Category Archives: No Fixed Address

NO FIXED ADDRESS #5 – The Weight of Carrying Everything

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Installment 1 * Installment 2 * Installment 3 * Installment 4

I carry everything I own.

Not metaphorically — though we’ll get there — but physically. On my back. On my shoulders. On my spine, which was already worn down from life before I started sleeping on benches, stairs, and plastic train seats. I carry it up staircases that feel like mountains. I carry it into libraries and out of shelters and through revolving doors that were never meant for bags like mine.

And every ounce matters. A charger too heavy, a notebook too thick, a coat too warm when the sun decides to be cruel — it’s all weight. It’s all punishment. Your life becomes triage. What do I need more — a clean shirt, or Advil? Do I carry this book I love, or do I save space for soap?

The longer you’re out here, the more ruthless you become about what’s “worth it.” You pare yourself down until the bag is just survival. But the weight doesn’t leave.

Because then there’s the mental weight.

The constant tracking — of location, of time, of people, of threat. You have to remember where the power outlets are. Which parks have working water fountains. Which McDonald’s will let you sit for 22 minutes before kicking you out. Which guard turns a blind eye on Sundays. Which stairs are safer than sidewalks. You are in a constant state of strategy, even when your brain is fogged with hunger and half-sleep.

You carry your own invisibility. You carry being watched. You carry the awareness that people step around you like a wet tissue on the ground. You carry your own shame — even when you know you didn’t deserve this. Even when you know it could happen to them, too.

And then there’s the worst weight:
Memory.

I carry the apartment I lost. The room with the quiet door and the plant I forgot to water. I carry the sound of heat turning on in winter. The hum of a refrigerator holding food just for me. I carry the versions of myself that had a home, and a nameplate, and a mailbox. I carry the man I was.

And on days when the pain is too much, I carry this voice in my head that whispers:
“Maybe it’s better not to carry you anymore.”

But I do. I carry me.
I carry me through aching feet and strangers’ stares and silence that grows louder every week.
I carry me through being forgotten by algorithms and friends and time.

So if you’re reading this — even silently, without likes or comments — know this:

This is not content.
This is not an act.
This is the sound of someone still carrying himself, alone, across a city that doesn’t want to see him.

I don’t need applause.
But I do need room.

—Rhyan

NO FIXED ADDRESS #4– The Man Talking to the Wall Wasn’t Talking to Me

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Welcome to No Fixed Address, a weekly series where I write candidly about what it means to be homeless—right now, in real life, not in some sanitized Hollywood version. I’m currently unhoused. Not “drifting.” Not “on a journey.” Just trying to survive in a world that looks away.

Each week, I’ll share personal accounts, hard truths, and moments that don’t make it into the movies. If you’re here to understand what homelessness actually looks like—not as a plot point, but as a life—then you’re in the right place.

This is not a cry for pity. It’s a record. A mirror. A small act of resistance.

Installment 1 * Installment 2 * Installment 3

There’s a man I see sometimes at a particular subway station who wears five coats, no socks, and sings showtunes to the column near the MetroCard machine. Not at the machine — to it. With reverence. Sometimes he calls it “Mother.” Sometimes he asks it why the moon forgot him.

Other times, he screams.

I don’t know his name, but I know his shape in the crowd. I know to give him space. I know he isn’t violent — not yet. But I also know he’s a walking nerve ending, exposed to the elements, and sooner or later, someone will provoke him. Or he’ll crack.

There are more of him now. And it’s getting harder to tell which ones are just talking to themselves, and which ones are holding it together by the thinnest thread of silence. I’ve shared benches with them. Ridden the same 2 a.m. train loops. Some mutter. Some shout. Some sob quietly into their sleeves for hours.

The line between homeless and psychologically unwell is not always the same — but it’s getting blurrier every week.

And here’s the thing: navigating the homeless landscape means navigating them, too.
And they’re not okay.
And neither are we.

I’m not here to speak over them. But I am here to say this: it is becoming genuinely dangerous to move through the city’s unhoused corridors — shelters, trains, stairwells, benches — because mental health care has utterly collapsed, and too many people have nowhere left to unravel except next to you.

I’ve had someone chase me down a platform for looking too long in their direction.
I’ve had someone follow me up a stairwell whispering “I’m not gonna hurt you” in a tone that made me believe the opposite.
I’ve seen a man bash his head against a pole until MTA police officers came to drag him away like luggage.

This isn’t “colorful city life.” This is a breakdown — of systems, of minds, of basic public safety. And every time a new person ends up on the street mid-episode, we’re all told to just accept it. Duck and weave. Look down. Dodge the danger, but show empathy. Keep your distance, but don’t dehumanize. It’s a losing equation.

