#1: Ain't No Then No More.

My inscrutably shape-shifting relationship with Melvin.

It’s very difficult to talk about homeless people without seeming overly idealistic, altruistic, or fatalistic. Or, worse, to seem just clueless.

Even the right phrase: homeless, houseless, homeless-by-choice, housing challenged, couch surfing, tent city-ing. To bastardize Leo Tolstoy, “every homeless person is homeless in his, her, and/or their own way.”

Since I live downtown, I’ve developed a passing relationship with several other people who live downtown—on the street during the day and wherever they can at night.

I’ve mentioned Kenny¹ a couple of times. He graduated from Amherst College a few years after I did and tends to be floridly manic. (I tend to just be mildly manic.). Whenever I run into him, he’s always “just been looking” for me and can’t wait to drown me in whatever’s currently pouring forth from the top of this head. At one point he spent some time up close and personal with the Dalai Lama so he thinks it’d be fun to go mano a mano with me in the who’s most enlightened department. Not knowing whether that’s a blessing or a curse, I let him decide. Besides, any time I “get him” as he puts it, he says he was testing me and then starts mumbling phrases in perfect guttural Tibetan.

Kenny usually has money and “perfectly good” food that supermarkets have thrown out, along with some “incredibly useful” items that he’s come upon here or there. I shouldn’t put that in quotes. The other day he gave me a classic antique school globe light he found in a dumpster. I’d been looking for one for years. He sometimes asks me for coffee money but only when he pats his pockets and realizes that, while he has many pockets, he doesn’t have any money in them. In that case, he always promises to pay me back double. Sometimes we split a muffin. He’s told me that after his mother dies, he’ll be a millionaire. He actually could be a millionaire when his mother dies—I’ve looked her up. Except he may have been cut out from the will. Kenny’s crazy wise in the best Buddhist tradition. I don’t know how wise I am but I’m crazy enough to talk to him. Kenny considers himself the overseer of the street people. He even offers some a room in the abandoned house he squats in, even after he’s moved into the woods because the house is rat infested. Kenny tells me who’s an addict and who’s not and gets weepy every time he hears about another person who’s like a brother to him who overdosed.

Jake tells me the best stories about why he needs money. Usually it’s $18 for Suboxone or $19 for a hotel room. Although sometimes it’s because he has a place to go where he has a job and he just needs bus money. A while back, I knew the money was for hard drugs—not that it was my business. But something about his affect has changed. So I think he’s sticking to the Suboxone. He says he’s been turned down three times for Medicaid and, if he can’t get the Suboxone, he’ll be “tempted” to try that “other stuff”. I’m still getting to the bottom of why homeless addicts have to pay for their Suboxone. Jake’s girlfriend usually hangs back suspiciously or shyly, but always smiles and says thank you when I give him money. She has some form of cancer and he says she doesn’t have enough money for the regular medicine she needs because she’s not on her dad’s insurance anymore and she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid.

A lot of their stories don’t quite make sense to me. But the feeling is probably mutual. (It probably doesn’t make sense to them when I say I only have a few bucks and pull out a wallet that clearly has more.)

Sebastian and his girlfriend were staying near the railroad tracks for most of winter. I could see their tent from my third-floor apartment. One day he told me they’d had a raccoon on the roof and it had really freaked his girlfriend out. For some reason, I had never given him money before. But I gave him some that day.

Sebastian’s from Florida. When I found out I said, “What the f— you doing up here?” We looked at each other and said, in unison: “A girl.” I haven’t seen him in a while and Jake told me he and his girl left town.

There’s a good chance they’ll be back.

My friend Gwen used to sit on a bench near the town common having random stream of consciousness conversations with anyone and everyone. I’d usually agree with whatever she said and move on. One winter day I saw her shivering. So I gave her the fleece jacket I was wearing. She said really? I said sure. I didn’t feel noble. There were more where that came from. She smiled. I felt it was a fair trade.

And then there’s a guy named Jimmy who’s usually hanging around the parking garage. I have no relationship with him because he’s oblivious to me and is either a pimp, a dealer, or both. Someone asked me once why I thought he was a dealer. I said that when I see someone lean into the passenger window of a car with Connecticut plates, he isn’t giving them directions. Jimmy’s only threat to me is that he shatters my self-delusion of unconditional love.

And then there’s my friend Melvin. I could write a book about Melvin. We talk quite a bit and sometimes, when he’s not accusing me of “talking that stupid white shit again,” he’ll say something that gives me pause. So when I go upstairs I write it on my white board. Like the quote above…

As Melvin often says when we part, “To be continued…”

1. I know Kenny and Melvin well enough to use their real names. They assume they’re providing valuable material for my writing, anyway. Which now they are. I made up names for everyone else.