Throw Away People (standard:drama, 2227 words)
Author: J P St. Jullian	Added: Jul 25 2002	Views/Reads: 3346/2179	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What is it like to be homeless? What causes homelessness? Do you watch the homeless with suspicion?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I am not tall, so I can choose to sleep in the back seat or to recline
one of the front seats for sleeping.  After settling down for the 
night, I tense up when I hear footsteps coming too near.  My biggest 
dread is that I will wake to find someone staring down at me through 
the windows.  I have a very nice patchwork quilt that my mother made 
ages ago, so I cover myself from head to toe in this.  It makes me feel 
invisible.  If it were totally black, it would make me feel even more 
invisible. 

I can sleep soundly for 2 hours or so.  I wake and turn on my side and
sleep fitfully for another hour and a half.  My body clock is tuned to 
wake slightly before dawn.  You see, in order to avoid discovery I must 
leave before daylight. 

Little did I realize then that it was the first night of what would
become four months of living out of my car.  I lived through some long 
hours of solitude, boredom, physical discomfort, and sometimes hunger. 

You would be amazed at how much this life will teach you about yourself,
and that line beyond which lies permanent hopelessness.  I learned why 
poverty stricken people don't seem to try and better themselves.  They 
pass the point of permanent hopelessness. 

When I do wake up the night sky is beginning to get pale.  Wiping the
sleep from my eyes, I drive to McDonald's or Burger King and wait 
patiently in the parking lot for their 6 o'clock opening.  I can wait 
for coffee.  My highest priority is their restroom.  I keep a bottle of 
dishwashing detergent and several wash cloths, from which I can manage 
a fairly decent sponge bath. 

After coffee, I drive to the closest super market and buy a can of tuna
for .80 from my remaining $3.00.  Walking back to the car I find an 
open wallet full of cash and credit cards.  I decide against yielding 
to temptation, so I take the wallet and its contents to the market 
manager.  I can't help wondering though, just how desperate and hungry 
I would have to be to have kept that wallet.  I say a silent thanks to 
God that I am not at that point yet. 

Night comes, and it's the same old ritual as the night before.  I awaken
the next morning at 4:30 after sleeping fitfully for almost five hours. 


Today I go to work.  It's one of those jobs where you work a 40 hour
week in four days, you know, 10 hour days.  Most of my co-workers yearn 
for quitting time but I look forward to those hours in the office, my 
place of blissful luxury.  It has free hot water, free coffee and tea, 
drinking water, a newspaper, a restroom, my own chair and a parking 
space for my car.  My only worry is that I will be alert enough to do a 
good days work. 

I usually manage to perform my duties well.  In the afternoons when it
is warm, airless and calm, I often dose off over my papers, but I 
instantly yank myself awake.  I pour more coffee, shake off the fog, 
and focus on my work.  The irony of it all is that I am working in the 
advertising section of a newspaper and all those advertisement about 
apartment rentals and all their comforts and amenities just get to me! 

Then it happened.  One night late while sleeping in my car I hear the
sound of a key being inserted into the doorlock and slowly being 
turned.  My breath is in my throat!  The key doesn't work and is slowly 
withdrawn.  I listen to see if the perpetrator is leaving.  I can press 
the horn and hold it if need be, which would probably bring someone 
from the hotel and end my residency at the Holiday Inn parking lot for 
good.  I wait, staying under my nighttime shroud, unmoving, and I hear 
the key being worked in the lock of a nearby car.  The key works and 
the door opens and closes softly.  The adrenaline rush keeps me awake 
for a while, but then I sleep fitfully.  This experience has been a 
cold lesson in reality.  I am no less immune from danger than anyone 
else. 

I feel the need for a warm bed to sleep in for a few nights and to buy
some fresh food.  So this payday looms large in my mind.  My paychecks 
from out of state have been delayed and won't be in until tomorrow.  So 
tonight I eat my last slice of saved bread with a spot of margarine.  
The gas gauge of my car is frightfully close to empty so I drive to the 
Holiday Inn parking lot slowly. 

My paychecks arrive and I check into a motel and  almost instantly fall
asleep on a real bed.  I will wait to enjoy the luxuries of television 
and bathtub. 

I have discovered that I might be able to save enough money to rent a
room by living in my car, allowing for a motel room once a week to get 
some decent sleep, do laundry, and general self-repair.  It will 
probably take two or three months to do it.  Will I be able to keep up 
the rent and pay utilities? 

I negotiated with my old company in Los Angeles for a job and finally
landed a low paying position, but it was full time. They promised rapid 
advancement because of my previous record with the company.  A few 
months after I arrived in LA the company was bought out by a larger 
firm, and they are not going to keep the promises made to me for 
advancement.  I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to take a 
stand.  Either live up to the promises the company made me, or I quit.  
They praise my stalwart stand, but they won't budge.  I quit, and they 
looked surprised.  Looking back on it, it was a selfless act, hardly 
worthy to be called noble or heroic.  But when you are single and 
already live out of your car, it's easy to give up a job because you 
haven't much to lose.  If you own a home and have a family you can 
imagine losing everything. 

Now, jobless and homeless, the downward spiral continues in earnest. 
Living life out of a car had a rhythm of paydays, but now there are no 
more paydays.  My son, who lives in Texas, was suspicious.  He'd been 
suspicious for some time.  It was my unusual lack of a permanent phone 
number and address that got him wondering.  He asked outright if I was 
sleeping in my car.  I tried carefully to keep my condition from him.  
I never wanted to burden him with my financial problems, so I just 
laugh it off when he asks. 

With no job, I can't buy gas.  I start walking everywhere.  It gets
harder to look for work.  Without motel room telephones and the old 
office telephone it is impossible to leave call-back numbers when 
responding to ads.  Walking in the heat of the day means I'll arrive 
hot, sweaty and tired, which means I won't impress anybody. 

In my campaign for a new job I walk as much as 25 miles a day.  After
seven days of such walking my knees are excruciatingly painful.  My 
knees are not the only pain-filled places on my body.  But if I don't 
walk, I won't get any gas at all or food.  So I grit my teeth and just 
walk, overriding the pain because of necessity.  For three days, I 
walked many miles.  The pain fills even my brain now.  I am hobbling 
now, so crippled that I can hardly get in and out of the car.  I tell 
myself that all I need is one or two days of rest, but they make no 
difference.  Movement is still excruciatingly painful. 

I've come to a critical time in my life now.  My days are a
self-defeating spiral of non-accomplishment.  Everything I do now is 
devoted to simple base survival.  If I don't do something to better my 
condition, I could be just one step from a rougher, punishing kind of 
homelessness, but what can I do? 

NOTE TO READERS:  After reading this story, try to imagine yourself in
the place of the protagonist.  What would you do?  Does this change 
your thinking about the causes of homelessness?  Are you one of those 
“prosperous looking” people who watch the homeless with suspicion? 


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