Tag Archives: homeless

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

Of Breadcrumbs Lost (a Thanksgiving tale, of sorts)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

What caused me to speak to the man, I cannot rightly say, for I do not make it my business to chat with homeless people. They are a dime a dozen in the city in which I live and work and if I regularly engaged with them, I would never make any of my appointments on time. But there was something about this man with the sun-faded, barely legible cardboard sign, something in the deep well of his eyes that beckoned me.

He told me his name was Horace as I patted my pockets to add validation to my claim that I had no money to drop into his dingy paper coffee cup, a statement I made before he even asked. In truth, he never asked. I simply went into automatic defensive mode, not wanting to seem heartless, but not offering any charity, either.

“We all drop breadcrumbs in life,” Horace said.

“Do we?” I asked, struggling to mark his intention.

Horace nodded. “Even the most carefree among us, and we do this because normalcy comes well-equipped with comfort zones. You may take exception to the word normalcy but it has nothing to do with the definition society places on the word normal. Here it applies to the recurrent patterns in your life, the things you’ve grown accustomed to.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“The breadcrumbs are used to lead us back to the path of familiarity when the detours we take spiral beyond our ability to control and/or accept.  I stray from the path constantly chiefly because my path is an uneventful one, which many people would kill for, but I find boring. I ought to be a baker with the number of breadcrumbs I’ve dropped over the years.”

“Um, I’d love to chat, but it’s Thanksgiving and I really must be on my way.”

“Since I’ve always been able to find my way home I never had a problem tearing my life apart,” Horace continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Going on concrete jungle pilgrimages, and returning to my path at some later date to rebuild things from scratch. But this time is different. This time the demolition wasn’t of my choosing and there’s something about the way events have been playing out over the past six months that have clued me in on the fact I am near the end of the race.”

“You’re dying?”

“Homeless yet again, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I have this sinking feeling deep in my marrow that this will be the final time. There’s no way out and no way back. All the breadcrumbs I dropped to lead me back to the main road of rebuilding my life are gone. Most likely eaten by the crows of a fate long overdue. I guess you can only hit the reset button so many times in life.

“And I can’t honestly say I didn’t see it coming. Life stopped making sense about three years ago, though not all at once. Little by little, all the rules I had ever learned, all the tricks I added to my arsenal, no longer applied. Now, life, the daily routine that the majority of the population manages to perform without a second thought or breaking a sweat, is a game I no longer know how to play. Existence no longer makes sense to me.

“Needless to say, it doesn’t help matters that I have always possessed a nihilistic bug in the back of my brain that constantly questions the logic of struggling to achieve anything when all roads lead to death.

“As you can probably work out, I do not believe in the afterlife. So that we’re clear, this is not an invitation for proselytizers to dust off their soapboxes. I am an aspiritual entity and I’ve made my peace with the fact that I shall not receive salvation. If religion works for you, good on you, I wish you nothing but the best.”

I stood there in silence, wanting to walk away, but also wanting to make sense of this interaction. As if reading my mind, Horace said,

“The purpose of my stopping you from your events of the day and rambling on about things which bear no significance to you is to pass on as many of my thoughts and impressions before I lose my sanity to the streets and become one of the wandering bagmen screaming at invisible antagonists.”

And it finally dawned on me. “You want to be remembered,” I said.

“Who among us doesn’t want to be remembered?”

“You wouldn’t happen to be hungry, would you?” I asked.

“It was not my intention to solicit charity from you, sir, at least not of the monetary kind.”

“I didn’t say anything about giving you money. I need to put something in my stomach before I go on the search and I don’t like eating alone.”

“What are you searching for?”

“Breadcrumbs,” I answered. “You said you’ve been dropping them all your life. I’m sure there are enough lingering around somewhere to get you safely back on your path.”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Wishing all who celebrate the holiday (and even those who don’t) good food that fills your belly, good health as you strive for your unique brand of success, and good times with family and friends. May you have all the best delights in a life filled with moments that are as sweet as pumpkin pie!

