HELTER SHELTER PART TWO

Let's say you have been invited to stay in one of the aforementioned shelters, havens, harbours or ministries.

You have either submitted to a battery of tests asking, among other things if you have ever had homicidal tendencies; been taken there by the policeman who found you slumped over a red ant hill by the bus stop you slipped off because you were drunk or high enough to care less about being bitten alive by critters; you were caught sleeping outside under somebody's porch, and the policeman gave you the alternative of jail or the nice shelter down the road....or you just wandered into an office one day which was staffed by scrubby clean True Believers in matching t-shirts emblazoned with a rings of fire motif, and they talked you into joining their new spiritual awakening movement after you surrendered  power of attorney, and all of your dough including the loose change.

You've made the leap.  You are now a 'sheltered' streetpuppy. 

However, Uncle Sam still views you as homeless because you are not yet at a 'fixed' address, so don't throw away that sleeping bag just yet.

Being a sheltered streetpuppy has advantages.  And disadvantages.  Let's go over some of those advantages and disadvantages.

You have a place to sleep at night that is not moving around under you.  You most likely have a sheet or a blanket to cover you.  You can take a shower...in fact, you are forced to take a shower.

 You can go to the bathroom without squatting under a tree.   You are assured of a meal...if it is a longer term shelter, you are assured of up to three meals a day.  You might be able to watch TV for a couple of hours a day. You will probably be given clean clothes to wear, and some hygiene materials.

 You may, if it is a longer term situation shelter be assigned a 'case manager' who will help you get an ID, or maybe a job or help you solve a legal problem, like that warrant for failure to appear, or open container charge.

 The kind of things that happen when you are on the street and looking the wrong way when Mr. Policeman slides up.

There is a sizable staff of underlings to the counselors, usually called associates.  The associates are there to tell you what is where, and when to go to bed, what chore you will be expected to do,  and when to change your underwear and so on.

You have companionship and understanding  from your shelter mates/street puppies, and a lot of nods of the head when you tell your 'story.'  After all, you are all in the same raggedy ole' boat.

The above fall into the category of advantages.

Let's look more closely at those advantages.

Depending upon the kind of shelter you have landed in, you will be sleeping either in a  large'dorm in a bunkbed on loan from a jail; a large room filled with either mats or single beds on loan from a jail; a smaller dorm with fewer bunkbeds from you know where, or simply sprawled on a large sofa filled with Gawd knows what kind of vermin, and it will be in front of a large TV which is never turned off. 

You can take a shower, but be mindful of the fact that most shelters have very little hot water to spare, and the showers are old and moldy and often open to the dorm area ditto the bathrooms which are old and moldy and very often broken down and downright aromatic. 

If there is food at all, other than donated sandwiches, you will be eating the chef-cook's idea of whatever it is that he happened to put together from the food left from the large pile of donations which went to his and his helpers homes, or sold to local stores.  Thus, you should take a supply of vitamins with you, as the nutritional value of most shelter food is far less than even the most meager food served at 'feeds'.

Don't bother with the TV thing.  Vicious fights break out over control of the remote control in these places, and you don't want to be around when the cops are called to arrest the guy who lodged the remote into the nose of the guy who wanted to watch something other than "Billy The Exterminator."

Generous people very often drop mounds of clothing at shelters.  Those clothes are picked over by the staff of the shelter so you will be getting the dregs of the mounds, but if you are patient, you will come up with something decent to wear at the job interview which your case manager will help you to arrange.

Ooops.  Case Manager.  Job Interview.  Help with an ID. 

Good luck with that.

Your Case Manager probably knows as much about job interviews as she knows about changing a tire on an 18-wheeler.  She/He doesn't belong in that job because they have no training for that position in the shelter other than something they have lied about on their own application.  And if they are responsible for giving you vouchers for outside supplies and/or bus passes...there will likely be a kick back situation, and if you refuse, you may find yourself back squatting under that tree real fast.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a 'higher up person.'

The staff of underlings who man the front desk and hand you stuff like the hygiene kits.  Now, we are out of Klingon territory,and are into Darth Vader territory.  Many of these people have been homeless.  And that experience has twisted their minds so badly that they now take out their previous suffering on street puppies who are under their, if not guidance, well, at least the key to the bathroom.

They will taunt you with trivial matters, implying that your IQ is no higher than your blood pressure reading, demanding to know where you are hiding the corn crinkles they know you are hiding in your bag..as they are the enforcers of the 'no contraband' rule in every shelter, that rule being the rule that says 'hand over everything you buy at the family dollar store on the corner, because I need it.

They will send you packing out into the cold or heat with everything you have on your back or your bags or suitcases, and if you don't make the exit curfew, which is usually around dawn, and lug that stuff around with you all day, well, they will just help themselves to your belongings and claim they threw it out and the police took it away.  And you have absolutely no legal recourse at all to prevent this from happening.

The underlings are also in charge of bus passes.  Good luck with that one, even if one has been approved for you, they will take it for themselves, deny they got the memo approving the pass, then accuse you of lying about getting the bus pass.  Force you to change your clothes if they think your pants are too tight, and to most of these people, everybody's pants are too tight because the underlings sit around all day confiscating and eating  all of those treats from the family dollar. 

Don't ever talk back to them.  They will call the police and say you have battered them.  Then they will go into your room while you are being carted off to jail, and take all of your contraband.

Do what they say, never mind the foam at the mouth as they break into uncontrollable screaming about the banana somebody managed to slide by them last night, you will find yourself right back squatting under that tree.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a...'higher-up' person.

Companionship, Understanding ears and nods  of the head  from other street puppies   are important, but you need to know, that you will be in the company of people who seem to  have been suckled by wolves.

You may be an anomoly.  A blip on on the Homeless Nation screen just sailing through on your way home.

Most of your companions in the shelter will be die-hard, seasoned street people who are looking at you with such understanding eyes and ears because they want to know when you will fall asleep and it will be prudent to take everything you have brought with you. 

These are not comrades at arms.  They will twist your head, twist your arm, and twist your soul if you are weak enough to dumb yourself down enough to be able to communicate with them in any meaningful way.

And they don't care about your story.  They are interested in you for one thing.  Their motto is, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine."  And they are so skilled and charming, they can get away with giving you the shirt off your own back.

Now that we've gone through many of the advantages, let's see about the disadvantages of shelter living.

The main disadvantage of shelter living is that you may be off the street just long enough enough to lose your edge if you are foolish to stick around any of these places for too long.

And you need that edge to survive on the street. 

If we sound too distrustful, too harsh, way too negative.  It is.  But  in order to survive on the street, you need to be distrustful, and harsh and negative when dealing with the likes of many of the people you will encounter, be they  streetpuppies, counselors and underlings at shelters or the big shots who thunk it all up and will probably serve time some day for mismanaging millions of dollars which was headed for Homeless Nation, but somehow ended up in the Cayman Islands.  Or Vegas.

If you stay at any one of these shelters, it is about 80 percent likely that one early morning, you will load all of your belongings onto your back,  on the way out the door, sock the underling you hate most right in the nose, and never go back.  You'll get a new sleeping bag, and go back to squatting under that tree...and breathing free.

It happens.

HELTER SHELTER

Homeless nation is partially populated -some would say littered - with thousands of  structures, ranging in size from a Chicago style bungalow of the late 30's, to behemoth concrete structures sprawling over an entire city block.

These structures, sometimes called shelters, or havens or harbours or ministries are filled with street puppies seeking shelter from the elements, or havens from, well, each other, and/or food and and help with finding jobs and clothing and footwear,  and underwear, and deodorant and toothpaste and shampoo, and most important of all, a place to sleep every night without fear of rolling over and falling into a river.

Whatever they are called, and/or  for whatever purpose the streetpuppy has landed in one of these shelters, havens, harbours or ministries, these structures are not not to be thought of as any kind of permanent fix in the life of the street puppy who either walked through or was kicked or dragged  through the door behind which they will find a lifestyle that is more fun than a barrel of klingons. 

These shelters are merely a stop on the way -the hope is - out of Homeless Nation, indeed a portal through which shimmers the light which  beguiles every street puppy into thinking he/she can and will make it through this detour in the life and all will be well on the other side of that portal.

And in each and every one of these shelters, behind all of those doors, and through all of those portals, lies the crux of the whole problem with homelessness. 

For each and every street puppy, at some point in the trek through Homeless Nation, it must be determined if this journey is a detour, or was, in fact the destination.

And many of the shelters, havens, harbours and ministries are, er, staffed with people who are in charge of making that determination.  Kind of like a triage operation, except the victims are walking and talking.

Anyway, that is what the staffers in these shelter places are supposed to do, and some of them have even gone all the way through college to  study how to do this.

Yup.  It's right there on the curriculum thing, all of the courses you need to get a degree in "Helping Street Puppies get off of my street, and your street, and onto their own street."  Or something like that.

Let's see, these are courses which the college attendee starts attending well into the Junior year when the attendee...or the attendees parents have figured out that junior or missy is going nowhere with a degree in "DJ spinning for dollars,"  or "Designing Apps for ordering gyros over the cell phone from another county," or "Making a killing in the trade of cheetah pelts."