There’s a rumor — more than a rumor, really — that certain New Jersey agencies have been quietly transporting individuals with severe mental health conditions across the river into New York once their Medicaid or charity care runs out. Allegedly, they’re given a one-way bus ticket and let loose near Penn Station or Port Authority.

“Not our problem anymore.”

I don’t have paperwork to prove it, but I’ve seen the fallout. The confused newcomers with hospital bracelets still on. The disoriented men asking how to get back to Hackensack or Newark. The women who say things like, “I was at a place with nurses and then I wasn’t.” You learn to read between the lines real fast out here.

Here’s the most brutal part: even the ones trying to get help often can’t. If you’re mentally unwell and homeless, the threshold to get admitted to psychiatric care is sky-high. You basically have to be actively suicidal and disruptive — and even then, you might just get a psych eval and kicked back out with a pamphlet.

And those of us just trying to survive — who aren’t (yet) in crisis — we’re left with the fallout. We dodge. We share space. We don’t sleep. We brace for the moment the shouting turns, or the eye contact lingers too long.

We’re not just sleeping rough anymore.
We’re sleeping in someone else’s breakdown.
And tomorrow, it could be our turn.

—Rhyan

No Fixed Address #3: The People Who You Meet

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Welcome to No Fixed Address, a weekly series where I write candidly about what it means to be homeless—right now, in real life, not in some sanitized Hollywood version. I’m currently unhoused. Not “drifting.” Not “on a journey.” Just trying to survive in a world that looks away.

Each week, I’ll share personal accounts, hard truths, and moments that don’t make it into the movies. If you’re here to understand what homelessness actually looks like—not as a plot point, but as a life—then you’re in the right place.

This is not a cry for pity. It’s a record. A mirror. A small act of resistance.

Installment 1 * Installment 2

Being homeless, you slowly develop the mutant ability of invisibility. You don’t ask for it, but it’s given to you, day by day, until you master the art of being looked through as if you didn’t exist. The city becomes a blur of legs and exhaust, a world that moves around a space you only temporarily occupy. On the rare occasion, however, someone’s focus snags on you, and for a moment, you flicker back into existence.

Such was the case for me at a church-run soup kitchen in a neighborhood that had long since given up trying to be safe. The air outside reeked of old urine and decay, but inside, it was a sterile blast of bleach and boiled coffee. Security was a serious affair: a guard with tired eyes checked bags and backpacks, and everyone submitted to the electronic chirp of a metal detector wand and an indifferent pat-down. A necessary ritual before you could be granted a breakfast tray of food.

The dining hall was a cramped, narrow space, lined with four long benches already crowded with hunched shoulders and weary faces. The room was made even smaller by the bustling team of volunteers, a small army of good intentions standing by to deliver the morning’s meal. Due to a series of funding cuts following the most recent presidential election, the breakfast was reduced to a single-serving packet of dry cereal, a small plastic cup of milk, a diced fruit cup swimming in syrup, a granola bar, a small bottle of water, and the choice of either a cup of coffee or tea. A checklist of calories.

As was my custom, I made my way down the line of volunteers, offering a quiet, “Hello, thank you for being here.” Some nodded back, a few offered a real smile. Most didn’t. It never bothered me. Acknowledging their presence was my way of holding onto a piece of the man I used to be. You are only responsible for your own actions, after all.

The volunteer who served me was a flurry of limbs and apologies. A tall, slender blonde woman whose thick glasses seemed to magnify the slight panic in her eyes. She stumbled bringing the tray over, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. She almost tripped setting it down, which caused the milk to slosh over the side, a white splash on the worn plastic.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” she gasped, her accented voice soft, with a melody to it I couldn’t place. She fumbled with a napkin, making the puddle worse.

“Hey, it’s totally fine,” I said, smiling. “Adds a little character to the tray.” And it really was fine because milk was the enemy. Being lactose intolerant, I always ate my cereal dry.

She paused her frantic dabbing and looked at me. Really looked. And then, to my surprise, she blushed. “I am also sorry I did not say hello when you came in,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. “I am afraid my klutziness made the first impression.”

I wish I’d had the presence of mind to remember her name, but alas and alack, my memory isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. What I did recall was that she was from the Czech Republic, and was currently working as an au pair in New Jersey. She was in New York because she’d seen Moulin Rouge the night before and stayed in a hostel overnight in order to volunteer at the soup kitchen. Her face lit up as she described the play, transforming her persona from awkward to incandescent. She was a self-proclaimed fashion and craft nerd. She’d made gifts for the cast, contacted them through Instagram, and actually arranged to meet them backstage after the show. She showed me pictures on her phone of her beaming alongside the actors, holding up her handmade creations. She hoped, she confessed, that it might one day lead to costume design work in an actual Broadway or West End production. Her biggest fear was that the current administration would make it impossible to get another work visa after her current one expired in August.

