Something Down the Pipe

Wouldn't you like to have it your way for once?

I mean, seriously, wouldn't you like to have all the pieces fall into place at one time? Maybe a couple of times in your life. Just boom, just like that. But instead you have to be a fireman. Running from one emergency to another. Do you think that it's because of our personal makeup, the circumstances of the life we're living in, or is it just dumb, blind life.

I think about it as I think about my future. I'm staring at a long time ahead of me, and quite sadly, much more of it might be spent right here, in a homeless situation, being shuttled from one shelter to another, or even more likely, back out into the streets. Is it treatment like this, I wonder, that has made skeksies the way that they are? They take everything that they can get, with a certain relish, flourish even, and take it all, not caring to leave some for another. Probably because they know, down the line, there is nothing, absolutely nothing coming later.

And if my earlier hypothesis is correct, then there is nothing good coming down the pipe.

And dealing with government services, like Waverly and Public Assistance, and Social Security and their soup kitchens is an exercise in futility. An intentionally engineered operation to be difficult, uncomfortable, and stressful, so as to make it a deterrent. So bad is it that social workers, who've went to college to render aid, no longer want to work with a system that doesn't want to give it.

What you have left is a Hell on Earth, an existence where you have to wait for the proverbial 'miracle', the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or blind chance to lift you up from here. You are trapped in a mire thigh high, and there is no easy extrication. And honestly, why would anyone care if there was.

Isn't it so much easier to tell someone to go get a job than to have our lawmakers look at the process, the actual steps for people who are seriously disadvantaged to take to make it out of the situation that they are in? Then it would be easy to say to someone that you see laying on a sidewalk, as if it was the better way to live, to get up and get out of the hole that they're in. How many people, though, are one paycheck from being in the same situation. They have some money saved up, sometimes none, and whatever they do have saved up, the debt on their maxed out cards far outweigh. I had a friend of mine talk about how I ended up here and how she would have done anything, and I wonder how far anything went, but done anything, max out her cards, go to her parents, live with friends, anything, not to end up on the streets.

Well, the mad spiral is not that easy. Think about friends for a moment. You have them and you are no doubt one to many. But have you ever seriously thought of who you would live with for a period of time? Now when I say period of time, I heard it said that it takes at least two months, maybe even more, to find a replacement job. So think about at least staying two months with this person, or having this person stay with you. Sometimes your options dwindle seriously. Some of you might not have anyone to fit that bill.

So before you strain your friendships, scratch out that option from falling into the streets. The other one, 'go to your parents'. For those of you whose parents are still alive and have this option, I know that I do, this sounds like a viable solution. But in my case, it wasn't. My parents are extremely judgemental individuals, and although they could have easily helped me, they instead wanted me to learn a lesson. Whatever lesson this is I don't know. Maybe that living in the streets is no fun. But the point is, that they decided to render no aid to me. The door to their tender mercies were closed tight, which would also rule out moving out of state to live with them, something that I wouldn't want to do in the first place. I love this godforsaken city too much to do that. I would rather live on the streets.

Max out your cards. Max out my cards. My cards were already maxed out. In fact, I had creditors barking at my door about the condition of my cards. I was barely making the minimum payments and keeping up with the rest of my bills. Chasing the American Dream is not all that prudent a behavior.

So there dries up all of the options I was a given. The only option I saw was the streets, and my brother, thank the maker, was present when I went down, and once here, I decided that if I was going to be here, I might as well rebuild my life from scratch. I would devote my time to my writing, and fuck a boss. I would live in the streets as long as I can. And I did, until I became a Shelt. Looking back over the year, I don't know how good an idea this was. It gives you something to lose. When I came here all of my possessions fit into one bag, along with my baby. Underwear, socks, toiletries. The bare minimum. And I didn't want to come here. I didn't. I felt it was a sham, a fraud. I was betraying my initial plan, to live in the streets until I bettered myself.

Sounds crazy right. But then again, with the brutal winter, and my living in Penn Station, I had grown tired. My resolve needed a break from the constancy of survival. Every day being a trial. As I said to my brother, who would go down South to live with his mother for a spell, just to recharge his batteries, you have that option. I needed a break like that from the streets, and I guess I got one. I became an honest to goodness Shelt. For those of you who don't know what that term means, it's a homeless person that lives in a shelter.

I've become the people around me.

Has something bad come down the pipe?

Hobobob