Yup.  Every shelter, haven, harbour and ministry in Homeless Nation is filled not only with Street puppies who are -maybe- trying to find their way out of Homeless Nation, all of these places are cluttered with people who, armed with some social this or that diploma and a few months of internship in a hot dog stand, are there in the shelter for one purpose...to make the life of the street puppy so miserable, the puppy will, at  one point bolt, even though it has not been determined  if the puppy is indeed a visitor, or a future casualty.

They hate their jobs, the hate the people they are supposed to be serving, they hate the surroundings...bleak by any standard, and they hate the fact that they have to pretend to like what they are forced to do until that major job at K-Force or Bio-tech opens up.

So, having all of this hate and disdain for the puppies, brings out the worst in them, these care-givers, these guardians of the gate into Klingon territory, these master minds of the knife in the back trick, they turn to the practices which get a lot of them fired....when they are caught doing the things they do so well.

These guardians cheat the street puppies out of money intended for them;  they force them into personal liasions using the threat of expulsion from the shelter; they sleep with the husbands of the women street puppies; they sleep with the wives of the male street puppies, using the power they hold as a counselor to them both; they obtain a job as the "addictions counselor" using the guise of a recovering Heroin addict and all the while robbing the ministry of money in order to pay for an ongoing Heroin addiction;

They steal all of the good food which rolls into the shelter from kind and caring citizens and use it to allow them to feed themselves and their families high on the hog, while the puppies are scarfing up eight month old sausages;  They  unleash their hidden bigotries upon to young women who are struggling to learn to cope with a baby and the concept of working by brow beating them endlessly until the puppy is totally beaten down;  They use their power over the simple things, like, leaving a tooth brush in the wrong place as an excuse for a tongue lashing, and a punishment added if the street demurs.

In short, what you have staffing most of these so called, shelters, havens, harbours, ministries, et all are, largely a bunch of  misfits who do not have a clue as to how to guide a street puppy anywhwere, except straight into the hands of the many misfits and charlatans who line the streets of Homeless Nation waiting for new meat to stray out of those shelters, either in banishment or absolute frustration with the system.

Granted, most of the puppies who wander into these shelters, are not exactly flavor of the month.  In fact, many of them are what we, back in Chicago would call "Mean Motor Scooters." And they are lookin' to work the system, and victimize the rest of the puppies, and create the kind of mayhem which exists in most shelters.

But there are the innocents who are there out of absolute necessity and who are truly on a detour, and not at their destination, and are the butts of endless jokes of the Mean Motor Scooters for their pieties and grace.

 And there are some angels.  Once in a while you come across some angels in these shelters.  Seldom, but it happens.  And these angels should be given the National Legion of Honor Medal for their truly heroic and loving and charitable work and attitudes and care and guidance through the mean streets of Homeless Nation.

And, you never know...maybe one of those  Klingon staffers, one day, well...just two pay checks away from, you know where, and then, then you will see...were these staffers on a detour through Homeless Nation....or was that shelter,  their own destination.

It happens.

GET YOUR KIT TOGETHER

Joining up with the Streetpuppy corps is a little like joining the Marines.

Except that you don't have to go through a recruiter, or one of those goofy, teary going away parties with mom in the kitchen, wringing her hands, and weeping, "Oh, my baby is all grown up, and that nice judge gave him  - or her -the choice of the slammer or the Marines..."......and you don't have to get one of those high and tight hair things or get that ring thing out of your nose. Or eyebrow.  Or...wherever.

But, in order to soldier on in the Streetpuppy corps, you are going to have to be, or at least act like , one squared away Marine.

And that starts with the kit. 

You may call it the back pack, or that awful rolling wheel  suitcase thing that breaks down the first day you use it, or you can use a gym bag, doesn't matter, this will be the one piece of equipment which needs to carry the  few actual essentials required for life on the street.

It's the Brits who named the bag which holds the collection of articles necessary for survival the kit... so don't blame us that it wasn't named bag, or purse.

We recommend the back pack as the kit of choice.  gym bag too small, rolling wheel thing too noisy and cumbersome, and it breaks down the first day you use it.  Usually right in the middle of a busy crosswalk.

Don't chintz out on the back pack.  The cheaper packs are not built for wear and tear, we don't care how many cute things are hanging off the sides, or that Sponge Bob has endorsed it.

You'll want a plain, dark colored, thick canvass number with a whole lot of pockets, and durable straps, and industrial  strength zippers and snaps,  and the ability to carry up to 30 pounds without ripping apart just as you are trying to run from the person who has decided he wants the back pack....and everything in it.

 And everything in it, should be minimal and multi-tasking, and easily replaceable.

You're not packing a trousseau here -for the guys, that word is something that women used to call the collection of delectable lingerie and such that was put together for the honeymoon.

There is no use for lingerie in Homeless Nation, unless you have ripped it up in order to make hankies.

And you will be ripping up tank tops for hankies, so ixnay on the lingerie.

Ok.  First, a small baggie, into which you will place:  social security card;  birth certificate;  Photo ID required in your state;  health insurance card;  bus pass;  emergency notification card -unless you are really trying to get lost in homeless nation, in which case, pretend you have amnesia from the beating.
five bucks.  That's pin money, in case you are enough of a pin head that you let somebody steal the kit;
debit card, that's if you have one, and you should, and remember the pin number, and do not let anybody even know you have one of those things, it is an open invitation to kidnapping.

Now.  This small baggie does NOT go into your kit.  This small baggie is your life line.  Only an idiot would put it into the same bag holding things which are -though costly - not real hard to replace.

No.  That baggie goes around your neck, on a string -or piano wire -, or in the summer, around your waist, just under the pants line.  And do not ever, ever let anybody know this little bag exists. 

Okay.  Now the kit.  Socks.  Undies.  Flashlight.  Swiss Army Knife.  Toothbrush.  Toothpaste.  Washcloth, which will double as a towel.  Two shirts.  One extra pair of pants.  One pair of flip flops.
(that's because, and you can be sure of this...if you take your shoes off while you are sleeping, they will be stolen.)  Small pack of kleenex.  small spray cologne.  one small bug repellant. One light blanket. One sweater.   One poncho.  (forget the umbrella, too easy for an attacked to use against you as a weapon)  headband.  baseball cap.  Reading glasses..  Sun-glasses. Small bag of toiletries.  And we said small.

Don't overload with the hygiene bags at feed giveaways.  Nobody needs five bottles of shampoo.  Or hand and body lotion.  And the ladies should be allowed one lip gloss and one eye liner.

And just because the giveaways may include fabulous five year old designer jeans with the label intact, does not mean that you need them.  Who cares if Donna Karan or Calvin Klein once embraced the muscles in your butt?

The cell phone goes into your front pocket, and don't be stupid and use it in public, it is another thief magnet.

And no food.  Ants can smell that stuff five miles away, and bug repellent does not work on them.

Now, you may think all of this is too lite, even for lite traveling.

Wrong.  You are not going to need too much. And you will be replacing things as you go.  And, if it is not absolutely necessary to your survival, it's dead weight. 

And, you're not planning to stay here forever, anyway, and if you came into homeless nation with luggage, that's not a good thing.  Kind of like a trousseau.

And one more...and maybe the most important thing to put into your kit. 

We don't care if you call it the Lord,  God,  Allah,  Buddha,  or the Temple of the Blue Parrot.  Make room in your kit for the higher being who will stay with you through this perilous journey.

  And speak to and listen regularly to the Lord, God, Allah, Buddah, or the Blue Parrot, or whomever else you need to hang onto while you're in homeless nation.  The knowledge of, and the comfort of the love of that higher being will get you through what surely will be a time of hell.

And remember what Winston Churchill said at the onset of WW II  "When you're going through Hell...keep on going!"

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER

Ooooh, over the river and through the hoods to somebody's house we go!

Ok, party puppies.  THE party down day of the year is nearly here, and if you have been invited to savor a fine meal, companionship, jocularity, and wine and song, we're here to help you make Thanksgiving a very special day.

One you will remember and cherish until next Thanksgiving Day. 

If you can remember it at all.

Now, this is only for street puppies who have been invited to dine with civilians.  At their abode.

We're not talking about a 'feed' and long lines of puppies, paper plates grasped in cold fingers, smiling faces behind long tables , and strong arms loading your plate with the usual fare, dressed up with,maybe, if you're lucky, real turkey, ham and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie and at the very end of the table a take away bag with tooth paste, body wash, and socks and other stuff which can only remind you that you are not going away from the table to a sofa and sprawl away the afternoon watching a lot of guys  dressed  in knee pants and helmets beat up on each other.

No, you, you lucky puppy you, are going to an actual house, condo, co-op, trailer, or even an RV driven all the way down from Flint, Michigan to sit in a park the whole winter,  while the driver watches a lot of guys dressed in knee pants and helmets beat up on each other.

Now, we have addressed this issue before - dining with civilians - but a refresher course is good when one considers that wherever you have been invited, you are representing every Street Puppy in homeless nation, and it is important to be on your best behaviour in that house, condo, co-op, trailer or RV.

How you got invited to the civilian abode is not important.

Most likely some kindly person got loaded one night, and talked to you for five hours at a saloon he stumbled into because he forgot where he had parked his car.

And even more likely, woke up the next morning in his abode, checked his voicemail to see if any messages were from the police asking  him to come down for a chat about the place where his car had been towed from,  and instead,  found, to his horror, your message thanking you profusely for inviting him over for Thanksgiving dinner with the folks.

Like we said, doesn't matter.  The die is cast.  The toothpaste is out of the tube. The genie is out of the bottle.

