Five Days of Salami

No, I didn't JUST eat salami, but I did consume about four to five ounces of the delicious stuff each day; three different kinds of excellent artisan charcuterie: traditional Italian, Alsatian, and Spanish chorizo. Donated to Trinity Cathedral by Olympic Provisions, in apparently U.N. food drop quantity. Talk about an angioplasty waiting in the wings! A pity I never canned up the money for cheese to accompany it, alas. Still, even despite all that salami — not to mention the overall high fat content of my providential diet — I managed to slip into a pair of thirty-two-inch waist jeans donated Saturday, and without any blue-faced tugging or writhing! I can't recall a time when I wore jeans this slim … maybe fifteen years ago? Well, anyway, I made up for the salami binge on Sunday by eating nothing but cottage cheese and salad (after finishing off the last of the chorizo) — hell, I even went on a lengthy four-hour canning run that day.

But, who cares? It's Spring Fever time! Not just for me, either; an increase in aggro has been effervescing noticeably on the streets recently: in the past week I've seen three altercations that didn't quite escalate into violence. In meal lines, too, of all places to choose to lose it and pull a baseball bat out on someone. That was Friday night; there I was in between the two testosterone emitters, slouching against a chain-link fence having a pleasant conversation with a volunteer … blissfully unaware of the thunder rolling around me until HOLY SHIT! Look, there's a bat being waved at someone just a couple feet in front of my face! I suppose this could all be blamed on the waxing of the moon, which is what Crazy Michael suggested when I ran into him at a streetcar stop yesterday. But, the moon won't be full until the sixteenth, and that's all hogwash, anyway. Whatever be the cause of tempers flaring on the streets, and whatever connection it may have with Spring Fever, all I know is for me the season begins with Daylight Saving Time when I'm living outside; a blessed end to premature gloamings!

Humans are tidal creatures, nonetheless, whose ebb and flow is directed by a restless and protean geography, the changes of which often are subtle and operate largely on a subliminal level. At least metaphorically.

The tides seem to have washed me ashore in the Northwest neighborhood. I've been sleeping in the no man's land beneath the freeways that border the Pearl District to the east since a few days after I left the Fairfield but I didn't start to consider myself a local resident until I joined the Friendly House a week-and-a-half ago, which is located on the western edge of the neighborhood. I forked over fifteen dollars for a year's membership and a month's locker rent, which provides me with a place to shower and get online six days out of the week and to store my excess stuff throughout. Much of my first year in town (this time around) was spent in this neighborhood, back when my youthful charm weaseled me into girls' homes; when I thought I was punk rock enough to panhandle and drink in public, even mix benzos with pitchers of Pabst and shamelessly court a big-breasted junkie in an open relationship with a boyfriend busy at the time growing pot in Switzerland. I like it here, even though I feel very out of place in an area where software designers play dodgeball and a cheap weekend brunch is found only at Jack in the Box.

FYI Freeways Suck

I bailed out of my place at around a quarter after six, Tuesday, having woken out of a nap sprawled out on the floor with my head propped on my rolled-up sleeping bag; I was waiting for a couple neighbors to swing by earlier with a bit of chronic to send me off into the rainy night with some cheer. Of course, no one showed up, so I stumbled out of my "home" for the past four-and-a-half years with my monster trekking backpack loaded with my clothes and sleeping bag, while wheeling a heavy-ass K-Mart-special Mongoose in one hand and lugging my “homeless swag” in the other.

Go figure it would rain as soon as I was scheduled to beat my feet, after weeks of abnormally dry and even sometimes balmy days. It was dark out, of course, and I couldn't carry all that crap, so I ended up schlepping a few blocks down to the side of a freeway on-ramp I used to occasionally drink and crash at years ago when I was a street drunk. There I inaugurated my return to homelessness, spending the first four nights until I moved my spot close to the Northwest industrial district. It was no place to be, and three events in particular underscored how vulnerable I was while there: 1) on my first night there an obvious street druggie girl came by shortly after I crawled into my Gore-Tex™ coffin motel, asking if I was Jesse (or some similar-sounding name); 2) early Friday morning I woke up to what sounded like a shopping cart being thrown on its side nearby and when I took a look I saw that some guy had nailed a cyclist in his car, making me grit my teeth for the next forty-five minutes in anticipation of police harassment after the incident had been reported — fortunately I was left alone (and fortunately for the cyclist it wasn't a hit-and-run!); but 3) the most portentous event occurred at around 8:00 AM on Saturday while I was breaking down my shelter and getting ready to break fast at St. Stephen's, when I saw three shady-looking guys creeping down a street nearby with beer-shaped plastic bags in their hands — the kind of people who look like they'd date rape and rob a hooker, and as such wouldn't be above rolling a homeless guy for some cash and gear to sell.

