Words

21 February, 2008

 

Less than Home

 

My homeless episodes during the past several weeks, when a car was my shelter and the ocean my shower, have got me thinking about some of my past precarious traveling moments. 

 

Long ago, during my idealistic, adventurous, and slightly depressed late teen years I entertained an ambitious idea for a book. With only my train ticket in hand, a journal, and the clothes on my back, I would travel to New York City by rail. There I would join the huddled masses in their street culture. I would be homeless and penniless, with no way of escape other than working my way back out of poverty. I would interview the bums, learn the ropes of living destitute, find my niche, and briefly become a part of the community. The idea was that within weeks of arriving on the streets with nothing I would have earned enough money, through shrewd behavior, to buy decent clothes, apply for a job, work and slowly pull myself back out of the gutter, whereupon I would earn enough for a train ticket out of New York City and back into my real life. I would write the whole process up, while coming away with some amazing stories of the misunderstood and lost souls of the indigent.  I would elucidate their plight and tell their tales to the public. The book would be the vagrant world’s answer to Black Like Me. Homeless Like Me was going to prove that all Americans have the opportunity to create a good life for themselves as long as they are mentally capable and physically willing.

 

I had thought this plan through quite seriously. But there were potential problems. Keeping up with the homeless situation in New York City in the late 1990’s, I had learned that Mayor Guliani’s mission was to clean up Manhattan. Times Square, where I found it quite simple to purchase a fake ID as an 18-year-old, was being de-sleazed. Bums were being pushed into the fray of other boroughs or being swept under the rug so that NYC’s public image would improve in the eyes of the world. I realized that in this new Manhattan I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the many spots I had scoped out – like the secret places in Central Park.

 

Also setting me back were the book critics’ voices, which I could already hear:

 

“Of course a well-educated, non-mentally diseased rich kid can pull himself off the streets on which he never belonged. He has the tools and skills the homeless don’t have and the initiative they don’t want. He is a silver-spooned fraud.”

 

In the end it wasn’t these two problems that prevented me from executing my plan in early April 1998, while I was locked out of the dorms for nine days during my college Spring break in Connecticut . The major reason I didn’t proceed was that I was frightened. I was scared to brave the elements, away from my comfortable existence, and live in a world without shelter. I was scared to face the hardship and realities of street life. Instead I spent nine days on various long-distance Greyhound buses, exploring the American Midwest, South and Mid-Atlantic regions, where I got a heavy dose of Americana nonetheless. I avoided living rough in this case. But some perverse interest in homelessness had been awoken in me that still has not died to this day. The simplicity of living off the hand. Having no cares, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, only needing to survive. For some reason, this was an experience for which I had a burning desire.

 

Over the years of traveling I’ve been forced into the adverse exhilaration of street life several times for various reasons. But rarely on my own accord. There was the time in Venice in the middle of August, when every hostel was full, so hundreds of us travelers were camped outside the train station late night, huddled up in our warmest gear and staying close to each other to avoid danger – the groups of girls latched onto other travelers such as myself, to avoid the seduction and smooth-talking of the seedy Italian men roaming the darkened train station vicinity. I met three goddesses from Lima , with skin and hair lighter than mine but with a wonderful Latin swagger, who were in the same situation as me. They were unprepared and chilly so I offered them the use my sleeping sack as a gesture, hoping they would decline. They accepted and thanked me and were warm. I smiled and shivered all night, unable to sleep on the cold pavement. The next day the Italian police found me passed out on a park bench, finally able to slumber in the warmth of the August heat. This was illegal so they inspected my passport and threw me back onto the street. This was a brief but harrowing experience without a roof over my head.

 

Then there was the time I boarded a ‘deluxe’ bus in Manali , India , en route to Dharmsala, the holy home of the Dali Lama. I will mention that a ‘deluxe’ bus in India means precisely nothing. There is no difference separating it from the other classes of busses, other than in name. ‘Deluxe’ doesn’t speak for the quality of the vehicle or its amenities, the route it will take - direct or indirect - or whether a paying passenger will have a specific seat. The only thing certain on a long-distance Indian bus ride is that it will blow a tire or suffer some debilitating mechanical failure at some point during the journey. And all its passengers will get out and stare at the problem as if intense gestures would fix it. One further guarantee is that the bus will inevitably stop at some ungodly hour at a filthy roadside food stall called a dhaba, where passengers will gorge on fried, savory Indian pastries and head for the slippery, hopelessly dark, and rancid squat toilets out back before returning to the bus.

 

As it happened in my case, I boarded the ‘deluxe’ bus later than all the other passengers and quickly realized that my assigned window seat reservation was apparently imaginary. The only remaining seat was the middle seat on the back bench of the bus, where I would have the next 15 hours to either work on my posture by sitting perfectly straight up or fall out of my seat onto the floor. There would be no sleep for this weary traveler. The bus was full of young married couples, who seemed to be going on vacation to some resort town. It was obvious that somebody had sold me a ticket on a bus that was going to a location much different than the city I was supposedly going to. 