Anybody who takes back an invitation to a holiday dinner with family is truly a churlish and mean person and he knows that, and right now, all he can think of is how to break the news to his wife that he has invited a homeless guy to Thanksgiving.

If this civilian has extended the invitation to a gal he has met in a saloon, all bets are off.  No amount of self loathing over being a churlish and mean man is worse than a divorce over the holiday season.

So.  A few quick tips to get through the day.  A day, which for you, if you haven't been in a true home in a long time, could be nerve racking.

Not to worry.  The guy who invited you is kinda bent out of shape about it too.

Ok.  First.  Do not bring the back pack.  leave it in the bushes outside his house if you have to, but don't even think of bringing that thing into a civilian's home. 

Second.  Clean up before you present your self at your host's door.  And that includes the finger nails.
Even if you have to use TWO Wendy's washrooms to do it.  And shave. 

Third.  Lose the hoody.  Get a college sweat shirt from the local thrift shop.  Harvard will do, but University of Michigan is better...it screams..."Clean Cut, wholesome... and not smarter than you, the dolt who lost your own car."

Fourth. Take a gift for the hostess.  Anything....well, not a hygiene kit, or a blanket you got from the feed at the church, and nothing personal like a cheap bottle of cologne.  And don't steal it.  Bad karma.

Fifth. Be polite...V  E  RY  polite.  No chips on the shoulder, no whining, no staring at the old guy in the corner who is cursing at the cat.  he's loaded, and probably doesn't know where he is anyway.

Sixth.  No groveling.  You've probably been in homeless nation long enough to know there's a lot of social climbing down going on.  But, resist the impulse, when the platters are brought to the table, to moan in ecstacy..."My God!  A real potato..."  And other things which will unsettle anybody else at the table.

Seventh.  If you drink at all...and you will notice some hesitancy at offering you a libation...say.."A beer would be fine."  Period.  And stick to it.  Obviously, in some parts of homeless nation, offering a beer to a street puppy is like offering a donkey one oat.  And you do your share of drinking, but don't even think about getting as loaded as your host...and the old guy in the corner.

Eighth.  Don't scratch your ears out, don't pick the nose, don't eat like an underfed pit bull, and do NOT pick up a morsel of food with your hands.

If you are wondering why all of these pointers are numbered, it's so that you can use make notes of them on the inside of your shirt cuffs.

Ninth...and last...and most important, do not, under any circumstances, embroil yourself in any conversations which bear any resemblance at all to long simmering family feuds and rivalries and carefully nurtured grudges..these things always erupt at Thanksgiving family dinners.  They are awkward, and  can easily get out of hand, and you do not want to be remembered as the homeless guy who tried to solve a family fight by taking sides with that old guy in the corner.

Relax, have a good time, eat well, and smile a lot. 

Then, thank everybody profusely and sincerely, make a fashionably early exit...and head straight for that bar where you met the host.

You've earned it.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

A guy's gotta eat.

And that's getting downright hard if ya live in one of the hundreds of municipalities in Homeless Nation who are shutting down panhandling as a way to bring in the dough.

Harder, if you don't receive any of those checks.

In these parts of Homeless Nation, those checks are called "Crazy Checks." 

"Crazy Checks" because they are mostly Social Security Supplemental checks which are distributed to anybody who can prove to a government clerk and some government doctors that  they are bonkers.

In all fairness, those checks are also distributed to people who have legitimate mental and physical disabilities, but an amazing number of street puppies get those checks because they have been able to prove to those government clerks and government doctors that they are indeed soft in the head, or chemically imbalanced in the head, or just plain ripped all the time on so many pain killers they have a hard time pointing at their own head without sticking their thumb in their eye.

An injury sustained whilst sticking your thumb in your eye does not constitute a physical disability, so don't even think about trying that one at home before you apply for the crazy check.

 Those sharp-eyed government clerks and doctors would spot that one the minute you pointed to the eye with your other thumb.

Now, just about anybody can get food stamps.

All you need to get them is proof that you have no money, and you need to get some money in order to buy sandwiches and stuff as you can't buy hot food with food stamps. 

But, the vast majority of food stamp recipients sell those things for half the amount on their food stamp card every month, and don't use them to eat anyway.

Then they use that money to pay their cell  phone which was turned off due to no funds, or to pay the baby sitter while they are at the local dive filling up on whatever gets them over the funk they get into because they have no money. 

Or to pay off the Mr. Jit who supplies them with rock and oxycodone and vicodin and stuff.

Those  panhandling ordinances which started this whole conversation,  are flying around this country at an amazing rate since people got tired of stepping over hundreds of street puppies all carrying signs telling you way too much information about their personal straits, and that they had left several starving children back in the bushes who were in dire need of cereal, shoes and ski caps.

Some of the street puppies have found ways around those panhandling ordinaces. 

Like, selling bottled water, and roses made from palm tree fronds and toothbrushes.

Now, here's an even better idea for panhandlers if they can't get hold of enough bottled water, or are not artistically inclined enough to make those pretty roses, or have no idea what a tooth brush is anymore.

Treasure maps.

Yup.  Treasure maps.

Sell treasure maps.  Everybody wants something for nothing.  And there's something romantic and mystical about a treasure map, which is a huge plus when you are selling to a gullible pedestrian or motorist who wants something for nothing.

Just draw a map of, oh say, the back alley near where you sleep.  Make it look like it's really an inlet or a bay, preferably near water, that way, it will make it look like the treasure was buried there by pirates a long time ago. 

Now, take that map to a copy place and run off fifty or so.  And then weather the maps by stepping all over them.  Then sleep on them for a night or so out there in your spot. That should do the trick.

They will be nice and moldy looking and smelly like something would be if it had been in somebody's attic for a hundred years with rats and bugs and stuff going to the bathroom on it.

Dress up in something that suggests a pirate's outfit.  Complete with the patch over one eye.  Don't carry a huge knife or sword, the popo will grab you up right away.

Then approach your customers, one on one.  They need to think  they have been singled out for this deal, kind of like those infomercials about the special lotions and face make up which makes everybody look like Angelina Jolie.

And,  armed with the proper peddlers license, which you can buy for a few bucks, you should be able to sell enough of those bad boys to tide you over until you can think of a better way to bring in that extra cash.

Just remember, you will have to hit every corner in town over the course of a few weeks or months, depending on how big your town is.

And another thing, don't even think of going near the spot you used as a model for the treasure spot, when your clients find out they bought a bogus map of a back alley, they'll be looking for you, and you'll really end up needing that eye patch.

Which, actually is ok, too.  Then you could find yourself the actual, legitimate recipient of the government check  for an eye which you can no longer use.

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

Well, it's time.

Time to  move on up. 

You've done the one backpack carting around everything you own, then, depending upon how many feeds and church services you attended where you acquired all of those nifty hygiene kits and piles of used clothing and household goods, i.e. can openers, flashlights, etc., made your way up to five backpacks, then,  a big ole' tattered piece of rolling luggage, and then....groan...the shopping cart.

Well, the shopping cart is kind of the RV of Homeless Nation, you're not breaking your back anymore, but it's a hassle at street corners and steering it across streets and it clearly marks you as a streetpuppy, because it's mobile, and anybody carting everything they own along with them, be it in backpacks, rolling luggage, or a shopping cart, is clearly homeless. 

And shopping carts, like the  tattered piece of rolling luggage which preceded it, break down.  Usually right in the middle of a busy street while you're trying to make the light before the guy on the motorcycle heading straight for you . 

So, yeah, it's time. 

Time for the Box.

You, and the missus...or the mister, depending on who in your unit makes these decisions, know it's time to settle down before you maim or kill each other while arguing over who gets to carry the backpacks, or tow the rolling luggage or the shopping cart.

Kind of like the love/hate period an average couple lives through just before they make the unavoidable decision of whether or not to move in together once they realize that half of each others belongings are sitting in the other's apartment.

And if you haven't hooked up yet with the love of your life, well, the thought of a nice bachelor pad, becomes more and more appealing with each day that you long for some normalcy in your life, like just being able to kick your shoes/boots off at night without fear they will be stolen or eaten, and sleeping in the fetal position is for kids and is starting to make your back form a permanent S curve.

So, the hunt for the Box begins.

Kind of like cruising neighborhoods on the outlook for an appealing house. 

Except, you're looking behind that house for the container which carried the largest item taken into that house.

Go for the Sleep Number Bed box.  Usually found in the alleyways behind condos....condos built on the bay or a river, because the people who shell out the kind of money that enables them to stare at water all day/night and pretend they are in the Caribbean, are the same schmoes who will shell out the dough for a bed which supposedly rises and falls at the touch of a remote control, and thereby solving everyone of your marital problems.

Ok, now drag that bad boy around the building, late at night, preferably, as a streetpuppy dragging a huge cardboard container anywhere is going to draw the attention of the police, and/or anybody who is interested in stealing your boots.

So, and this is assuming you have scouted a proper spot, and acquired a tarp to put on the ground -in suburbs that's called the foundation - just sit the Sleep Number Bed box squarely on that tarp, and pull the leaves of the surrounding foliage around the top, and voila!  You've got your starter box!

Ok, it's a fixer-upper.  But you, you clever streetpuppy, you, have managed to acquire a box cutter during your time in homeless nation, and that little multi-tasking tool will enable you  to design the house of your dreams right there under the tree, or the underpass or by that babbling creek that will be your....dare we say it...HOME!

