you for their spirit. Remember me when things get rough in the ‘hood, ’cause this is where I grew up.’ The hipsters stumbled off, apparently somewhat short of sober, and mumbled the confused farewells that seem to be standard fare in Malibu’s world. ‘Blood, I need your help. These are my CD covers. You got any CD cases?’ ‘A couple.’ ‘Can you burn me some CD’s? Like, four maybe?’ It takes about eight minutes per CD, and, damn it, it was already past my bedtime. ‘Tonight?’ ‘Two?’ I nodded. ‘I need to catch the last bus to Marin at 12:53.’ I looked at the digital clock on the bus stand: 12:16. I took off.
Luckily, the burning went smoothly and no time was lost. I made a sandwich with one of housemate Dax’s Gardenburgers, grabbed a peach, and started toward the door. I heard the bus pull up, and began leaping down steps. I wouldn’t make it in time to do the hand-off before the bus left, but the stops are so close together on Fillmore, and the bus is so slow, that if ‘Bu ran, he’d be able to catch up.
I slammed against the gate and ran out to find Malibu right outside my building. I shoved the sandwich, peach, and CD’s into his hands. ‘Shit, man. Why’d you come running out like that? That scary as fuck.’ I looked up, and saw that the bus I’d heard was going the opposite direction. It was only 12:38.
At some point in July, ‘Bu’s got a job teaching poetry at a juvenile correctional facility somewhere up North. I thought he was leaving for Marin for this job. Not the case. He explained to me what his nights look like: He buys a bus ticket late, which allows him to use the ticket as an all-night transfer. He rides one bus until the end of the line, and then moves to another bus on the same line heading the opposite direction. He does this all night, catching cat naps as the bus rolls, until six in the morning, when his transfer expires.
I wrote, a couple weeks ago, about dignity. There are two things I really need to consider that I haven’t seriously, yet: First, that the homeless population is no where near so homogenous as I’d thought. Intellectually, I’d never really believed it. There are the disinherited queer kids who have nowhere to go but the Castro. There are the mentally ill who wander all over town. There are the gutter punks who make pilgrimages to the Upper Haight. There are the middle aged men fresh out of prison who don’t know where to go. But in my head, it had been some sort of mixed pot, half sane but down and out, half crazy, all facing the same issues. This is clearly not the case. Malibu is down and out, and having to make his way by sleeping on the bus sucks royally, but he can still afford to preserve some measure of his dignity. He can choose not to sleep on the sidewalk. He can choose to interact mostly with the homed. He can choose to keep some pride, to not eat out of garbage cans, to pay me back from his CD earnings when I lend him cash. (I know, I know — how scummy does one have to be to take money from the homeless? But if ‘Bu feels like he can pay me back, I feel like it’d be pretty damned scummy not to allow him the dignity of doing it. Debt is degrading, and charity can be hard to swallow.)
That first thing — that I need to be more mindful of differences between the homeless — is undoubtedly true. But there’s a second important thing I need to keep in mind — apparently a fair number of homeless people have dignity that they attempt to keep intact. Today, on my way to an excellent phở place at the Civic Center, I was stopped by a middle-aged guy carrying the Street Sheet. He called out to me as I was approaching, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He turned his attention to somebody else, so I continued on my way, crossing the street. He called out again, I stopped mid-street, and then, after a little more Abbot-and-Costello-ing, we met on the opposite side of the street. ‘You’re a good spirit, I can tell right away. Are you Christian?’ I shook my head. ‘I can tell that you’re still a good person, though. It’s in your eyes, and in the fact that you stopped to listen when I called to you. Here in California, everyone’s so busy, they just pass each other by. There’s too much stress in this world, and it kills people. It killed my mother. She died of pancreatic cancer, but also stress. And a woman I know dropped dead at the age of thirty. The doctors said it was just stress that killed her. You’ve got it, too. I can tell from your walk. If you’ve got something that’s eating at you inside with your mother or your girlfriend, you need to tell her, no matter how much it hurts. It might not make things better, but at least saying it will let you finally digest it.’ I nodded in agreement. ‘I can guess your age.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘Thirty-four.’ I winced. My face has more years than it’s earned, but a decade? Ouch. ‘Younger?’ ‘Twenty-four.’ He blinked. ‘Really?’ I nodded. ‘You act so much older.’ Which is what everyone says, but the truth is simply that I have a Methuselah face. ‘My name is David and I’m a poet. I’m going to do a reading, soon, in Union Square. Everyone knows me around here because I’m a nice person. Is there any chance you can help me get something to eat with any change that you have?’ I gave him what was in my pocket, told him my name, we shook hands. Having just written that all out, I can’t explain what, exactly, it is that’s dignified about that. But it’s there. It’s not the plea on account of hunger, illness, and bad luck that a lot of people make. It’s not the lies that a few tell. It’s a statement of identity (’I am a poet.’) and of need, and a simple request. If I weren’t so tired, I’d be able to explain that better.
Effin’ ‘Bu.