STRONG AT THE BROKEN PLACES

The world breaks everyone.
And afterward, some are strong
at the broken places.
              Earnest Hemingway, "For Whom The Bell Tolls"


Perhaps you believe that life in Homeless Nation does not make a change in the phyche of a Streetpuppy.

And if you believe that, then you have not lived here, and are only reading this because you are interested in how Streetpuppies really do live, or you downloaded the wrong column onto your Amazon kindle. or you googled 'puppy' because it is time to give your two year old  kid something to do that will build character.

Or you may believe that living in Homeless Nation , and navigating all of the perils and ill will and savagry and heartache here will build one's character.

Au contraire. Living in Homeless Nation will reveal  one's character. But nothing that happens to a Street Puppy in Homeless Nation will help to build their character. 

One's character is pretty much wired in by the time one has navigated the other heartaches and perils in life, like getting through the first broken romance, without chewing off your own eyebrows, or deciding what you really want to do with your life that your parents don't want you to do, and then doing it, come hell or high water, or wasting a lot of money on some foolish piece of automobile, then realizing you really don't care for the kind of women who are primarily interested in your car, and then doing something about it, like  selling the spicy money trap and buying a beater and saying,'to hell with it, it's just a car.'

Those life trials, and others like them build character, and by the time you've hit Homeless Nation, you are probably old enough to have had the rite of passage through just about every seemingly earth shaking event that stands in your way to Nirvana.

And how one handles the truly life shaking events which will occur in your time in Homeless Nation will not only reveal your character to yourself and to others, but will determine how you come out at the other end of the journey.

So, let's say you have built up some character in your life account.

You had a master plan and it seemed to be working before you got here, and now the whole world fell onto your head, and a lot of things in your life are broken.

You will be tempted to succumb to the most devious and harmful and spiteful ways to navigate through the Nation, they will, be the seemingly easiest and fastest way out of it. 

And you will observe that so many of the residents of Homeless Nation use those devious and harmful and spiteful ways to navigate through the Nation, and then you will notice that those ways don't seem to be getting them out of it.

So you don/t go that route.

You stick it out, and you are honest and you avoid the drug and alcohol trap and you don't steal even if your life seems to depend upon it.  And you don't hurt anybody for the sake of building your own ego. Or betray the few real friends you may make here.

But.

You have been damaged.  No doubt about it, the experience of Homeless Nation will bruise your very soul.

You have been broken, and eventually, the bone of life will grow over that wound and whatever part of you that broke under the sometimes unbearable pressures here, will stand up to future assaults in the same place.

No, you will never be the same person.

You will be the person who has learned that nothing in life is certain, including life itself.

And that knowledge alone will make each and every day after the experience in Homeless Nation priceless, and worth the price of the ticket you punched to get here.

And who ever told you that giving a two-year old a puppy would help to build his or her character???

DATING FOR STREETPUPPIES

This is not about hookups, friends with benefits, or the occasional one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster.

This is about straight out dating.  For Streetpuppies.

You may not remember much about dating, and what you do remember will depend upon your age, and the era you lived in when you first started to feel that ping in the area of your heart where the love lever is located, and started to look at some guy or gal, and think to yourself....hmmmmmm.

Or maybe you looked at some guy or gal and thought..."Hey, what a coooool  car, I want me some of that." Or, "Hey, what a coooooool set of pins on that babe, and you know, same thing.

In fact, what with the advent of singles bars, then dating services, then the internet, then internet dating services for people who were too busy with their blackberries and iPods to take care of the love lever thing, actual dating protocol has morphed into something unrecognizable to a guy with a coooooool car, or a babe with a coooooolll set of pins.

And if you're living in Homeless Nation, well dating has probably morphed into the hook up, and one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster thing.

But Street puppies need real companionship and affection, and they get pings in the heart, too.

And the whole ritual of dolling up just to spend a few hours with somebody you will probably sit across from at a table filled with food and tell lies to each other for a couple of hours, though abhorent on the face of it, is probably worth the time just to take your mind off  tomorrow's struggle with the food stamp agency.

Now, there are some barriers to actually dating, here in Homeless Nation.

