The Locus of Tears

He's a normal man, a normal woman.

He/she holds a well paying job. They dress smartly and clean, and are very proud of their home. He/she is generally quiet and mild mannered and have more close friends than they can count. Life is good, the sun shines, they make a wonderful meal for friends on Thanksgiving and Christmas, never forgetting to put up the tree, and take it down in January. They are the salt of the Earth, as President John F. Kennedy called the Middle Class many years ago. 

Then, on one fateful day, he/she lose their well paying job, and almost instantly money and food become critical. They begin to ration, to prioritize. Soon enough eviction follows like whooping cough to pneumonia. The next day, they are going through their closets, picking whatever of value they can find to keep with them. Stuff like the Bose stereo system and the big Sony color television were already sold in a garage sale months ago for pennies to the dollar, a beggar's sale.

With a large luggage bag carrying all of their belongings and precious items, photos, jewelry, keepsakes, extra clothing and the so forth, they go to friends and relatives. This is a stop gap solution. The vast majority of their friends, when this time arrives, cannot widen the tent cloths of their homes to render any realistic aid. There will be some excuse. He/She does not press the issue. Relatives, the same. Your parents, if they are able to, will. But in many cases, they can't.

So, he/she leaves suburbia for the big city. He/she realizes that they need to be able to move about easily. The car has been sold at auction, or about to be so. City transit is easier, walking distances are shorter. He/she ends up in the Port Authority, or any other port of call, and then they feel it. Lost. It strikes then because they have no clue what to do next. None. They spend their last dollars quickly on expensive but minimal fast food, and the thought that once they reach two dollars they will not be able to eat at all frightens them.

He/she finds churches that are smart enough to have a list of soup kitchens in the area, or they hear other homeless talking about them when trying to sleep in the Port Authority. It's difficult to do so, because the cops routinely throw out anyone sleeping that does not look like they missed their bus. They ask for tickets and he/she has bought one just before they ran completely out of money to show the police that they are just waiting for their bus. But soon, this ticket gets worn down. No doubt because the police manhandle it every time he/she gives it to them. This way, if it's the same ticket over and over again, it will wear down faster than a crisp, new one daily.

Soon staying in the Port becomes untenable and he/she strikes out into the cold world, sleeping in front of office buildings, parks, schools, libraries, and even on the sidewalk. He/she goes to the Mission for lunch and dinner, and must be there on time. They cannot be late. Once the doors close for the meal, they do not open for any reason. No matter how badly you beg before the church. Hearts are just that cold. It leaves he/she feeling very vacant and alone.

He/she lugs around this large suitcase filled with items growing more and more useless by the day. They change clothes soon into clothes that they've worn already - retreads. Then retreads over retreads, and so and forth. They wash in public restroom sinks and take a shower at the Mission once a week. One morning, he/she awakens after a grueling day of walking about and finds their huge suitcase missing. Running around, they can find nothing or no one that can help them. The police cannot even generate the patience or sympathy to look for their luggage.

He/she now sinks into despair. Standing on soup kitchen lines with others like themselves, they march, like the walking dead into the basement of churches, sitting shoulder to shoulder with people who they would have never even have stopped to talk to in the streets a millennia ago. Now, when he/she goes to the Mission once a week for their shower, they've learned to ask for clothing. The Mission gives what they have, close fit to no fit. Take it if you wish. Their old retreads are thrown into a barrel, where the Mission will wash, press and hang them in a huge closet for another day.

Days slip by. He/she sits all day in parks and in libraries, watching the clock for when the next soup kitchen opens for lunch or dinner. And then he/she realizes at a certain point, that they are truly alone. There is no rescue unless by them themselves. This is the fork in the road, the turning point, the sea change-this is called by Hobobob terms - The Locus. There are two paths running divergent to the other. The steep, nearly vertical, craggy incline of the high road, or the softly sloping low road, which is really not a road, but a gorgeous grassy field.

I'll talk to you about the he/she that takes the much easier route. They stop. They just end. Right there in the library, right there in the park, right there on the curb. They just...end. It's been a year now, and there is no hope in sight that they can see. Something shuts down in he/she, where they no longer walk the enormous blocks to the Mission downtown for breakfast, only to walk the same number of blocks uptown for lunch, to walk the same amount of blocks back downtown for dinner. They stop. Instead, they notice how people toss so much food into trash bins: McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Arby's, corner delis, et al.

They begin to root through the trash instead of taking obscene walks here and there to eat. Surprisingly they find ham- burgers, not taken out of wrappers, sodas, only scarcely touched, fries, with only one or two missing. Obviously to leave them in the trash would be a waste of food anyway, and they can always tear away any 'personals', or bite marks, that they find on food. But sadly, for He/she, this is a slippery slope. By eating this way, they grow inured to being seen halfway into garbage cans digging for a meal. And whereupon finding one, the 'personal' grows larger and larger, causing them not care any longer. A disease, if one could possibly be caught, from the previous eater is meaningless.

He/she no longer takes a shower at the Mission, no longer changes their clothes. They no longer can smell their own reek, they no longer care that their clothing is exhausted on their bodies. They are no longer concerned about how people think about them. People who obviously couldn't care less about them, so why care back? They look at humankind as a hated thing, something to be abhorred. Turning their self-revulsion on the masses. He/she's behavior becomes wholly selfish, wholly self-centered. They are in survival mode. Nothing else counts, no one is more important.

He/she seldom talks...to anyone. A day, a month, a year. They need not speak, because there are extremely few to talk to. Not even others like themselves. They actually lose the power of speech...no longer caring to communicate. Why? To who? For what reason? He/she shits and pisses in the open, in gutters or parks. They don't wipe their asses so they smell raw shortly. Digging through garbage cans for food, they find a scarf, a sock a shoe, to which they don. A sock over the shoe to cover the huge hole in the sole. A scarf around the forearm to close the jagged tear that has appeared there. The fucked up hat to cover their distraught hair.

He/she is now a Skeksie, or a Skek. One day they look up to god with bloodshot eyes, drained from crying tears in the dark, and know nothing but venom. They care not for society, you, me. Everything is in their way. Some graduate to pushing carts full of junk, newspapers to keep track of some form of current events, or items that may one day become useful, but never do. He/she's souls melt within them. This is their finish in time. They are just waiting for their turn to hear Gabriel's horn. They lay down in the streets and parks in the snow and the cold. They do not go to shelters.

Word is that when you freeze to death, everything instantly turns from cold to very warm, and quite com- fortable. And you just go to sleep. Your eyes flutter, you grow tired. You don't even feel yourself slip away. Not like the movies where everything grows dim, but like in real sleep. You don't even know when it occurred. You just go. He/she just goes. They go where they are loved.

I myself bow my head. It hurts to see them. It makes me angry. Makes me sad. It hurts so much because I WAS THERE! I sat one day at The Locus. Thank you mom and dad and my closest of friends as few as you are now. I did not give up. Thank you, because I took the high road.

Hobobob