She painted a picture of a life so different from mine it felt like a broadcast from another galaxy. Then, searching for common ground, I pointed to a small pin on her apron—a Starfleet insignia.

Her eyes widened behind her glasses like a starship engaging its warp drive. She was a Trekkie. A super-fan. She’d made her own uniforms from every series. “Even,” she whispered conspiratorially, leaning in, “Discovery.”

I chuckled. “That’s dedication.”

The kitchen had a strict ten-minute time limit per meal to keep the line moving. But I was the last one in, and the morning rush was over. The other volunteers started wiping down counters, their glances growing heavier, but she didn’t seem to notice. We talked Trek, debating the merits of Kirk versus Picard, the tragedy of Jadzia Dax, the sheer brilliance of the Dominion War arc. We were two strangers in a forgotten corner of the city, speaking a shared, secret language.

Then, her expression softened. “And what about you?” she asked.

I gave her the abridged version. You learn to edit your life story for polite company. But she listened with an unnerving intensity. I didn’t want to dim the light in her eyes after she’d just had such a perfect, starlit day.

She must have sensed my hesitation. “No, I mean,” she said, her voice dropping, “how does this… affect you? Mentally. Emotionally.”

The question was so direct, so human, it disarmed me. I decided to give her the truth.

“It grinds you down,” I said, the words feeling heavy and foreign in my mouth. “You start to feel less than human. Invisible. Like a ghost haunting a world that’s forgotten you’re even there.”

She looked at me for a long, silent moment, her head cocked to one side as if trying to solve a complex equation. Then, with a small, definitive nod, she said something that shattered the air between us.

“I would have your babies.”

I froze. My mind, which had just been soaring through the Alpha Quadrant, crashed back to Earth. I am old enough to be her father, maybe even her grandfather. The statement hung in the air, bizarre and profound. It wasn’t a proposition. It wasn’t a joke. It was a declaration. A strange, fiercely human, and impossibly beautiful testament that shot through layers of invisibility and said: I see you. You are a man. You are worthy.

I didn’t know how to process it. Still don’t. I didn’t push, or dig for meaning, or make a clumsy joke. I just let it sit there, an echo from a parallel world where such things could be said.

Some moments aren’t meant for deconstruction. They’re meant to be held, like a fragile, priceless thing. You just take the compliment, breathe it in, and let it be enough.

For that one conversation, in that cramped and sterile room, I wasn’t on the streets. I wasn’t a ghost. I was a man talking to a woman about starships and dreams.

And that was a kind of magic more real than anything I had felt in quite a while.

– Rhyan

No Fixed Address #2: The Sleep That Isn’t

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Welcome to No Fixed Address, a weekly series where I write candidly about what it means to be homeless—right now, in real life, not in some sanitized Hollywood version. I’m currently unhoused. Not “drifting.” Not “on a journey.” Just trying to survive in a world that looks away.

Each week, I’ll share personal accounts, hard truths, and moments that don’t make it into the movies. If you’re here to understand what homelessness actually looks like—not as a plot point, but as a life—then you’re in the right place.

This is not a cry for pity. It’s a record. A mirror. A small act of resistance.

Installment 1

There’s a kind of tired you don’t come back from.

It’s not the kind you fix with a nap or a strong cup of coffee. It’s not jet lag. It’s not overwork. It’s something deeper — a warping, a slippage. A depletion of self. Sleep becomes an idea, not a practice. A memory you can’t quite recreate. You get pieces of it: a head nod, a microdream, a blackout between train stops. But real sleep? The kind where you go somewhere and return? That’s a ghost story.

The body adjusts — poorly. You lose the edges of things first. The line between now and five minutes ago goes smudgy. Your eyes start seeing movement that isn’t there. You forget simple sequences, like brushing your teeth or zipping your bag. Then the thoughts change — not the big ones, not “What’s my name” or “Where am I,” but the connective tissue between ideas. Things start to… float.

I’ve cried while laughing and not noticed the difference. I’ve asked the same question twice in a row and not known it. I’ve sat on a bench staring at a coffee cup I wasn’t holding. It’s like my mind is trying to fold itself in half just to keep warm.