So, now, instead of sitting around on a bench all day at the bus transit center, you can be doing stuff for your house/box.

Another tarp to cover the top, maybe.  How 'bout another piece of cardboard to make a divider inside the box so you can have a place to eat and a place to sleep.  Whoa!

And a few bags to hold clothing, and actually be able to keep the clean (whatever) from the dirty items.

Oh, and a mat to sleep on.  Heaven, with your feet stretched out.  And some blankets, and a pillow from a thrift store that will cost just a buck or two, and maybe a comforter.

Now, don't get too fancy with the outside and start thinkiing of a singing mailbox, or anything.  You don't want anybody to really know where your house/box is located.

And that's the thing, all this thinking and living inside a box, and worrying about that box, and being territorial about that box...why...you've become....bourgeois.

You even have a garden rake and a hedge trimmer...and a pair of slippers!

Not to worry.  In no time at all, somebody will discover your house/box, and you'll come home one late afternoon, all primed for that happy hour cocktail  - six pack- while overlooking the babbling brook and pretending you're  in the Caribbean, and horrors....you're house/box is in shreds of tattered pieces no bigger than a shoe box. 

Everything is gone...even the hedge trimmer.  And the slippers. 

And you're right back where you started. 

Rustling up a backpack and a hygiene kit and a few duds at the local church feed.

Which is actually the best part of thinking inside the box.  You can be tossed out or walk away at any time and just pick up and reinvent yourself all over again.

'TIL DEBT DO US PART

Every couple has money problems.

Doesn't matter if you're living in Trump Tower, a condo in West Palm, a double-wide in Georgia, a tenement in Chicago, a farmhouse somewhere out there in Indiana, or a cardboard box in Homeless Nation, at some point, you will argue about money.

Where it comes from, where it's going, where it went so fast, why there isn't enough, and who gets to decide all of the above. 

Big or small, two people can chisel each other down to rubbles of seething, sneering, snarling mutated replicants of the same two people who once said, in all sincerety..."For richer, for poorer," and the part we like best, "and to you, all my worldly goods I do you endow."

Whether you went through the formal procedures of the frilly dress and wedding cake, or a quick flight to Vegas, or just promised to share the dough you got from selling your food stamps here in Homeless Nation when you hooked up at the feed at the parking lot outside the Greyhound bus station, it's all the same, you're a couple, only difference is, if you're in Homeless Nation you won't have to go through the fearsome...sometimes awesome cost  and trauma of a divorce when you or the significant other decides to throw in the towel, or whatever it is that will get you the domestic violence beef, the restraining order and ultimately the decree that says..."faggadaboudit!"

Now, if you're living large in Trump Tower, you're probably arguing about the yacht, or buying the two thousand dollar Prada hand bag rather than the ratty thousand dollar one, and in West Palm, pretty much, expect you can exchange Prada for Versace;  the folks in the double-wide in Georgia are fussin' about the cost of replacing the tatty roof one of you bought from some grifter...who then didn't bother to nail it down; the couple in the tenement in Chicago are close to a meltdown bickering over who it was who sold the coffee table to finance a night on the town (neighborhood dive) ; and the nice people in that farmhouse are struggling to figure out what the guy at the bank meant when he said all of those things about refinancing the mortgage and then handed you papers it will take the Rosetta Stone to figure out.

Now, all of these stressed out couples can use some fiscal therapy, but the people we are concerned with here are the streetpuppies in that cardboard box - or under somebody's porch, or an overpass somewhere here in Homeless Nation, who have no idea who is Prada or Versace, have not had a roof in sometime and would probably burn it for firewood if they did, same deal with a coffee table, and to whom the concept of refinancing went out the broken window the day they were locked out of their own place, and today, and in the recent (anywhere from three days to years) past couldn't put two quarters together if their life depended upon it.

Now, that's stress.

And let's get back to the basics here as mentioned above.

 First, where the moolah is coming from.

Well, it isn't.  And if there's no substantive government help, it won't.  And the finger pointing starts here.  Who's not working, why they're not working, whose turn is it to 'fly the sign' with some ridiculous legend on a piece of cardboard claiming they have to support 12 children and could somebody passing them by on the median they are standing on, please slow down long enough to throw a buck or two their way.

Then we have the Where's it going?  Ok, one of you might need some new socks, the others just up and walked away after wearing them for thirty days in a row, but one of you needs some dental floss, why in heaven we do not know because both of you are down to just a couple of teeth after a long time without dental care.  Or it could be one of you flew the sign and then stopped on your way back to the cardboard box or the underpass to buy an 18-pack of the cheap beer and enjoy the rest of the day by deluding yourself into thinking that buzz will last forever.  Not good.  And don't even think about lying about it, the smell of 18 beers ingested over the period of three hours will linger.

For the questions, where it went so fast, and why there isn't enough....see "Where's it going?"

Who gets to decide all of the above is where it gets tricky.

Neither of you is in a position here to hold the high ground when it comes to deciding who is the most fiscally efficient, and or morally and ethically responsible enough to take charge of the family checkbook  -if you were, you wouldn't be here  -or in this case left pocket down of the backpack one of you pinched from another sreetpuppy while they were sleeping. 

Yeah, it gets that bad.  Some of the streetpuppies stoop to just plain meanness when it gets desperate.

And it's pretty desperate when one of you is about to be  stranded at the bus station because you have no bus pass for one of you, and you need two people to lug that huge cooler which contains all of the bottled water you nicked so that you can sell it to happy travelers passing by the median you are headed to.

See, and this is where the 'til debt do us part' comes in.

This seemingly minor altercation is going to explode into an all out battle for your lives...until the po po comes and takes you off to the clink...and now you have more stuff on your sheet, and when you get out, you both have restraining orders so you can't go near each other to finish the decision making process over who gets to lug the cooler.

So, another marriage/hookup goes South. 

Money doesn't really make the world go round, but here in Homeless Nation, it is the deciding factor in the longevity -or lack thereof - of every marriage, hookup, one night stand.

And before you think of sharing a troth, a vow or endowing anything, or just sharing the same piece of cardboard as a mattress...you might wanna remember this little ditty streetpuppy once heard at a wedding celebration.  A toast given to the newly minted bride and groom by a guest who had been overserved.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
 a medley of extemporanea,
and love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I...am the Queen of Rumania.

THE WAR ON DRUGS FOR DUMMIES AND STREET PUPPIES

Out there, somewhere in that other nation, why, there is rumor of a whole army committed to eradicating weed, pills, rock, ice, uppers, downers,  you name it, anything that puffs, fumes, tastes good, tastes bad, bangs you in the head, or goes up your nose or in your arm and takes you to the moon, or to your inner child,  or to the corner one more time, or to the last battering ram in hell.

Anyway, that's what we in homeless nation hear.

A whole war devoted to eradicating and interdicting, and snuffing out all that stuff that makes you happy, sad, crazy, unconscious, confused, deluded.....in trouble with that guy in the uniform who just slapped the cuffs on you. In more trouble with the significant other who had no idea what life with an addict is really like.

And according to the U.S. government which is funding this War on Drugs, we have at one time or another in the  course of this war the government has declared  -  declared in an abstraction  of words so imprecise, we cannot tell if the phrase means that there is a war someplace that is high on drugs, or that we are fighting drugs....turned the corner. 

In fact, we've turned the corner in the war on drugs so many times, we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel that leads to the next corner to be turned in the war on drugs leading to the end of the tunnel.

That would be the tunnel dug all the way from Juarez, Mexico to just under the White House, and right under the noses of the Secret Service, the Pentagon, the FBI and the DEA.

DEA means Drug Enforcement Administration.  And it is the agency that President  Richard Nixon thunk up to confuse and tee off all of the people in the FBI who thought that interdicting and eradicating and snuffing out was their job.

In fact, President Nixon started this whole thing when he invented the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973 because his statement in  June of 1971 when he first uttered those fateful words, "War on Drugs." in a speech explaining that we had to do something about the use and abuse of illegal drugs which practice had become "Public Enemy Number One." went right over our heads.

The President didn't know at the time, that soon, he would be glorified as Public Enemy Number One, but well, he had to do something.  Even Elvis was nagging him  about the use and abuse of drugs.  Ahem.

Anyway, here in homeless nation we hear all about this war, and then we look around and say, what war?  Where?  How many soldiers?  Think they got some extra food stamps??  Or a bus pass??!!

See, here in homeless nation, drugs are alive and well, and living it up, and kicking the butts of about eighty percent of the street puppies.

That's right.  eighty percent.

Now, this is not one of those scientific polls.  You know, the ones where some person making seven bucks an hour plus commission for every call, phones you up at dinner time and says, "So...are you homeless and do you snort coke?  uh, huh...what about rock?  Meth?  Oh, and pills...

No.  See...the likelihood of any street puppy answering any question on the phone -when they can get one...or worse talking to a guy on the street with a clipboard, a sheet of paper filled with questions and a pen is slim to none.  Not even when the guy with the clipboard tosses the street puppie a few pair of socks, and or a couple bottles of water.

No, this is not one of those scientific polls.  This poll is not about statistics, or facts.  This poll is about the realpolitik of the situation regarding the use and abuse of drugs - all drugs - by street puppies.

