by Robert Caponi 6|26|06
Halfway down the concrete path that runs through a small patch of woods between the Section 8 housing and the Eckerd drug store parking lot, he prepared a seat for me by draping newspapers over a fallen tree still moist from yesterday’s rain.
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I poured more Skyy Orange into both our plastic cups, and proceeded to ask him a question in confidence- a confidence that was, in retrospect, unnecessary- about one of the people we had met in passing— the middle-aged white man wearing mirrored sunglasses who I recognized as one of the panhandlers that work the intersection of Muris Chapel and Market Street. I asked— is he really homeless?
My question wasn’t answered directly. The first I was told is that the panhandler makes about $37 an hour on that corner, although LaMont held a certain respect for him— “He’s got his hustle, I’ve got mine.” A few questions later, and this new acquaintance of mine- a person I’d first met when he intercepted me on the street only a half-hour before, or so I’d thought at the time- elected to be my tour guide to their world. Putting the bottle back into the brown paper bag and tucking it underneath the tree, we walked up the path and over to the left onto the manicured lawn behind the Burger King drive-thru, where, between the tall fence and a lone, small tree with dense, low-lying branches, a cardboard box was flattened out— a bed. A car was pulling up to the intercom; we must have looked very strange.
Walking back down the path, he showed me the small, hidden path that cuts off to the side that the homeless guys use when the police are chasing them. I retrieved the brown bag and we continued down through the apartments. He pointed out a red sleeping bag deep in the woods near the playground; the woods were too dense for me to want to explore, and apparently too dense to push the stray grocery cart through. LaMont called “Ma-ma!” to every old black woman standing out on her porch, and one of them gave him a light for his cigarette.
Walking still further, we were back in the land of single-family units. There was a Mexican family- man, woman, and two children- sitting in lawn chairs on their driveway, and LaMont tried to engage them in conversation, but the man responded with “I’m sorry, we no speak much English.” They seemed terrified of him, possibly even of me. I might be, too. We passed a bunch of small children playing on the street, and I greeted them with “hey-ey!” Again, I wouldn’t blame any parent for responding to two visibly fucked-up strangers with all due paranoia.
Walking down a footpath at the end of the cul-de-sac, I showed him part of the neighborhood he hadn’t seen before; a small park consisting of a covered picnic area, a jungle gym, and a little-league baseball field. I walk here once or twice a day to do pull-ups on the monkey bars. I did ten over and ten under pull ups, and, after his example, pull ups where you legs are perpendicular to your body, as well as pull-ups where one guy has to hold the other guy’s legs. It was actually kind of gay. The combination of sweating, drunkenness, and overall dehydration resulted in an discomfort that eclipsed what little desire I may have had to impress anyone with feats of machoism, so I had us continue onwards.
Walking up the street that is the entrance proper to this park, I indicated a house off to the left that keeps horses and goats in their backyard. It was already too late in the evening to be able to see the horses, so I said that at the very least you could smell them. He told me he didn’t know what horses smell like.
“You still haven’t told me what you hustle,” I said. “I’m not gonna tell you now.” “You do coke?” I asked. “Yeah,” he replied. That was all we said about that.
We had now made a full circle to Muris Chapel, but because I thought we were going home and because he was confused as to where he was, we walked the wrong way down the street before turning course back towards the Muris Chapel-Market Street intersection. He told me we were going into the Shell station, so the bottle once again got hidden away again under some bushes. It was only when we were in the convenience store that I discovered the operation was to shoplift beer rather than buy beer; if I would have known that, I would have ixnayed it from the beginning. He slipped two cans into the pockets of his shorts that practically seemed designed for smuggling 24-oz. Budweisers, engaged a man standing in line with a little incoherent diversionary banter, and off we went. We drank for a while on the pavement behind the Shell station before he went back in for a solo run that produced two cans of a new alcoholic energy drink called Tilt. (No, I haven’t sold out, and that’s not a product placement.)
LaMont now assumed the role of trail guide, leading me through the parking lots, off through a patch of tall grass, and into a small patch of woods where two of the panhandlers sat in a small clearing, the lights of Market Street still visible behind us. As jarring as it was, I took my seat opposite LaMont with the two men on either side of me, introductions were made, and the alcohol got passed around. One of the men made a comment about “celebrating his anniversary” on the streets, but the man on my left- Steve, the afore-mentioned mirrored sunglasses guy- seemed possessed of no self-pity, and described with some amount of pride how he had at one time created his own “Gilligan’s Island”, replete with a hammock suspended five feet off the ground, before the police took it down; how he scattered mothballs to ward off insects; how he took baths with the water spigot in back of a strip-mall church; and how in the winter he kept warm by positioning a cardboard box against the heat vent of a bank. When the bank owners complained to the police, Steve stalled them by appealing to the police to determine who exactly owned the property, and was ultimately allowed to stay there because of the unlikely deeding of the land. The life of a homeless person is a hundred little ad-hoc solutions strung together, some quite ingenious. LaMont looked at me and pointed to both men, “You see? He’s thuggin’ and he’s thuggin’.”
They’re not alcoholics. They’re not insane. Maybe the insane alcoholics are just the “urban homeless” who prowl around on Elm street. These guys, however, talk and act and look like average middle-age Southern white guys. Mr. Mirrored Sunglasses might even pass as “ruggedly handsome”.
There comes a point where all houseguests wear out their welcome, so me an LaMont continued on our way. I pointed to some apartments and said that two African immigrants I worked with at Ralph Lauren lived there. LaMont said he worked there too, on a different team than than me, and had recognized me all this time.
The night ended with a confrontation with the police. I really only have my own stupidity to blame for following LaMont past the point where I should have- in all rationality- called it a night. He obviously had some scores to settle with people living in the apartments, and I would have no difficulty believing he ultimately got arrested after I walked home by myself. I didn’t do anything wrong, of course, so the worst I got was having the police run a check on my ID and having to dump out all my alcohol.
All my alcohol, including the bottle of Skyy Orange that I had paid for with my honest money. No skin off my teeth, it was just a $12.00 bottle that was three-quarters empty. Why would I even want to keep it? Homeless dude put his lips to that shit.
