Last Saturday
Last Saturday as
it started snowing again, we pulled into the strip mall a couple of blocks
south of the square and parked by the all-ages music club and youth center. I
finished my cigarette, grabbed the camera, then we both got out and walked around
the building into the long alley that stretches from Smith up to 3rd
street.
With the wind,
it was bitter cold since the buildings funneled most of the chill straight down
the alley. Though Friday was still unpleasant, it had warmed up enough to melt
most of the old snow, but along the alley there were still drifts and lakes of
slush. Even during the summer, not a lot of sun falls back there. It gets lost
on the jagged rooftops of the old brick buildings opposite. They’re big crumbling
breasts, cryptid survivors from the manufacturing era that you only notice from
out of the way places like that. The rest never makes it over The Rise, the transitional
apartment housing for impoverished mothers and their families who’ve been
victims of severe and sustained domestic violence.
Behind the strip
mall, the wife handed me her coat and I draped it over one of the concrete
barriers. I readied our camera and she posed against the back wall of the youth
center. It’s the only bright spot in the alley. A long canvas splashed with
color from one corner to the next—a stream of consciousness graffiti flow.
She needed the pics for an upcoming model profile. I snapped as many as I could as quick as I could. She was cold and struggling to keep her teeth from chattering.
The wind made my fingers hurt. And I had forgotten about the homeless who use
the alley to move from one section of town to the next without being hassled.
It isn’t New
York, but our little Midwestern town actually has a large homeless population. Part
of it is simply the nature of the town—if you’re going to be homeless in
Indiana, Bloomington is probably where you’d want to be. Thanks to the University,
the town is a liberal fortress surrounded by a sea of red. The community offers
a number of shelters and services. Campus provides buildings with 24 hour
access and our large public library offers somewhere to go during the day when
the shelters force everyone out. As the economy has stagnated and the sharp
divide in town between the wealthy and the poor has increased—housing costs are
incredibly inflated thanks to landlords trying to milk cash from East and West
Coast kids—the homeless population has swelled. This population growth has begun
shifting the city’s liberal nature a little to the right. Now, a number of business have a strict
no loitering policy, and the police have begun issuing tickets for things like,
believe it or not in a college town, jaywalking. And a few weeks ago, the homeless staged
a protest that ended with six of them chasing a blue car after the driver
stopped and tried to punch a homeless woman in the face.
Most of them
left us alone, but the last man to shuffle up the alley finally drove us away.
I heard him before he got close. He was talking loudly enough to himself
that I paused between snaps and looked toward the alley's southern entrance. He
couldn’t walk straight. He swept from one side of the alley to the other, his
head bopping and rolling as he spoke. I managed a couple more hurried pics,
before he spotted us and began yelling.
I tossed my wife
her coat. We went north up the alley, rounded the building, and circled back to
our car. We warmed up, then drove north. I circled the square twice before I
found a parking place. I walked the wife to the nail saloon where she was
meeting her friend Vanessa, then headed over to the ATM by the parking garage
and Scotty’s Brewhouse.
On the way back,
a young guy stopped me. He wasn’t dressed for the weather. He didn’t have a
coat. His bare hands were stuffed deep in his pockets. I could see he was tense,
muscles bunched to brace against the chilly gusts. He asked me for money so he
could get something to eat. I thought about it for a moment and I looked at
his face. If you’ve even someone who was hurting, you can tell the difference
between the con and someone who’s actually suffering. There’s a level of pain
that can’t be faked.
I won’t give him
cash, so we went into Taco Rocket. I bought him two tacos and a Coke. He
blessed me. I nodded and walked back to the salon. I gave my wife money for the
manicure, then went next door to the pub with our friend Rick and Vanessa’s
boyfriend, Rockabilly Mike.
We drank pints
and talked. When the girls were done, we walked to the other side of the square
and had dinner at the Trojan Horse. I had a good time. It was nice to get out
of the house. With the lovely wife’s medical issues, that’s not something that
happens a lot anymore. But the entire time, the homeless men bothered me. The young guy
especially.
My first thought was that’s what makes me a writer. On the drive back home, however, I decided, no,
that’s what makes me human.