This is a poll that has been taken in a survey of street puppies who actually live on the street. or any street puppy who meets the criteria for being homeless which, according to the federal government, is anybody who did not have a fixed address to sleep at last night.

A survey in which you count the dead,  the near dead, the could have died last night, the lost the third job in a month, the can't or won't feed the family because the rock comes first, the I meant to pay you back but I ran into my crack dealer on the corner, the I just got out of jail and I need to borrow a few bucks for another hit, or a 4pack... or Vicodin or Oxy...the I just can't get it together  to get something to eat because I have to stop the shakes first,  the I made fifty bucks in two hours panhandling at the corner and I spent it all on crack within about ten minutes, The my boyfriend beat the crap out of me because he was high and I wouldn't give him my food stamp money for another hit. The I'm so sorry I stole your stuff and sold it but I needed to get high survey.

Yeah, that survey.

The survey that tells you everything you did not want to know about how rampant the use and abuse of drugs really is in homeless nation. And how it kicks the butts of eighty percent of the street puppies on any given day.

And to anybody who insists the figure is more like, oh, 17 percent.

We say, you must have your head in that tunnel dug from Juarez, Mexico to just under the White House.

TOP TEN REASONS TO REALLY HATE THAT YOU ARE HOMELESS

You don't have a TV anymore  

Because you don't have a TV anymore you don't know who got kicked off the island in "Survivor."

Dinner is for the birds.  Literally.  Last night you ate  popcorn, raisins and nasty zucchini chips.

You miss having a car.  And a house.  And you regret that you ever griped  about either one.

You miss listening to the songs of the seventies (or eighties or nineties) and singing along while you're folding laundry.

You don't have laundry to fold because you don't have clothes anymore that are worth cleaning.

No matter how many 'feeds' you go to you just can't bring yourself to eat whatever that mystery dish is.

You miss the monthly trip to Saks for the facial and massage and waxing and dishing with the masseuse.

You miss the neighbor's cat.  The fat one who you fed every day because her owner was stingy with food.

And the number one reason  you hate that you are homeless:  You hate that you seem to have become downright cynical about the nature of  some street puppies and the next time one of them asks you for a cigarette or a quarter, you're going to go bananas.

And you never knew that you could think that way.

TOP TEN REASONS TO BE GLAD YOU ARE HOMELESS

You won't have to worry if you left the TV on when you left home...or, lord forbid...the iron!

You won't have to watch any more episodes of "Survivor."  -heck, you're LIVING Survivor.

You won't have to figure out where you put your car keys again.  That goes for house keys, too.

You can serve popcorn, raisins and zucchini chips for dinner, and nobody will complain.

No more folding laundry!!

No more laundry!  (just toss the dirty stuff and get a voucher for new stuff)

Nor more counting calories!  (You're officially on the eat it where you can, even if you hate it diet.)

No more bikini waxes!

You don't have to be nice to the neighbor you hate anymore....you don't have a neighbor.

And the number one reason to be glad you are homeless:  You will learn what you are really made of.

And you can't buy that kind of action anywhere.

DEAD MEN WALKING

In poker, 'Dead Men Walking' is used to describe a player who is drawing dead, and has no chance of winning.

In the workplace, the phrase is used to describe an employee who is certain to be fired in the future.

And of course, due to  those wonderful folks who brought us the movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, the phrase is most often now thought of as the  unenviable title of a death row  prisoner on his terminal walk to eternity.

In prison, also, the phrase is a warning that an inmate who is on death row is walking by and caution should be shown since the dead man walking wouldn't hesitate to kill someone seeing as the death row prisoner is already dead.

And all of the above interpretations are fitting descriptions of so many street puppies in homeless nation.

Which probably explains,  - does not excuse, but does explain -  the cavalier attitude shown by so many street puppies when one of their number has actually been found dead. 

Doesn't matter where.  In the river, in a ditch, under a bush, behind an abandoned building, under a car, or as was recently the case, the unfortunate soul, found lying face down right outside police headquarters.

 The  most usual response to the news of the newly departed dead man walking, is a slow nod or shaking of the head,  a look of somber wisdom, and maybe, a muttered , 'too bad, he was a good guy.'

And nobody really bothers to find out  what happened.  It is assumed that he was, just another dead man walking.

And the the cause of the fatal turn could be an unattended illness, or an accident, or a slow, steady descent into hell.

 Most street puppies cannot afford doctors, and are put off by the rituals of the local emergency room, so common maladies like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, vascular problems, and the like go undetected or untreated until it is too late.

 Or he's not watching where he's going, and steps into traffic, or trips over his own bike, or has one too many for the road and the road is a dead end for him,  and the dead man walking ends up lying face down in in a river, a ditch, under a bush, behind an abandoned building, under a car or right outside police headquarters.

Or  he has given up any hope of getting out of homeless nation. Maybe it was the last phone call home which resulted in yet another argument with a spouse or parent or sibling.

 Or the inability to deal with the death of a family member he had not seen in so very long , and had no chance to say good bye to, or to mend whatever fracas had started the estrangement.

Or the news that a family he had abandoned and shattered had been put back together by another man.

Or the sickness in the pit of his stomach everytime he thought of how he could no longer afford the simplest pleasures life had to offer.

Or the dawning  knowledge that, at a deep spiritual level, he simply felt always ashamed.

 So he started drinking and/or drugging his way through it.  Night and day. Staying high became the mistress he craved, pursued and gorged himself with.

Alcohol is cheap, and plentiful by the can, especially the cheaper brands that are guaranteed to eat your brain and stomach away.

Crack and pills are even cheaper, by the unit anyway.

But after awhile, the cost of maintaining that kind of high is prohibitive and adds yet another sordid ingredient to the bubbling cocktail of misery -  the high costs of incarceration, not only the bruises suffered inside the jail, but the deep bruising to the soul.

And at last, the street puppie will be consumed by the fires of addiction, or the utter sadness which saturates his spirit, or the jumbled thinking resulting from the constant supply of alcohol or drugs, which then results in  the deadly misjudgements which lead to stepping off the curb at the wrong time, tumbling off the bike, or just simply falling into the river.

And the street puppy becomes just another poker player drawing dead; another employee bound to be fired; another man on the terminal stroll to his unenviable end, Another name on the long list of  Dead Men Walking.

YOU JUST MIGHT BE HOMELESS IF......

It takes a while for street puppies to get used to the idea that they are homeless, rootless, and sometimes clueless.

The initial glow of recognition could be the idea that maybe your key in the lock isn't working because it has been changed by (1) an irate landlord who won't buy the story again that your pay check was lost in the mail because of the tornado three states away  (2) an irate spouse who knows your check was not lost in the mail because of that tornado because you were too drunk the past few weeks to know there was a tornado (3) the landlord and the spouse who decided life was too short for them to deny the deep and passionate love they had discovered  for each other after you lost your job and did nothing but drink for the past few weeks.

Anyway, here you are in homeless nation, wandering around like one of those lost souls who cannot bear to leave this planet even, sometimes  for years after they have been pronounced no longer breathing. 

That initial glow of recognition, that dawning that something is wrong with your life, is beginning to turn into a fog that glowers all around you as you wander through this totally foreign terrain called homeless nation.

In an effort to help you find your way back, it is first important to know where you really are, so here are some clues  for clueless street puppies... kind of a psychic GPS to help you through the fog.

YOU  JUST  MIGHT  BE  HOMELESS  IF.....

You have used the rest room today in five different places, and you can't remember where they were...

You are wearing a back pack that contains band aids, antibiotic cream, used kleenex, five combs, two pair of dirty socks,  a wet rain poncho, one running shoe, a week old pack of peanut butter cookies, a small can of cocktail weiners, a can opener, and a broken flashlight, a two week old mystery meat sandwich, two half full packs of nasty cigars.....and a whole bunch of leaves and small twigs.

The guy behind the counter at the corner 7-11, tenses up everytime you reach into your pocket to withdraw some change for the dollar a pack of nasty cigars...

The guy behind the counter at the corner 7-11 watches you like a hawk anytime you go near or past the beer cooler...

The guy behind the counter at the corner 7-11 washes his hands after taking your change for the dollar a pack nasty cigars...

You have memorized the numbers on every police car cruising within a five mile radius, armed with this knowledge, you will be able to determine if that car has passed you one too many times while you have been sitting on that bus stop bench...

You have worn the same pair of pants for one week, and when it is time to change, you simply turn them inside out...

Nobody will let you pet their dog....

Women with small children pull back when you approach them on the street....

The security guard who patrols the lobby of the bank you have kept your account in for twenty years, follows you at short range from the moment you enter the bank to cash a check for five-dollars......

The shoes you are wearing are a size too small, or a size too big, and they stink, which is ok,  because they stunk when you picked them up at the give away pile at the feed last week...

You have despaired of finding a comfortable spot to spend the night, so now you are right at home curled up around a bush just two feet away from an expressway with traffic whizzing by all night long...

Your hair has not been cut, combed, de-snarled or shampooed lately, more and more you are looking like the infamous Nick Nolte mug shot...

But you don't know that, because now the only rest room you are allowed into is the one where they took out all the mirrors to discourage people like you from taking the morning bath in there...

Your shirt has a J.Crew label; your jacket is from Tommy Hilfiger; Your pants are Bongo, and your baseball cap says NY Yankees.. Your T-shirt says, Harvard....and every item is way too big for you....