 

Exhausted, I pleaded with the newlyweds next to me to allow me to sit in my assigned seat by the window so I could at least lay my head against it. But in typical Indian-logic fashion he reasoned with me that the ticket I had was for the back middle seat, which it clearly wasn’t, according to the stickers above the seats. I ceased my futile arguing, though, because I had lost this argument before and I would lose it again. Besides, I didn’t want to break apart the seating arrangement of the young happy couple on their first vacation together. I had to say to myself, as I did almost daily in India , ‘Tyson, calm yourself. It could be worse.’ I invoked my Theory of Relative Suffering, which I had developed in India, seeing how Indians seem to be amazingly adept at withstanding what appears to be extreme amounts of suffering. Relatively, the suffering in this case for me was mild. It really could be worse.

 

And it would be.

 

Ten minutes into the ride the young men on both sides of me, likely fatigued from their overwhelming sensation of infatuation to their new brides, fell asleep. And as only Indians seem to do, these guys managed to lean their heads onto my shoulders and balance them perfectly in place throughout the ride, despite the bumpy ride. This cuddly pose precluded me from any sort of personal movement. The only thing I could do was close my eyes and breathe deeply.

 

After about 12 hours of head-bobbing and white-knuckled hand bracing on dark, mountainous roads, the bus came to a halt on a pitch-black, empty stretch of highway. The driver came to the back of the bus to relate the following to me, “Dharmsala.” Looking out the window it was readily apparent from the absence of light that we were nowhere near any city. I said, “Where?” He said, “Oh, just there!” pointing to the blackness out of the window. “You can catch a bus from here.”

 

Damn it! I thought I had already caught a bus! What is this? I paid full price to go to Dharmsala!

 

Those were the statements I considered screaming but a cool head got the better of me. I didn’t want to be the ugly American. Besides, this was India. I understood India like I understood the intricacies of quantum physics or Rush Limbaugh’s logic. To me, India was inside out, backwards, upside down and opposite of any reality I had experienced. And I was always the one who was out of place and incorrect.

 

Tyson, calm yourself. It could be worse.

 

So I gathered myself, slowly stood up, somberly, and stepped off the bus into the darkness. Not even the moon was there to help lighten my surroundings. Handing me my bag, the driver pointed toward the black abyss again.

 

“Dharmsala.”

 

Sure, buddy.

 

I can sometimes see the look of apology on someone’s face when they know I have been wronged but are unable to do anything to help the situation. That is the look the driver gave me as the bus sputtered off. I hate that look because when I see it I know I am screwed.

 

It was 3:30 am. I could tell I was on a road, but without light that’s about all I could make of my surroundings. The area was deathly dark, still and quiet. Feeling blindly through the shadows I found a structure of some sort on the side of the road. Maybe it was an old, rundown food stall. Because no traffic was passing I knew I wasn’t going anywhere for several hours at least. I thought I might as well get comfortable. Sitting inside the structure on what seemed like a pile of wood scraps, I tried to contort my body to mold to the perplexing angle of the pile. I slumped into a laying position, pieces of wood stabbing me from all sides. It felt like lying on a bed of nails. Collapsing my shoulder and head onto my backpack I felt I might actually have a position I was capable of maintaining for a couple hours until I could make out my surroundings in the morning. Then I heard a growl from below.

 

Only a few feet away from me, just inches from my outstretched leg, was a feral animal of some variety. Of course, I couldn’t see it; I could only tell how close it was from its growl. I didn’t dare jump up and move. I just grabbed a sharp piece of lumber from under the pile in case I needed to protect myself. The beast had to be as scared of me as I was of it. Om, right? Maybe it was just identifying itself. It was probably fortunate I couldn’t see what or where it was because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I just accepted that this night I would be sleeping in the company of, and perhaps protected by, a pack of wild Indian dingoes.

 

And rats. I could hear things rustling and racing around below my wooden sleeping pile for the next several hours. Paralyzed, I don’t remember if sleep came or not. I just became part of my surroundings. The next morning, when light hit, I lifted my sore body and frazzled nerves up off the woodpile and walked back to the road. A half an hour later I caught a bus up the hill, in the direction the driver had pointed, to Dharmsala.

 

These situations were no doubt intriguing and intense, and by all rational logic, should’ve quelled my hankering for experiencing street life. However, both of these experiences occurred against my will. I had homelessness thrust upon me. I still yearned for a down-and-out situation that I had control over. One where I could choose my own adventure and carve out my own reality.

 

Where better than on the streets of glorious Paris?

 

To be continued…