Sleep-Shaming the Homeless

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Image © 2011 by Patrick G. Ryan www.snarkinfested.com

There’s nothing good about being homeless, not one solitary thing, though I’ve run into more than a few people who claim they’ve been living on the streets between ten and forty years and they wear it like a bizarre badge of pride. If, however, you cannot avoid being without a home, New York isn’t the worst place to be for the simple fact you will never go hungry unless that is your aim. You can’t swing a dead cat in the city so nice they named it twice without hitting a soup kitchen. Plenty of places to throw some food down your gullet. Not always the tastiest morsels but enough to help you survive another day. Sleep, however, is a whole other kettle of fish.

If you are unable to secure a place to sleep in the overcrowded shelter system or a three-quarter house and you make your bed on the street, you quickly learn just how important a good night’s rest is and just how little of that you actually get. Veterans of the lifestyle have secured their hidey-holes and guard the location like it’s gold, others will lay out cardboard mattresses wherever they please, in doorways of closed businesses, on church steps, park benches, subway lines or even in the center of the sidewalk. But no matter how much sleep you manage to eke out at night, during the day, your body will crave the sleep it needs and it will eventually shut you down.

While there are some working homeless, a vast majority are unemployed, on benefits, disability, or supplemental security income and have to find places to spend their time in order to kill the day. No matter how strong-willed you are or how desperately you try to stay awake, eventually you will sit down somewhere and nod out, which is a big no-no in the Big Apple.

This needs to change.

Instead of having overzealous security guards make a public scene out of waking a person who closed their eyes for a moment, there should be places for people to grab a quick nap. I understand that most of the older security guards used to be in law enforcement in one aspect or another and intimidation tactics are part of their arsenal but is closing your eyes in a public place that severe a crime that a person should be forced to wear a scarlet letter?

Why must these mini-dictators get such a thrill out of sleep-shaming the homeless?

Don’t they understand the effects a lack of sleep has on the human psyche? And how that lack might affect the way they behave towards authority, the public at large, or even fellow homeless persons? Does no one understand that sometimes letting a person grab a power nap can make all the difference in how they cope with society and the day?

I know this is child’s logic. There’s no simple solution to sleep-shaming and the bigger issue is that of homelessness. I think it’s time for the thought process to turn from simply getting the homeless off the streets which means pushing the homeless from one neighborhood to another (that’s right upper east side I’m looking at you) or worst yet, processing people through Bellevue, which is almost as bad as being sent to prison due to a lack of health and safety. The adjusted goal should be to provide employment opportunities and safe, affordable housing to those who haven’t given up, who want to rejoin society as productive members, even if it requires services rendered to be bartered for room and board.

 

In the meantime, should you come across me sitting peacefully with my eyes closed, please give me a few moments rest before you disturb my peace. And by all means, try to be respectful should you need to wake me.

I may be homeless, but I’m still human. I still matter.

My Humanity Falls Piece By Piece

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

4232232092_2be61c1467_b

Recently I was asked to write a testimonial for one of the soup kitchens I frequent and because today has been one of those tough days when I just keep rubbing up against the wrong people though I do my best to avoid them, I figured I’d post it here for easy access when I’m online seeking a distraction from the realities of the day.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I became homeless in the back half of 2012. No relatives or friends to use as a temporary support system, I hit the streets of Manhattan without a clue as to where to go, what to do, or what life held in store for me. I struggled for months to survive, spending what little pocket money I had on dollar pizzas, a slice of which I ate every other day in order to stretch out my dwindling funds.

Then one day while I was waiting in the cold for the public library to open, I met two women, sisters, who turned out were homeless like me. They were kind enough to take me to a few locations where I could get some food, which came at a most opportune time as I was down to my last dollar, and that’s no exaggeration. One of the first places they brought me to was a special soup kitchen that changed my entire experience.

