Have

I lay there by the decomposing fried chicken in the corner. The fleas, maggots, and an occasional mouse invaded the chicken’s remnants that lay by my uncomfortable palette. I began to wonder where my next meal would come from. The last one was two days ago when a nice passerby gave me a ©Big Mac from McDonalds. I was too hungry to show my gratitude but managed a grunt and a mumbled thanks between bites. Since then, I have been eating whatever I can find in urban nature. Usually I find half-eaten candy bars and crumbs at the bottom of bags inside trash cans. Outdoor food courts and parks are the best. I filtered through the garbage but never ate the scraps from rotted food- that’s disgusting.

I heard someone approaching. The footsteps were slovenly, like Drunken Larry’s but made a click-click sound like the heels on Crazy Dave’s old, beat-up Oxfords. But Crazy Dave only had one shoe now. He had used the other to bust open another guy’s face who came around our block and tried to steal his bags. He didn’t have anything valuable in them except for his son’s baseball jersey. Sadly, Dave’s house had burned down the day he was let go from his job. He had managed to salvage a few special items in his hurried frenzy to evacuate. Out of those things, all that hadn’t been stolen, lost, or left behind in the past year was his son’s jersey and two photos.

I could hear the footsteps coming closer in the abandoned building’s basement where a certain number of us slept. I started to worry because they sounded unfamiliar. I grabbed for my blanket and anything within arm’s reach. While I turned to pick up more of my random collection of belongings, I could feel the guy breathing on my neck and could smell his dog breath and the stench of pee. My legs began to tremble and my heart raced as I turned around. He immediately lurched forward and grabbed my crotch. I swiftly took my lost and found-in-the-park pocketknife out from my side and sliced his arm down and deep below the elbow. On an empty stomach, dehydrated, exhausted and scared, I ran outside to daylight as fast as I could.

Outside, I saw a few of The Haves walking and some driving. They probably had nice jobs, dependable parents who cared about them or even a decent future. I had none of those things. Two months ago, down to my last dollar with no parental support and in between jobs, I had no friends to turn and tried shelters. But shelters had a waiting list as though I had contact information and a way to call in. I met a girl who was new to the homeless game and seemed nice enough. So we set out to living off the street as amigas. It worked out a few days until I found out she shot coke. The bug hit her, and she invited me to stay in a black hole of a crack house. It’s shelter, she said. She was only seventeen. I declined and prayed for her as I walked away. I begged for money to buy food and mace to protect myself. Luckily I found the pocketknife early on. It took a couple weeks, but I finally found an abandoned building where many of us stayed. No cocaine. No being turned away.

I washed myself with rainwater. The torrential rains were the best, but also the best at causing a cold. Outside, today, it was all sunshine. A couple Haves walking went around me like I was a gaping hole in the middle of the sidewalk. It made me sad not to be recognized as a person or as a woman. But I understood. I was unsightly, dirty; I smelled and hadn’t brushed my teeth or combed my hair for weeks. I represented the dregs of society. Not a criminal. Simply a Have Not.

It seemed worse than being a criminal. It was like being in prison the way I fought everyday and slept with one eye open every night. Except out here there were no showers, no expected food, and no regulation. There were no doctors when someone fell ill or was victimized, no preacher to keep us motivated, no visitations from family. Some days I thought about robbing a store with my little knife just so I could be put away. Then I would remember that the advantage is my freedom to do as I please when I please. And being outside I could see the oasis of opportunity- opportunity to find food and a new place to sleep.

Outside, I witnessed and experienced the real love and the real pain. Some days, the love was easy- people gave me a bag of food or a ten dollar bill. Other days the love was hard- people thought twice before giving me a quarter or a child would talk to me but his mother would pull him away. And the pain was there when I saw a cold body of a homeless person or someone being helplessly raped or beaten in an alley. The pain was there too when someone threw things at me, spit at me, and called me names. Being ignored by the cops, the social workers, and the medical providers as I walked the streets was even worse. Every now and then, I would see a nun or a Good Samaritan. They never ignored me. Sometimes they even touched my arm or my back and spoke directly to me. That was nice- the human connection, warmth, love. Once or twice they would pray for me. So that’s what I did everyday. I prayed. I prayed outside, inside, with one eye closed and one open, until I could pray at my bedside with both eyes closed again.