You cannot remember the last time you actually ate with utensils that were not plastic...

You cannot remember the last time you actually ate with plates that were not paper...

You cannot remember the last time you actually ate sitting down...

You cannot remember the last time you acatually ate...

You have stopped smiling at pretty girls....

You have stopped looking at pretty girls...

Your eyes tear up when the clerk at the grocery store smirks when she sees the food stamp card you are using to buy the beans and bread...

A good day is when your teeth don't hurt...

A bad day is when your teeth hurt all day long .....

No matter what you do, you cannot get your filthy fingernails clean, so you have taken to biting them right down to the nub...

And a big clue that you are in homeless nation....you have no idea about the quake that hit wherever the last big quake that wiped out a whole country hit, because you haven't seen a television in weeks and cannot afford to buy a paper.

Yup, you're in homeless nation. 

And your shelf life is running low.  Your expiration date may as well be stamped on your forehead.

You've been marginalized,  demoralized, analyzed, and categorized.

 It's time to think about being socialized.

Time to think of an exit strategy, street puppy.  Fast....before the next quake  or tornado hits.

OH, WE OF LITTLE FAITH

In homeless nation, as in all other nations, we suppose the universal meaning of the original of that tidy piece of scripture would mean, better to increase one's faith to counter one's fraility.

Fraility in the face of so many dangers real and imagined while living life on the edge of a precipice of unimaginable stress and vulnerability which is one way of saying homeless nation is a bottomless pit of anxiety and fear and the darkness of the unknown.  In other words, yeccch!

If there are no athiests in foxholes, an aphorism generally credited to journalist Ernie Pyle during World War II to argue that in times of extreme stress and/or fear, one will tend to believe in the protection and forthcoming help of a higher power, then it would also seem that there are no athiests in cardboard boxes, or abondoned cars, or under bridges or bushes or ditches or alleys or wherever it is that street puppies put their weary heads to rest night after endless, sleepless and fretful night.

And If a battlefield -and let's not kid ourselves here, homeless nation is a battlefield - is the place for a conversion, then it follows that all street puppies would wholeheartedly embrace the thought of a higher power coming to rescue us all, kind of like Mighty Mouse in a long nightgown swooping down and taking up our back pack, and leading us to the nearest 7-11 for  huge slurpies and microwaved cheese omelettes.

Alas.  The churches in homeless nation are named after various saints and sects and not one of them is named after Mighty Mouse.  And there aren't too many street puppies sitting around in them unless there's something to eat there, or a place in a pew or on the floor to spread a blanket and get some shut eye, or maybe pick up some socks, one of those nifty hygiene kits or an extra shirt from the donation pile.

Most street puppies got here by some route that put them totally off the idea of a higher power except as a demonic force which swept away their whole life, i.e. husband, wife, parent, boss, mortgage broker, boss, drug dealer, etc.  so there's not a lot of faith left in anything that even smacks of sanctity by the time the street puppy rolls through the gate to this place. 

But there are plenty of those churches named after saints and sects and all of their clergy and their volunteers bushtling  around to take up the role of patron saints of hand-outs. 

They feed us, they clothe us, they gently cajole us into getting onto the right path, and teach us the Bible.

And the teaching the Bible part is usually the appetizer and thus, comes first, before the handouts.

No street puppy in his right mind would stick around AFTER a big meal, or the handouts for the Bible study, or the message or the prayer service. 

So they sit, nodding at all the right places, smiling at all the right places, shaking their heads in all the right places of the delivery of the Word.  All the while thinking of the meat patties waiting, or how many socks they need. Or how much the hygiene kit and a couple of shirts would bring in to enable them to buy another bottle to ease the pain of another long night in that cardboard box, or under that bridge, or in that abandoned car, or the bush, the ditch or the alley, night after sleepless, fretful night.

And they're all here, the people who deliver the Word.  The Protestants, the Catholics, The Muslims, The Jews, the New (fill in the blank) Order of Such and Such, even the Temple of The Blue Parrot. 

The only spiritual advisors who ya don't see much around here, unless they're panhandling at the same street corner  are the Hare Krishna, and that's  because they're begging, too, and why complicate things by begging from the people you're preaching to about Hare or whatever his name is.

See, your average streetpuppy knows the deal. 

These  higher power people want something too.  They want the feel good thing of helping people out.  Ok.  That's usually the volunteers.  And some of them, usually the clergy, want to know they are doing their job well.  That's Ok, too.

 And occasionally, people like Charlie who just fill their car up with  food and neat stuff, and hand it out to street puppies, and talks about his love of Jesus, and is absolutely sincere. And he's all about truly loving his fellow man.   And he's one in a million.

And we know all of them are well meaning, and filled with love of their fellow man, especially the hurtin' ones, and Lord knows they are gaining bonus mileage in Heaven, which in this modern era, should probably  have it's own page on Facebook.  Along with a password and PIN to give St. Peter at the Golden Gates.

And then, there are the others.  The demagogues  and water walkin' wannabes who decide  it's time to start their own church.  Hmmmm..need some dough for that.  I know, donations for the poor!!    And I'll meet some good lookin' women, too!  Yippee! Praise the Lord!  Hallelujah!!

So they start their own church, name it after something, usually themself. And they get a lot of those volunteer need to feel good folks who have excellent recipes capable of feeding about a hundred people at a time.  And they're  in business. And they bellow out the Word.  And the money rolls in, and it's all tax free. 

And then, Lord forbid, sometimes they acquire an old rooming house, and bring street puppies in and take all of the little money they do have and tell them it's being saved  for them.  But first, they need to get a job  to earn that money to be saved, and not drink or do drugs and they will  be given all of their money after six months when they are clean and sober, and have eaten off their own elbows because they can't smoke either.

And of course, the street puppy will opt out of the rooming house and the program long before the six months is done, The church cries "foul,"  and the street puppy has not a dime to show for it.  Or elbows.

And he or she, will be just another athiest in a cardboard box, or the alley, or the ditch, or the bush, you get the picture. 

Yeah, Oh, we of little faith. 

When you think about it.  Maybe some real smart person in homeless nation should start a church named after Mighty Mouse.  They could call it, "Mighty Mouse Temple Of Flying  Caped Rodents In Nightgowns."

The entertainment value alone of a caped rodent clad in a long and flowing nightgown flying around homeless nation, coming to save the day would raise the spirits of every street puppy in homeless nation.

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

In homeless nation, we have a similar situation to Panem et circenses, (Latin for 'bread and games) which is used by many historians to describe the social band aid applied by the ruling class of a rapidly degrading Roman Empire  to the erosion or ignorance of the poorer populace as a superficial means of appeasement.

In short, give them wheat and games and and other cheap forms of entertainment in order to patronize them as a way to gain political power.

Some of the people in power in Rome went so far as to shower loaves down upon the crowds in the coliseum just as the gladiators entered the arena. Kind of the ancient version of a commercial break.

Well, ya don't see much of that here in homeless nation.  Most of the street puppies don't vote, and we don't have gladiators.  Thus we have no way to help politicians to gain power, unless they can think up a way to make us disappear.  Or morph into street cleaning equipment.

But we do need to be appeased.  It's probably the only way to keep us out of the middle of the street, and off corners when we panhandle.  At least for a couple of hours during the commuter rush.

And, darn, bread and circuses are a sure good way to do it.

Only here, we call them "Feeds."  Feeds, as in, "You going to the feed at the park tonight?"  Or, "What time does the feed at the bus station start?"  Or, "Did you see the hot chick at the United Episcopal feed last nite?"

There's more bread than circuses at a feed.  Though, there's always enough drama around to fill in for the circus part. 

For instance, if the hot chick at the United Episcopal feed last nite was the girl friend of the guy who panhandles on Front Street for enough dough to buy his daily ration of Scope mouthwash...It's cheaper than Budweiser, has a higher alcohol proof and smells good even when it comes back up on ya....well, there's going to be some drama if he has enough of that Scope and shows up at the next feed with his hot chick and you even look at her.

Anyway, feeds are everywhere, and at all times of day and night in homeless nation.  And it is the way most of us are able to ingest enough calories to supply the energy to lift and pull our bags around with us all the rest of the day and night, and run speedily away when the police intrude upon our sleeping spot.

And most of the feeds are decent.  And they are prepared and served up by decent and generous people who actually care that we eat enough. And they certainly display a wide variety of ingredients and cuisines.

Imagine a very long table, and on that table, mounds of paper plates, paper napkins, plastic knives, forks and spoons and some paper cups.

 And then, stretching into the distance, large aluminum pans filled with Mexican food casseroles, and Italian food casseroles, and then some Chinese food casseroles, and then some maybe  Irish soup or chili mac, and then mounds of cut bread, and then some cup cakes and then some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and candy bars and then   a small  and very snotty child, forced into servitude by an irate parent who will hand you a hygiene kit and some socks and glare at you like you just stold his mongoose bike.

Now, imagine that in line at all are those tables grabbing at all that food are people who have never learned to properly do what the British call "queue." 

"Queue," as get in line, one by one you will step up, grasp the eating utensils wrapped in a napkin, then the paper plate, upon which the wonderful people on the other side of the table will scoop, ladle or toss onto your plate, aluminum pan after aluminum pan until your plate looks like you have just been served dinner from the international pavilion at Epcot Center near Disneyland.

