Occupy Jersey Street Update
So, on my way out of my building this morning I found not one, but two rough sleepers camped out in the vestibule. They were on the younger and, to be honest, more attractive and well-dressed side, for vagrants, but it doesn't matter anymore. I have crossed some invisible divide, where my annoyance at the activity — whatever the activity — eclipses any other consideration.
You just don't camp out in someone's vestibule. And if you do, you don't sleep in. I mean, it was nearly 8 a.m. when I left the apartment this morning.
Because you know what? I've been down on my luck, twenty bucks to my name, in a new town where no one knew me. I've passed up some mighty inviting vestibules in my day, let me tell you.
My first night in Boston, almost twenty years ago now, I slept on the Common. I had come down from Maine, where I was chased off Sugarloaf by militant lesbians (long, traumatic story), and hitchhiked down to Boston with little more than a backpack full of filthy clothes and a tattered copy of Suttree. It was July and, like, the hottest day of the year.
They were showing Trading Places for free at the Harvard Science Center, which was air-conditioned. So I sat there with about 200 Asians wondering why Trading Places, why now?
After that was over I lit out and tried to get the lay of the land.
I woke up next morning in the Common with a creepy bald guy hovering right above me eyeballing me. Howie. He offered to put me up in his tiny place on Beacon Street but turned out to really just want to blow straight street trade (which I technically was not but could pass as in a pinch) while jerking off into a tube sock.
And that was my second night in Boston.
And it got worse — for about six weeks — before it got any better (and then just marginally). Point is: I know Skid Row like the back of my hand, bitches, and I never slept in a vestibule.
These days I'm in a somewhat different place. But only somewhat. It's true I can afford to live in a one-bedroom in the West Fens, but it's also true I cannot afford to furnish it properly. And I'm one paycheck away at any given moment from the streets. Razor's edge. That's where I live.
So when some punk who's camping out in the entrance to my building gives me a real class war kinda look for waking him up clambering down the stairs with my bike... I'm like, awe hell naw. I paid my dues, bitch. I'm not paying yours, too.
Because the truth of it is that people who are down on their luck have a tendency to think those of us who aren't at the moment are using theirs up. It's like the professional beggars lining Boylston Street who assume because you're not begging you must have money to spare, when it could be that you're turning tricks instead.
I know I'm not alone at having actually hoped that Occupy Boston, which at least one Globe reporter found was attracting some of the city's homeless, would draw some away from the Fenway (and for a good cause!). We have more than our fair share, it seems.
But our regulars aren't too eager to leave us.
I would like to see them in housing, of course. Not mine, but in some kind of housing. Particularly those who seem to wander the streets like spirits in torment, reminding us, like madness's own Paul Reveres, of the fate that awaits us all under the next Republican regime.
If it was just me, I wouldn't mind so much, but they scare my boo.
The other night we were walking down to the corner for a nightcap when Johnny Tourette's jumped out from behind a bush by the Somalian church like something out of The Walking Dead.
Motherfucker literally growled at us. It went a little something like this:
... but not quite as charming.
I snarled back like a feisty kitten and passed without event, but when I looked back I noticed my boo had shot to the other side of the street - pah-chooom!
That's where I draw the line, Johnny. Don't make me choose between you and my boo.
I dunno. I have a feeling this is another one of those epochal "can't we all just get along?" moments in our nation's history. I don't know that anybody's going to like the answer.
Way I see it, it's like this. We have to live together, people. But we don't have to LIVE TOGETHER. Like literally.
Occupy everywhere, but don't tread on me.
You just don't camp out in someone's vestibule. And if you do, you don't sleep in. I mean, it was nearly 8 a.m. when I left the apartment this morning.
Because you know what? I've been down on my luck, twenty bucks to my name, in a new town where no one knew me. I've passed up some mighty inviting vestibules in my day, let me tell you.
My first night in Boston, almost twenty years ago now, I slept on the Common. I had come down from Maine, where I was chased off Sugarloaf by militant lesbians (long, traumatic story), and hitchhiked down to Boston with little more than a backpack full of filthy clothes and a tattered copy of Suttree. It was July and, like, the hottest day of the year.
They were showing Trading Places for free at the Harvard Science Center, which was air-conditioned. So I sat there with about 200 Asians wondering why Trading Places, why now?
After that was over I lit out and tried to get the lay of the land.
I woke up next morning in the Common with a creepy bald guy hovering right above me eyeballing me. Howie. He offered to put me up in his tiny place on Beacon Street but turned out to really just want to blow straight street trade (which I technically was not but could pass as in a pinch) while jerking off into a tube sock.
And that was my second night in Boston.
And it got worse — for about six weeks — before it got any better (and then just marginally). Point is: I know Skid Row like the back of my hand, bitches, and I never slept in a vestibule.
These days I'm in a somewhat different place. But only somewhat. It's true I can afford to live in a one-bedroom in the West Fens, but it's also true I cannot afford to furnish it properly. And I'm one paycheck away at any given moment from the streets. Razor's edge. That's where I live.
So when some punk who's camping out in the entrance to my building gives me a real class war kinda look for waking him up clambering down the stairs with my bike... I'm like, awe hell naw. I paid my dues, bitch. I'm not paying yours, too.
Because the truth of it is that people who are down on their luck have a tendency to think those of us who aren't at the moment are using theirs up. It's like the professional beggars lining Boylston Street who assume because you're not begging you must have money to spare, when it could be that you're turning tricks instead.
I know I'm not alone at having actually hoped that Occupy Boston, which at least one Globe reporter found was attracting some of the city's homeless, would draw some away from the Fenway (and for a good cause!). We have more than our fair share, it seems.
But our regulars aren't too eager to leave us.
I would like to see them in housing, of course. Not mine, but in some kind of housing. Particularly those who seem to wander the streets like spirits in torment, reminding us, like madness's own Paul Reveres, of the fate that awaits us all under the next Republican regime.
If it was just me, I wouldn't mind so much, but they scare my boo.
The other night we were walking down to the corner for a nightcap when Johnny Tourette's jumped out from behind a bush by the Somalian church like something out of The Walking Dead.
Motherfucker literally growled at us. It went a little something like this:
... but not quite as charming.
I snarled back like a feisty kitten and passed without event, but when I looked back I noticed my boo had shot to the other side of the street - pah-chooom!
That's where I draw the line, Johnny. Don't make me choose between you and my boo.
I dunno. I have a feeling this is another one of those epochal "can't we all just get along?" moments in our nation's history. I don't know that anybody's going to like the answer.
Way I see it, it's like this. We have to live together, people. But we don't have to LIVE TOGETHER. Like literally.
Occupy everywhere, but don't tread on me.
There's an old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. The times are very interesting indeed.
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Sounds like things are the same as ever in Boston, apart from more camping out, perhaps. I recall trudging my way across Govt. Center and waving off a cadre of homeless/beggars along my way to my office job in DTX. Every time I would earnestly say "I've got nothing," I'd get that look. You know, THAT look. Just because I had on a clean shirt, or had earbuds in my ears didn't mean I had money. I took to using my ignore-Pod religiously to avoid hearing the question of spare change over and over and over again.
I'm sorry it got threatening, but well done you for standing your ground.
Also, off topic: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Find it and read it. I think you'd like it. It's also becoming a movie.
Cheers from the Mountains,
Thom
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