Different from other soup kitchens (please understand that the words soup kitchen and ministry are interchangeable here, just as the homeless are referred to as guests), this particular ministry is a great place for guests to start the day. Both the in-house staff and volunteers who help prepare coffee and serve hot meals to the guests are both polite and friendly, which may seem like a given, but it is really a precious and special thing considering most of them make the effort to wake up that extra bit earlier and make themselves available to serve guests of varying temperament before going about their workaday worlds, when most of us find it hard enough just to simply get up and deal with the daily grind.

On my darkest days, when the world doesn’t make sense and I can’t quite seem to catch a glint of the light at the end of this expansive tunnel I’m traveling through, it’s a great comfort for me to have a place where I can be, even for a short while, where I can almost feel human again. That’s the thing people rarely consider when they think about or discuss homelessness. Not being considered a productive part of society, being ignored, avoided, shunned and ridiculed… it chips away at the soul. Bit by bit, by living on the streets, even the strongest person will start to lose confidence, humanity, and even sanity. In my experience, this ministry has helped me hold on to these vital bits of myself, while clinging on to hope as well.

I realize I probably should be pointing out specific instances but truth to tell there are so many, you’d be reading this testimonial for days. Suffice it to say, I have always been greeted with kindness and positive attitudes, even when my attitude was less than civil, and wound up meeting a lot of kind and caring people, some of whom I actually consider friends.

And not to sound unappreciative of other soup kitchens, but the several I have attended cannot hold a candle to this ministry. Compared to some of the larger soup kitchens, this one tiny building is filled with more people who make a concerted effort to help guests out with more than just the serving of a meal. People who place a great deal of importance into what they serve to guests, be it a meal, the Word, or just plain fellowship. I can’t imagine what my experience out here on the streets would be like after all this time without their existence and shamefully, I don’t think I have ever conveyed to them just how much I appreciate what they have done and continue to do for me.

Perhaps this will help them understand.

As I mentioned earlier, today has been one of those chip away days. It seems I’m surrounded by people with either anger or mental health issues and they’re all looking to pay that pain forward.

When you inhabit the same public spaces as other homeless people, a bizarre thing begins to happen. Even if you keep yourself to yourself, you will acquire enemies. You may not even know their names or faces. Grievances will be plucked from thin air and thrust upon you. You will be challenged daily. Yours must be the cooler head. The one gifted with enough foresight to see the consequences and choose the best course of action for your continued safety and freedom.

It is far from an easy thing to do.

At night, when you finally find a spot to rest, you replay the accounts of the day, wondering just how much of your humanity you’ve lost in each one of these abrasive encounters? How much of you will be left when there’s nothing left to give?

I can only pray tomorrow will be a slightly easier day.

Countdown to Bummed Out

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

image

bummed out

/bəmd out/

adjective
a state of mental abandon that leaves you in poor physical condition through lack of desire and care.

origin
New York, circa 2014, attributed to the Pendant Sisters

I was first introduced to the term bummed out by the Pendant Sisters — not their actual name and though I’m sure they’ll never read this blog, it’s not my desire to put their information on blast — while I was still new to the streets.

The sisters, we’ll call them Sally and Susan, were step-siblings, same mother, different fathers, separated at an early age, who were miraculously reunited on the streets after each had become homeless under different circumstances. I can’t remember how the ice was broken between us but they were the first people who showed me any real kindness, as homeless people tend to either isolate themselves or pair off into cliques within the displaced peoples caste system. It’s not hard to understand why they’re not an arms open wide type of community.

Sally and Susan hipped me to the best soup kitchens in which to get a decent meal on each particular day as well as the prime spots for things like clean public restrooms, free wifi, and places to charge your phone without making a purchase.

They’re what I call arm’s length friendly and I totally understand their caution and apprehension. They are two women having to survive in a city full of sadistic and insane people and I, despite seeming nice, am a still man and a relative stranger to them. As tough as it is simply being homeless, I can only imagine it’s ten times harder to be a homeless woman.

