The Homeless

Location: Boston

The first time I saw a homeless person, I was about eight years old. I had gone to church with my grandmother in downtown Providence. After Mass, we walked down the street towards the car. The memory of it is as fresh as if it were yesterday -- the way my grandmother's high heels clicked on the pavement...she always carried herself as if she were a giant, though she stands less than five feet tall...the way the skyscrapers blocked the sunlight, how I was behaving myself though I wanted to run around and look at the windows of the shops. Anyway, there was this woman standing in the alley nearby. She had curlers in her hair, and I'd swear she was wearing a bathrobe, and she looked so sad. My grandmother didn't hesitate -- just opened up her purse, gave the woman some money and told her to take care of herself. I don't know if it's thinking about that woman or how much I miss my grandmother, but it's a good thing my co-worker isn't here to see me so upset at 11am!

When I was 15, I went with my parents and my older brother to California. I was on Sunset Blvd, and I saw a girl about my own age standing in an alley. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that this girl had nothing -- and here I was on vacation. And I have much to thank her for -- she had such an effect on me, I wrote an article about her that was published and it was one of my college essays...which took me right back to California a few years later.

Of all the terrible things that I saw going to college in Los Angeles, the homeless people wore my soul down. It got to the point where I had a hard time leaving my last apartment -- on Fairfax & Sunset, not far from where I saw this girl, incidentally -- because I couldn't make it to the store across the street without giving food away or money or both. I didn't have two dimes to rub together at the time, but I had a nice place to live, and I never went hungry. It drove my roommate a little nuts because it would upset me so much to see them, but I'd talk to them anyway.

One night, I sat on the curb near my house and talked to this woman, and she was jovially telling me about how someone would always get her a coffee from the gas station across the street in the morning -- as long as she had enough money. When I asked why she couldn't get it herself, she said the attendants wouldn't let her in. I said, "But you have the money! That's not fair." And she said - with this look on her face like my grandmother would give me - "Honey, if I owned a place, I wouldn't let me in either."

That night, I had been up the block at the Directors' Guild, running a film festival. I had some down time and came back to the corner where she was (this was in my neighborhood, so I knew her from around) to talk to her. There I am, in my fancy dress, hair done up, knowing I have to get back to the reception so I could stand around and talk about movies and "the industry" and how my work was going to be something someday. And I did got back to the DGA and stood around the courtyard and got drunk and talked business. Then I went home -- she was sleeping in the doorway of the Rite-Aid when I passed by -- and that was the night I decided to leave L.A.

So anyway...talk about the Travelers in another post had me thinking about this...and now that I'm moving up to Boston in a few weeks, I have to figure out a way to handle myself better. Providence certainly has some homeless people, but not very many. Just the other night, I got off the Turnpike in Boston, and there's always a homeless person looking for money from the people waiting at the stop light. He stood outside my window, and I couldn't bring myself to put down the window. It's funny, you know, it's the most selfish thing in the world to use a homeless person as an excuse to be upset. They're the ones who don't have a place to live. But I still can't help but wonder how I'm going to make it through living in the city again.

One day at a time, I guess. And back to having a pocket full of change whenever I step out my door...

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The Homeless