I'm definitely pleased with the move! It's noisy beneath the freeways perched on pylons far above me, but I actually felt pretty safe last night, and with the ear plugs the noise didn't deprive me of sleep any more than the previous spot did. Unless the thick foam mat I found Friday night gets stolen along with the brown tarp it's wrapped in, tonight should be a similarly pleasant rest. You see, it's not just the noise that causes homeless people to sleep poorly — or even the discomfort — it's the fear that jerks us out of slumber at the slightest suspicious sound. Once I manage to get a small one-man tent and a compact air mattress I'll probably make that area my new home, at least until the encroaching gentrification summons police harassment or the sketchy ghouls migrate in en masse. It struck me yesterday at a feed that I've regularly gone to over the years just how low the creep index always has seemed to be in that area, is why I chose that location. Alas, being below two freeways means there's a lot of vehicle emissions, which my smoker's and asthmatic lungs don't need, but I plan on getting a filtration mask before summer.

Dishonorable Discharge

I'm out of here. Next Monday but I'll probably be outside a night or two before. Yes, outside, as in back on the streets. Why I haven't posted in so long is because a bit over a month ago I got pissed off at some guy working in The Roxy (it was a Sunday morning after an exceptionally festive occasion) because he wouldn't sell me a book of matches because I had already been eighty-sixed out of there because of a previous incident involving a book of matches. Whatever, I've had one of them oblige me a couple times before, when it was dead. Also, whatever, I had three books nearly full sitting by my computer desk, as it turned out. In all seriousness, it was a stupid thing to do; I threw change at the guy in response to his shoddy customer service, pretty forcefully, and twice (the second time on the way back from the store I ended up buying matches at). Don't know if I hit him either time, but I hope I did and it hurt, because I despise that place along with Scandals next to it. Alas, part of the rental agreement of this building is the "good neighbor clause", namely the stipulation that we don't make ourselves nuisances to adjacent businesses on this side of the block we're on.

How do I feel about all this? Honestly, I've enjoyed being homeless more than I've enjoyed living indoors; for as long as I can remember I've never felt at ease around people (except when loaded), I've always been sensitive to noise, and society has always struck me as a consensual delusion that ran a crooked table and because of that the contemplation of it has always left an ugly metallic taste in my metaphorical mouth. Not that being homeless is an extended vacation, but there's more than one way to be homeless and my way doesn't involve pushing shopping carts or sleeping in doorways or passing out drunk every night beneath a freeway overpass; I'm what can be called an urban camper, I suppose. Besides, what's to miss? Cockroaches? Bed bugs? Shit smeared all over the toilet seat in the shared bathrooms, alongside garbage in the showers and sinks? A kitchen oven submerged in a lake of grease, with garbage strewn all over it and food of unknown origin splattered and spilled all over the counters? Assholes punching me in the eye and pepper-spraying me? Lead? Inept property management that doesn't even bother to conceal laissez-faire favoritism? Alcohol-fueled drama and vicious Swiss-village gossiping?

No, I'm not going to miss this place, not one bit. It won't be a bed of roses outdoors, not at first, but I have a couple tarps, a nice backpack, and a sleeping bag that ought to be warm enough; I'll be fine. Whether or not I'll come to visit anyone here or I end up treating it like a pillar of salt and flee without ever looking back, I don't know. Fortunately, I'm not being evicted, so I can still move into the Fountain Place when my number comes up on the wait list, which I don't think will take more than a couple years.

In the Dog House

I'm in the dog house again. Whenever a resident accrues three write-ups within a year for non-compliance with the rental agreement … basic things like not blasting your stereo or having loud parties that meander through the hallways and common areas in the middle of the night, not screaming abusive language at neighbors or threatening them with violence (or actually inflicting violence on them), and not allowing your room to fester ankle-deep in leftover malt liquor and TV dinners … he ends up in a six-month probationary period wherein one more write-up will result in eviction.

So, what did I do? Well, in April I ended up pretty drunk with a couple neighbors and ended up spending the night in noisy revelry, much to the chagrin of many third-floor residents. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it hadn't gone on until 6:00 AM and if I had simply stayed in my or a neighbor's room with the door closed; yeah, I was carousing. A month later I was tanked up again, and this time I was so belligerent I ended up arguing with cops outside the front door of the building! I essentially told the night desk clerk to fuck himself repeatedly as he complained about me walking in the common areas without shoes on (which our black market bicycle connection does all the time and gets away with) and later sitting on the edge of one of the planters in front of the building that amounts to our stoop. The third one occurred just last weekend, when Poopsie called the office while I was screaming at her through her door to turn her damn stereo down, which of course was heard over the phone. I wasn't saying nice things, but I've been feuding with her since I moved on the second floor because of her obnoxious music and big mouth.

It's pretty strange how things work in this building: you can crap all over the place and trash it, make as much noise as you want between 8:00 AM and 10:00 PM, and be an all-around inconsiderate, slovenly jerk … but, if you call people names or fall into garbage cans drunk at night every so often you get into trouble. If you're severely mentally ill or a female you can damn near get away with murder, and I'm sure black people can play the racist card any time it suits them. In other words, there's a tacit cabal of privileged pest vectors, who cause more damage and disgrace to the building than all the sloppy drunks combined; but if I get pissed at someone for pulling my pillows out of the dryer while they're still damp and call her a "Goddamn cunt!" I'm one strike on my way to an eviction while they spend years upon years assured of a roof over their heads while undermining on a daily basis our quality of living.

Put simply, this place isn't managed according to logic, and there's certainly an element of favoritism in play. Is this the norm, how most apartment complexes are managed? Well, regardless I need to behave myself.