One night, about a week ago, I decided to sleep outdoors. The weather was relatively mild and I was layered up — a puffer jacket under a peacoat. I’d found one of those “Open to the Public” patios where the building had — miraculously — left their metal chairs and tables out overnight. (Usually, management hauls them inside to avoid people like me doing exactly what I was doing.)

I spotted a table against the wall, sat down, threaded my legs through my backpack straps like a seatbelt, and drifted off. How long was I out? No idea. But something woke me — a pressure, a wrongness. When I opened my eyes, there was a man sitting inches from my face, closer than a lover, closer than breath. Startled, I shouted for him to back off. In a voice smooth as a razor, he said:
“I only wanted to talk to you. Go back to sleep so I can finish the conversation.”

I cursed that man out so thoroughly the air itself blushed. Eventually, he left — not running, not raging, just walking away with the same unnerving calm. If I had stayed asleep, I genuinely believe I would’ve died that night.

It just goes to show, every night is a new gamble. Will the train keep running? Will someone try to rob me? Will I snore loud enough to get kicked out, or quiet enough to vanish? Will my legs give out from being crumpled too long? Will someone mistake me for someone dangerous, or worse — someone disposable?

Sleep, when you get it, feels like theft. Like you’ve stolen a moment from the world. And when the moment’s over, it demands payment.

To sort of prove my point, let me tell you about a man named Mike Black — a millionaire entrepreneur who once “went homeless” to try and rebuild his fortune from scratch. You may have heard of him. He paused his business, cut off his network, assumed a fake identity, and aimed to make $1 million in 12 months with nothing but grit and hustle. He documented the whole thing. Very inspiring.

Except… he never slept on the street.

He used a couch-surfing app to secure nightly shelter — and I’ve tried that app too, by the way. I’ll explain in another post why it didn’t work out for me (and while we’re on the subject, being homeless and owing a car isn’t the same, either). Mike also had a film crew. He also had a safety net, even if self-imposed. And while he cited his father’s health as the reason for ending the challenge early (which I respect), he failed to mention the mental health toll the experiment took on him as his story shifted.

Living without a fixed address isn’t some damned a startup challenge. It’s not a game, or a detox, or an experiment in bootstrapping.

It’s waking up to yourself and finding you’re thinner in spirit than the day before. That the thread holding you together has frayed a little more. That your body feels less like a home and more like a failed machine.

I miss dreaming. I miss waking up and knowing I had been somewhere.

Once, I got lucky — a miracle, really. I managed nearly four hours of sleep in the library. Either security gave me a break or they weren’t on duty that day. It felt like slipping into something sacred.

And I dreamed.

In the dream, I had a friend. Not just an acquaintance or a helper, but a real friend. Someone who knew me. Someone I laughed with. When I woke, I instantly remembered I was homeless — the weight of it landed like usual — but it didn’t crush me the same way. I had a strange warmth in my chest. I didn’t feel so alone.

Until I realized the friend lived in the dream.

And I was still here.

—Rhyan

No Fixed Address – An Introduction

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

The few of you who follow (and hopefully read) me regularly, know me as a fiction writer — I typically manage two stories a week, every Monday and Thursday, strange tales spun from stranger places. That won’t change. The fictions will continue. The ghosts and aliens and memory glitches and strange girls at the bus stop will all keep coming.

But starting this week, Sundays will be different.

I’m calling the new segment No Fixed Address — not just because it sounds poetic (though it does), but because it’s now my legal truth. I don’t have a home. Not an apartment. Not a room. Not even a couch.

As of February 18th, I was evicted from the small rented room I’d lived in for nearly a decade. I sleep upright on the subway most nights. I apply for jobs constantly. I carry everything I own. I’m not telling you this for pity. I’m telling you because it’s happening, and because I believe truth deserves to be written down.

So on Sundays, I’ll post about that truth:
The logistics, the humiliations, the loopholes, the kindnesses, the cold.
What it’s like to find a public restroom when you have nowhere to go back to. What it’s like to smile at people who step around you like you’re a trash bag with eyes. What it’s like to still write stories in your head while watching a cop gently nudge a man awake so he won’t freeze to death.

These entries won’t be pretty. They won’t be polished. But they’ll be mine. And if you’ve ever read anything I’ve written and thought, “I see something of myself in this,” then maybe you’ll see something in these, too.

So:

  • Mondays & Thursdays: Fiction.
  • Sundays: No Fixed Address.
  • And the rest of the time, I’ll be out there, living it.

Stay with me if you can.
Read if you’re willing.
And if you’ve ever loved a story I told — now might be the time to send some positivity my way to help me live long enough to write more.

Ciao til next now.

—Rhyan