Home sweet home.
Day to day, it seems that my most intimate relationships are with homeless people. I’ve lived within a crowded single-square mile city across the Hudson, called Hoboken, for six years (in an apartment). Every day, I take the same walk to and from at approximately the same time, running into these familiar address-less locals who know better than I do whether I am generous or gullible, kind or condescending, fervent or fearful. We co-exist in this place without pretense, raw in our habits, biases, even prejudices.
If there is a right way to be homeless, one woman has found it. She is a clean grandmother-type with shiny ash-colored hair that is kept in a braid as thick as my wrist. Her skin glows of a proud heritage. Her name could be Camille or Madeleine. While I’m not so disciplined, she keeps to a strict schedule. This near synchrony has revealed most of her routine to me. She usually sleeps in the cocooned doorway of a shop that opens slightly later than other businesses on Washington Avenue, giving her a bit of time to prepare properly for the day before traffic pushes her aside. I suspect Camille is a diabetic because she inspects her feet very carefully every morning. Beside her neatly, she keeps two bottles of water, one large and one considerably smaller, and several blankets folded squarely with sharp corners. Sometimes she sits on a crate, other times the crate is a nightstand. I’ve never seen Madeleine beg or brush through garbage, but I have seen her breakfast and drink from a coffee cup with no lid. I find her calming, even though she never wishes me good morning back.
There is another woman who paces the south end of Washington with more flair, if less poise. She is also an older woman. Her neck is a solid tree trunk, and her body grows wider and wider each inch below it. She has a puff of hair so thin it’s phantom. Her name could be Rona. Rona has always kept a cat. For years, she had a docile grey and white tabby that didn’t mind its rope collar and leash. The cat moseyed by her side as she dragged her heavy bag of personal effects from one bench to another. When it grew tired, the cat would lay atop the bag nonchalant to the step, jerk, stop, repeat of Rona’s stride. Rona was in a very bad way after it died. Eventually, she came to mother a whole litter of kittens. Orange and grey tabbies, black, white, and brown. She had them all and she managed to keep them all together far longer than I could have. But eventually the ropes frayed and only one remained. Though this new cat has not taken well to its tethered life, Rona is steadfast. When I last saw them, Rona was crossing the street and the cat clutched the zipper of the lurching bag with its claws, back arched in terror.
There are several others that I see often and notice almost as often. There is a mute man whose monthly spiral back into alcoholism is apparent from the length of his beard. Another man has somehow managed to consistently maintain the full glory of his 1980s porn star mustache. A fat man who lives in the park off Willow sometimes criticizes passersby for being lazy. And I would be remiss to omit mention of the enterprising woman who screams “STOP TOUCHING ME” and with the same breath extorts $1 to avoid any more of a scene.
These people know when I’m running late to work in the morning and when work has kept me at night. I can’t hide fresh coffee stains on my way to the train or the sorry limp of blistered feet on my way home. They can recite the breakfast I ordered in their parlor and the al fresco dinner I ate in their bedrooms. Neither of us covers our eyes when the other picks up some liquor to wash away a hard day. We are together in restlessness when I stop to think and swing in the park.
I am intrigued, even fond of some of them, and maybe they have taken to me too, but I have no delusions about actually befriending any of them. Some have tried, and the disappointment is shaking.
On sidewalk café-worthy evenings, a slender black man sings and strums a good guitar on the corner of Third and Washington. He leaves a hard-shell guitar case directly in the middle of the wide sidewalk. His name could be Sam. One of his particularly soulful performances caught the attention of a middle-aged woman who loves music and people. She stopped and spoke to Sam about his guitar and the type of music he played with kindness, interest, and a face that has never worn make up, except maybe once and even then just lipstick. They laughed together and he passed her his guitar for a minute. Somehow, the woman and Sam coordinated schedules and, once or twice a week, there would be two hard-shell guitar cases to walk around while they learned a song or two together and performed in front of the Capital One doors.
One night, Sam sat on the bench near the bus stop and the woman stood with her guitar leaning against the bank’s window. He slouched and drooled and his head swung from side to side. “Play a song,” he spat. She didn’t hear him. “PLAY. A. SOOOONG.” So she played a song alone, just that one. Since then, I’ve seen the woman and Sam chatting, but her guitar stays in its case.
I am also acutely aware of my own inability to connect with characters and struggles so different from my own. On a warm Wednesday night in July, my husband and I carried rolled up blankets under our arms and walked down the spine of Hoboken. It was my turn to choose dinner and I selected an Asian eatery that offered my Thai favorites, but also many non-Thai options because he has no Thai favorites. (I chose a delicious eggplant dish, he chose something forgettable.) We continued through town with our blankets and bags to the waterfront, where the city hoisted a giant inflatable to screen free movies under the stars. We watched a bit of Birdman before the official inflatable preservers announced that it had become too windy to continue. By then, we’d finished up as much as we wanted to eat and spotted a Mr. Softee truck at the head of the pier, scooping summer movie night disappointment right up and into cones. I, however, was panicked. I had too much to carry between my blanket, my purse, my soda, and my leftover box, and I refused my husband’s help. I insisted, as I often do, on finding a homeless person to pick up the rest of my meal where I’d left off and enjoy the last bites for me, rather than throw it away. Only then could I return to Mr. Softee for my dessert.
There is usually no difficulty in finding a qualifying homeless person at night in downtown Hoboken. But for some reason, my search was nearing four blocks—each away from Mr. Softee. My husband was growing impatient and I was growing more harried.
I spotted a man sitting alone on the small stoop of a tax services office. I had seen a young druggy couple huddle on that stoop on many other nights, but I didn’t question the turf swap. Everyone else rushed passed him, he sat motionless, and I rushed to him.
“Hello, wouldyoulikemydinner?” I said. He looked up at me and smiled. He was neither young nor old, big nor small.
“Your dinner?” he asked.
“It’s Thai food. Absolutely delicious.” I explained.
“Oh. Thai food? Ok then. Thank you very much.”
“Enjoy!” I shouted as I turned around to face my husband who had stopped in his tracks. But rather than satisfaction, I had an overwhelming feeling of wrong. I felt wrong because I was wrong. I didn’t see hunger or desperation or need on that stoop. I saw a mouth. And I thoughtlessly threw food (albeit delicious food) into it.
My husband was correctly horrified. “He wasn’t homeless, was he?” I asked.
“He certainly doesn’t look homeless, Monica.”
“But he was on the stoop. Maybe it was his first day of being homeless. And that’s why he wasn’t begging. And looks clean.” I retorted.
“Maybe,” he said stupefied.
I realized then that I wasn’t being benevolent or unwasteful. I was being ironically gluttonous and selfish, and worse presumptuous and small-minded. I didn’t do good that night, I did stupid. I’m still ashamed of myself. I deserve my life sentence without Mr. Softee. I can’t so much as hear that damned happy truck tune without wincing.
The truth is my homeless comrades and I are on display out here. We all live in this town. We share the streets, the mornings, and the nights. None of us are perfect, but we lurch forward as best we can.