Anyway, one day I was palling around with them as they patiently showed me various no hassle locations (places where cops tend not to roust you for loitering, or being vagrant without a license), their faces dropped when their eyes fell on a man splayed out across a sidewalk bench. Nearly unrecognizable as human under all the layers of caked on filth, you couldn’t come close to calling what he wore clothes. They were tattered bits of ratty cloth held together in places by safety pins. His shoes were little more than cut up sections of newspaper secured around his feet by a series of rubberbands. When they tried to speak to him to see if he was okay, he responded with gibberish.

They were bummed out to see him bummed out.

As we walked away, they told me his back story. He was once an engineer who earned his degree at MIT and owned a successful business for a number of years. Then he stumbled upon a bit of hard luck when he lost several important contracts that bankrupted his business and his marriage of over twenty years ended in a divorce that wiped him clean.

When they first met him, he was a good natured and intelligent man, optimistic about getting back on his feet. They were truly shocked to see him in his current state, which got me to thinking about how homelessness can get inside your brain and make you abandon all hope and allow you to slide further and further away from being a functional member of society.

A truly frightening thought and I wonder just how far away I am from my breaking point, and what will be the final straw that collapses my resolve and causes me to bum out?

Until next time, I sincerely hope I don’t see you on the breadline.

No Rest For The Homeless

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

image

Never aspire to be homeless, no matter how tough your living situation may be at the moment or how tough you think you are or how you imagine roughing it to be some sort of grand adventure. It’s a lousy way to exist. That’s right, I said exist, because when you have no place to live and cannot feed yourself what you want to eat when you want to it, or wash when you feel dirty, you’re not living, you’re existing.

Having said that, should you ever find yourself societally displaced — with no income or shelter — there are a few cities in The States where being homeless is preferable. New York is one of those places.

If you’re willing to put in the legwork and travel throughout the Big Apple, you won’t go hungry. There are several soup kitchens scattered throughout the city that offer either breakfast, lunch or dinner, and most places offer seconds, containers to take food away, and a bag meal that usually consists of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a juice box and a piece of fruit. Not fine dining by any stretch of the imgaination, but it’s food.

What you won’t get enough of is sleep. Sure, during the summer you can stretch out in the park during the day, but at night when there’s a chill in the air, a chill that settles in your bones, or when it rains or snows? That’s when you find out what being homeless is all about.

Sleeping in parks is a thing of the past. Most parks close between 10pm to 1am. Church steps because it’s sanctuary? Not in this town, brother. You might have heard stories in the news or seen in the movies the homeless people who build cardboard shelters on street gratings or up against the sides of buildings and while that does happen, depending on your location, cops will roust you.

Since New York truly is a city that doesn’t sleep, public transportation runs 24 hours and most homeless men and women find their preferred subway line and ride it end to end throughout the night. This is usually good for a couple of hours at a pop, but trains tend to go out of service after a couple of trips and cops are present at the last stops to push folks along. Plus, you need money for the fare for this sleeping option. $2.50 may not seem like much to you, but when you’re flat broke, the fare might as well be $25.00. Sure, you can hop the turnstile, but if you get caught, there’s a hefty fine to pay, or if you run up against the wrong cop, you could be looking at an arrest.

But what about a homeless shelter? You may have heard how dangerous they can be and some are filled with ex-convicts and the mentally challenged who may or may not be off their meds, but for the ones that aren’t, there are either waiting lists or lottery systems that you have to compete for on a daily basis, and many of these are only accessible through a referral from public assistance, battered women’s organizations, rescue centers, etc.

Speaking from personal experience, there are nights when the weather won’t allow me to sleep and I become a street shark, always on the move to keep warm, in hopes of finding some unoccupied nook to hunker down in and rest my eyes and my mind, if only for a few moments. It rarely happens and spend most nights winding my way through city streets until the sun comes up. That can wear on your soul quick fast and in a hurry, trust me on this.

So, hold on to your homes, if you’re at all able to. Living on the streets is no kind of life for any reasonably sane person.

Until next time, hope I don’t see you on the breadline.