Well, kind of.  To be fair, there's more meat and vegetables than macaroni and noodles in the international food pavilions at Epcot Center. 

And probably far less sodium and carbohydrate and processed sugar and chemicals.

But anyway, back to the 'queue' thing. 

Some street puppies just don't get it.  You stay in line, you approach the end of the table.  You move down the table and receive the bountiful and tasty food heaped upon your plate.  You reach the end of the the line and the snotty kid whose Mongoose bike you probably just stold tosses the hygiene kit and the socks at you.

Then you settle onto the ground, or maybe a  lawn chair, and eat your tasty and filling and aromatic meal in peace and quiet.  All is well, and after finishing your meal, you will lean back, light up a cigarette and relax.

Nope. If you get to the end of the table at any feed without having some part of your face rearranged or a part of your clothing missing, or no scraps of food all over your clothing, you must be eating at the Outback Steakhouse, and not on the back lawn of the United Episcopal Church.

Feeds are kind of  like  "You You Eat What You Kill" territory. 

And at every one of the feeds there are a few jokers who believe that if they don't hustle their way to the front of the line and break at least one bone belonging to somebody else doing it, they are not a man and should not be out hunting for food.

And they believe that if they are fourth or fifth, or horrors, twelfth in line, there will be nothing left to eat but the scraps left over from the Chinese casserole.  And no socks left, either. Or hygiene kits.

These  kind of street puppies  are probably actually the road dawgs and were were obviously suckled by jackals, and would probably be displaying this great lack of manners even if they had not gambled away all of their property, beaten up on their wife, sold all the work tools and run away to homeless nation and pretended to be war vets who never came back from the PTSD they suffered while rescuing five buddies underfire in Vietnam or Gulf War or whatever fantasy they used to reinvent themselves and get over on the  street puppies while they're hiding out here. 

So we would like to take this opportunity to  apologize for the rude manners of the road dawgs who manage to turn every event into a free for all, and to thank all of those wonderful  and decent people who prepare and serve all of those bountiful and nutrituous and tasty meals at our feeds, and give away all of the hygiene kits and socks.

Except for the snotty kid at the end of the table at the feed at United Episcopal the other night.   The one with the attitude like we stold his Mongoose bike.  The one whose irate parent put him there  to punish him for breaking his ipod, and taking the family car for a joy ride at 2 AM sans driving license or a permit.

He put laxatives into all of the hygiene kits.  Dropped them right into the little bottles of Scope.

Now, that's not right, but somehow, the prospect of the discomfort of the road dawgs who ingested that stuff  is nearly as satisfying as the memory of the  supreme chocolate chip brownies served  on Sunday mornings at the feed at the bus station.

THE LADIES OF CELL BLOCK SALLIE

A lady entering homeless nation for the first time will likely begin the journey as a street puppy at a temporary or emergency shelter. And it is very likely that shelter will bear the name of an international organization known, indeed revered, for the work it does for the poor and homeless and helpless.

For street puppies in the know, the shelters provided by that organization are simply called, "Sallie."

It's probably a concrete block structure set off the street, closed in by high fences, and bars on the windows.  There is usually a guard at the door.  Probably a guy who has just discovered a new purpose in life.  Kicking hungry and tired street puppies around real good so he can feel better about himself.

If it is check-in time,4:30ish, give or take an ish,  there are two lines, men and women,  in various stages of sobriety, carrying everything they own either on their back or in raggedy suitcases and plastic bags.

You want the shorter line, the women's line.  The women you know didn't get past rush week at the sorority.

Once inside the shelter, you will be confronted by a woman at the desk who will demand your ID, and give you your marching orders...in between phone calls to the local pizza delivery place and her boyfriend.

 In this street puppies experience, that woman was short, furious, and frazzled.  Kind of like Tweety Pie on steroids.

Her backup, the muscle for the place if you will, was a taller, moody, menacing, squinty eyed rendition of what one can only describe as Darth Vader in a rumpled pant suit, speaking with the raspy voice of Edward G. Robinson.

Kind of like bad cop, bad cop.  Looking over the evening's selection of whipping girls.

Lock down, that's right, lock down is at 6ish, give or take an ish.  You are officially now in cellblock Sallie.

You are locked down, you make one wrong move, or what is deemed to be a wrong move, you will get the tongue lashing of your life, or the police will be summoned, and you will be either sent to jail or tossed out onto the street.

 Yup, you are now in cellblock Sallie.  And at the mercy of ole' Tweety Pie and Darth.

And Tweety Pie and Darth have frisked everybody for everything from bobby pins to mouth wash to potato chips.  But they haven't checked for alcohol or drugs or weapons.

 All of which abound inside the cellblock Sallie

If there isn't enough alcohol to go around, well one of the male attendants will be happy to supply it, in return for, er, personal favors.  Not enough drugs for ya?  The infamous Mr. Jet waits right outside the gate with enough pills and rock to choke a small goat.  It is worth his wait, he will profit nicely through the night

And you will spend that long night in a back so called dorm room. A bare, cramped, noisy, smelly, bug infested place populated  with what appears to be the entire cast of the "Road Warrior."

A large, bare, cramped room filled with bunk beds from a nearby jail and crawling with every bug that could find it's way from the south of Mexico.  And out in the enclosed smoking area, is "Chubby," the house rat.

Over there, is a woman recently released from prison. She just did nine years for a murder.  She has her eye on the teenager in the corner who is digging into her second huge bag of some kind of taco chip things.

 Next to teen girl is an elderly person, elderly as in about forty, with stringy hair, and bracelets dangling from her skinny arms and wearing a silk butterfly patterned dress one size too large.  She is staring straight ahead at whatever is on her own personal tv screen and cluching her one bag next to her. 

Across the room, a gaggle of fairly large women, huddled around a loud boombox.  That's against the rules, but the attendants won't mess with groups of large women.  That boombox will be playing all night long.

Off to the side, her legs dangling from a top bunk, sits a lumpen, long haired woman in soiled clothing. Also recently released from prison.  She has been released on the condition that she become a CI -that's confidential informant for anybody not familiar with jail talk -and she's looking for her next victim.  And it doesn't matter who it is, or what they have or have not done, the whole point is for her to stay out of jail and she will drop a dime on anybody, including the innocent.

Two drug dealers are present.  And they have another mission.  They will keep their eyes open for anything worthy of stealing.  They work for Mr. Jet.

The women fall into their own ethnic groups in the room.  Black, white, latina.  Nobody crosses the line.  Some gang signs are flashed through the night, and loud arguments break out on the hour

The women are  from varied backgrounds. Mostly urban and from all over the country. Aged 18 all the way up to 75.  Many of them seemed to have been headed for this place at some time or other in their lives. There are A lot of bad complexions and missing teeth.  Nutrition has not been a big deal in their lives. Nor has has hygiene. And everybody here got a Bad Man story.

 The few civilian street puppies who have wandered in for a rest from the street, are just plain scared.  Sounds of weeping will sound through the darkness. 

You won't get much sleep here tonight.

Nor should you.  The list of missing pieces of property in the morning will be long and will include everything from cell phones to cash to clothing to jewelry to, well, anything anybody can nick that will bring in a few bucks.

In the morning, you will be awakened, at 6 AM, and told that you must leave, with all of your belongings no later than 7 AM. 

If you are staying for another night, be back on line outside, promptly at 4pm.  Or else.  Tweety Pie and Darth.

After a breakfast of coffee and whatever chocolate cake or leftover ham sandwich somebody has donated four days ago, you are out the door, toting all of your belongings and searching for someplace to sit for the rest of the day without drawing the attention of the police.

Now, you will probably put up with all of this for a few days.  But you'll get your bearings, and if you're real lucky, hook up with some street puppies who know how to make it out on the street.

You should take the street option. 

You have a better chance of maintaining your health and sanity outside than  inside at Cellblock Sallie.

Your health, your sanity, your possessions, your positive outlook. Your humanity.

Maybe your very life.

CALL OF THE WILD

"Call Of The Wild," author Jack London's masterpiece published in 1903, takes place during the Klondike Gold Rush, when  the protoganist, Buck, a Saint Bernard shepherd dog is kidnapped and sold to sled owners.  Gold being what it is, sled owners needed a lot of dog power to pull sleds full of the stuff.

The story unfolds as the handsome Buck lives the travails of a sled dog, through several masters who alternately beat, or coddle or simply neglect him, and then is rescued by a kindly man who treats him with love and care which brings Buck back to a state of mind whereby he can begin to throw off the pain he has endured through his capitivity, and then, darn, yaheet Indians kill his master, and then Buck has to kill the yaheets and then Buck realizes the only person who ever cared for him and rubbed his ears real nice isn't coming back and says, "What the heck, may as well go back to the wild."  Or something like a dog would say which would sound like,"Awwww  wooof  wooof wee woof  darn."

Anyway, Buck hooks up with a stray wolf he happens to meet at a feed for stray and abandoned streetpuppies, they are both caught trying to steal the last of the food from the other streetpuppies and banned from the feed, so naturally, they bond quickly, and at the urging of the stray wolf, they go off together to probably wreak havoc for the rest of what would likely be a rather short life span when you're in the wild and either chasing or being chased by the yaheets.

Ok.  We're getting to what this has to do with streetpuppies and homeless nation.

In homeless nation, which is pretty much like being in the wild, there are a lot of abandoned and stray streetpuppies.  And a lot of stray wolves, In homeless nation we call  them Road Dawgs.

Road Dawgs have been out in the wild for a long time.  They know every con, every shortcut, every trick to keep the clock ticking forward.  There's no way back for Road Dawgs. And most of them are here in homeless nation on purpose, hiding from something deep and dark outside.

Streetpuppies like Buck, come to homeless nation for reasons other than getting lost while heading down to the neighborhood store for a pack of cigarettes.  They come here because something awful happened in their lives, like when Buck was kidnapped.  Only, when you come to homeless nation it usually means like, your house was kidnapped or your job was kidnapped or your wife was kidnapped by your best friend and took all the furniture with her  or something.  You get the picture.  your life went off the rails.

Sometimes, the Bucks will hook up with street puppies in homeless nation who can help them get back on their feet, and nurture them with love and care and rubbing their ears real nice and giving them stuff.

And sometimes not.

The Road Dawgs are on the lookout for streetpuppies like the handsome and charming Buck. 

They need them.  They use them as bait to reel in street puppies they can rob, and cheat and extort and bully and even kill if necessary in order to achieve what they want. 

Which is usually enough money to buy the next rock (that's crack for all of you straight people) or pills or booze.  Whatever keeps them high enough to keep on livin' the life of the wild. The only life they know. They will never know another life.  They have been out in the wild too long.  They cannot be domesticated.

No responsibilities, no conscience, no mercy for street puppies.

What a street puppy has worked for to get out of homeless nation, the Road Dawg will take, and he will use Buck as the bait to do it. Even if it means that Buck will have to hurt other people.

Even if it means that Buck will eventually die in capitivity, And will probably die of a condition brought on by a broken heart due to the lack of love and care he was once used to.

Fortunately, there are more street puppies than road dawgs in homeless nation.

They will keep on keeping on, and work hard to return to a life outside this place.

And if they manage to stay out of the way of the road dawgs, they will make it.

 Unfortunately, in homeless nation, the Bucks will continue to be kidnapped  by the road dawgs and used to extort and steal and cheat in order to obtain enough money, and rock and pills and booze to keep the road dawgs livin' the wild life.

No responsibilities.  No conscience.  No mercy for street puppies.

If you're in homeless nation.  Avoid the packs of road dawgs at all costs. They will block your way out.

Stick with the street puppies.

We may not seem to have as much fun as the road dawgs,  but at least we're on our way out of homeless nation, we'll make it out alive and well, and we don't stink up the place while we're here.

HALLMARK MOMENTS FOR STREET PUPPIES

When you're a Street puppy, you have to live without lots of things.

Matching socks. And shoes. Even shoelaces. Ties. Black leather gloves. Crisp, white shirts.

But one of the things you miss the most is greeting cards.

They're corny, and usually cloying and insincere, they clutter up the living room coffee table, and the door of the 'fridge, and the hallway table, and they're a mess to clean up after the holiday.

And it's not just the logistics which present a problem to anybody who wants to reach out and touch you - or maybe keep you at arms length - during those sensitive times of the year.

Sensitive as in, It's Christmas, and you got nowhere to live, so forget about a tree and the thousands of lights blinking all over your house and garage.

Or it's Easter. The time to rejoice!! And you just can't fork over the dough to get that big hat with the posies all over it.

Or hey, it's the party holiday, Thanksgiving, and you really want to go to that big holiday dinner with all of the relatives, the party you used to hate, but some of those relatives could well be the reason you're on the street in the first place, what the heck.

So, you're not going to get cards from those people who used to jam your mailbox with cards containing pictures of every thing from jingle bells to pumpkins and easter eggs , mostly because you really don't want them to have to go through the embarrassment when their postman sees they are sending a card to "Maynard, behind the bus station, at the cemetery, in the cardboard box right next to the Smith family."

Yeah, you don't want that.

After all, you do still have some sense of a need for discretion regarding your living arrangements. And it's not going to do anybody who used to know you any good to
know you're living in a box....right next to the Smith family.

Or is it?

Maybe street puppies need to put it right out there.

"Hey, I'm homeless, Sparky. Send me a card sometime, maybe put a few bucks inside."

Now, that takes sand. Yeah, put it right out there. Some real Hallmark moments.

Reverse holiday cards. See, here's how it works. First get a lot of paper from the box beside the xerox machine at the food stamp office.

For Thanksgiving, draw a whole bunch of turkey feathers flying through the air. And a puff of smoke. And at the bottom write. "Whew, that was close. It's wild living in the woods."

For Christmas, Sprinkle some of that star dust stuff on the paper, and maybe some magic marker in red. Draw a cute picture of a reindeer standing over you, trying to eat your ears. And at the bottom, write: "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here. Instead of me."

And at Easter, hah! The piece de resistance. Draw a big fat bunny, with a cigar in it's mouth.
and carrying a cute puppy in a basket. And a big grin on the Bunny's face. And write:
"We have your puppy. Bring the money to the cemetery and put it into the cardboard box, right next to the Smith family."

You might not want to send the Bunny card through the U.S. Mail.

CAREER, INTERRUPTED

Sometimes, life just isn't fair.

You did everything right.

Maybe starting off with being born into a family who had the means and the dough to put out for an ivy league diploma, and the connections to help groom you for your future role as a player in whatever high stakes profession would be au courant after 'B' school.

Either that, or you looked around at a very young age, and decided you were not going to play for the team that headed straight to the minimum wage line, and an early marriage to an ardent beau who turned out to be the world's champion beer chugger, so you got a grip on your life and soldiered your way through a state school while working seven part time jobs.

Whichever path you traveled, you made it all the way to just under the fabled glass ceiling.

You know. That place near the top, within panting distance from the CEO, or COO or CFO perch you had been salivating about since you elbowed your way past the first casualty on your carefully thought out corporate ladder hit list.

And, darn. Here you are, on the way to being a high stakes corporate player, a real master of the universe in a pant suit, a pedigreed spear carrier.....and you've just been canned.

Somebody hit the 'delete' button on your path to the other side of that glass ceiling

Not only that, you're no, er, spring chicken anymore.

You are "A woman of a certain age," who hit the snooze button on your biological clock a decade ago when you started looking around for cougar bait, instead of somebody your own age at the speed dating events.

And despite the trim body and flawless complexion and rigid diet,your health might not be so good anymore, due to the overuse of prescription drugs you had to use to calm those twitches, and/or the alcohol or drug habit you may have developed to cope while blazing that career path.

Which is a real drag because you lost your insurance benefits along with the job.

And you spent so much time and cash on projecting the right image to your networking buddies and your slave masters you forgot to save any real money.

Then the disastrous economic slapstick hijinks a few years ago -oops there went the 401k, and your stock options....or whatever other high falutin' crap shoot savings schemes you were smooth talked into, and you, silly thing....you forgot to get a contract with a 'golden parachute'.

And the Blackberry, or whatever techno gizmo you used to stay in touch with and on top of your world? The one filled with the names and numbers of all of those other 'golden' people?

Fagaddaboudit. You are the last person they want to hear from these days.

Oh, yeah. You've come a long way, baby.

All the way to Homeless Nation.

Welcome to the world of ratty hair cuts, cheap hair dye jobs, cheaper shoes, ill fitting clothing and taco bell for lunch.

It's still hard to believe it really happened. But it did.

And that's the point. It happened.

Whether it was an abrupt departure from your illusion of a secure and upwardly mobile life by overextending yourself to the point where you really didn't have enough cash around to last more than two pay checks....or a slow, steady descent, into the indignity of selling everything you owned right down to the last pumice stone. It happened.

And you need to get over it.

Because you're not going to get anywhere in Homeless Nation...or, find the way out, unless you grasp the concept: You're homeless.

You're homeless, and you have no money, and no status.

People look at you, well....like you maybe used to look at people who weren't dressed quite right, and lacked the polish and finesse of the well turned out career woman.

You need to get with the program.

There are plenty of those around in Homeless Nation.

And they all involve a women's shelter. Living in one, not visiting each Christmas with a few of your used Chanel sweaters for the donation bin.

Yeah, it's a whole new world.

Noisy, and badly ventilated, chilly in winter, hot in the summer. Locked down at six pm. Food you know is nutritious, but, Lord, didn't these people ever hear of Bernaise sauce?

And then there are the "Others." This is not a shelter in St. Barts, Madame. This is a shelter, most likely in a part of town where you are situated away from people who don't like to look you in the eye, or who just don't want you around.

And there's a reason for that. Some of the roomies you are going to be living with, are not exactly flavor of the month, and you will have to learn a whole new set of coping skills to interact with people you used to look down on, or actually sneer at.

And then, there's the job hunt.

You will be out there, trying to talk somebody into hiring you for a minimum wage position who is looking at your resume and wondering how you could possibly fit into a job answering calls all day from irate customers. In short, your experience, and education and life in general have made you overqualified.

Yeah, you're in for the ride of your life.

It will take every bit of smart and cunning and resilience and spirit you have to get through this one.

And take heart, there are more and more of you drifting into Homeless Nation. Soon, you will have lots of company, and then you will be the wise and experienced and savvy street puppy giving the what for and where's it at to the newbies.

And in the meantime, if any of those people on your Blackberry, the one somebody stole from you the first night in the women's shelter, anyway, if any of those people ever run into you out there in the other nation, and ask what you've been doing....just tell them you've been in the Mistress Protection Program.