First, we don't have singles bars, unless you count the corner outside the convenience store where they sell the nasty four-packs. 

And there is no dating service on the planet, i.e. Match.com or e-harmony, and the like who would let a Street Puppy past the first line on the application.,  or making that awful video you have to make so somebody can look at it and wonder if you are the one.

The internet dating services present another set of problems, first you have to have more access to a computer than the couple of hours a day you are usually granted at the public library, and you don't want to cut into your Japanese animation watching time.

Then, the internet is clogged with perverts, con men -and women - and Fabio and Angelina wannabes who will e-mail a photo to you which has been airbrushed with a staple gun and a whole bunch of lies about their jobs and incomes and even their names. 

Which brings us back to the actual dating scene where you sit down from each other across a table for a few hours, as a curtain raiser on a situation which could blossom into a wedding on the beach at Maui.

Now, the first thing, is choosing the person you really want to spend some time with, both before and after the table thing.

Not many Street puppies are actually presentable enough -what with all of the tattoos and rings through the nose and stuff - to actually set off a vibe which says, "Hey, let's us two go off together and talk and laugh and spend time together," instead of "Whooooaaaa.....let's boogie 'til we puke!"

But, hey, the people with the tats and rings and stuff need companionship, too, just not your companionship.

Now, in order to get a date,  you have to find somebody first, and if you look around the bus stop, or the park you hang in, you'll  probably find somebody as lonely and as loving and as lost as you are.

Now,  you  have to ask that person something, like...'Hey...you wanna go out sometime?"

That will do for now, because if you said "I was wondering if you would like to dine with me on Saturday Night?" they would probably flee.

Now, after the guy/gal says, "Hey, yeah, let's go out," this is where the going gets tough. And the tough get going.

Set a time. And a Day.  Nobody in Homeless Nation lives their life according to the Blackberry.

Ask what kind of food she/he likes, and hope it is not French.

Actually, hope it's something at a local feed, because you don't have the dough to go to the movies or a concert or dinner, and she/he probably understands that, unless they are a total gold digger and thought you were good for a Wendy's burger, a bus pass and a couple packs of little cigars.

Now, arrange for a pick up time.

That's right, pick her/him up at a designated site, preferably near the feed you have both decided will be a good idea, and within walking distance, because you don't even want to get into the transportation problem of providing two bus passes.

When you pick up your date, make sure you are showered or cat-bathed, clean clothes, and smell nice.

Make sure the pick up time is oh, about an hour before the feed starts.

Now, you have to make the decision, do you stop at the convenience store and get two cold beers and sit around under a tree someplace and drink and talk and get to know each other...or do you get in line as soon as possible at the feed so you won't end up having to fight off the inevitable bully who will cut the line.

Do the beer thing.  Maybe a few beers.  You will both probably need to relax a bit, because neither of you have done this in a long time instead of just hanging out.

Ok, dinner is over.  And it wasn't that bad, five or six casseroles and old bagels and fruit cups with peaches and syrup. 

Now, the inevitable awkward question on even a first date. Your place or mine?

Neither of you have a home.  Even more awkward.

You're going to have to drop her/him off at their spot, or part company  at the best neutral place, like the bus stop, or the park.

And then say, "I'll call you."

Perfect. 

You've just had your first real date in a long time.

Next week, you can have another date, and not necessarily with the same person, and on and on, and pretty soon, you will be looking forward to Saturday nights again, just like you did back in the day.

Saturday night, when you can spend time with another person who set off that ping in your heart.

Who knows, one of those Saturday nights may even wind up on the road ahead on a beach in Maui, with candlelight and the whole disaster.

SLINGER

Slinger is flush today.

He's got three quarters he just talked out of a passenger who was rushing across the bus terminal which serves as his home office.

He asked her for "57 cent."

That's Street puppy speak for "I'm going to ask you for an odd amount because you won't take the time to count it out, and you probably have quarters in hand anyway for change for the pop machine, and I won't ask for a whole dollar because that would sound like I'm extravagant with your money, which, when you see the smile on my baby face and my gentle voice, you will part with because it's hard to turn down somebody who says to you, "Please, ma'am', do ya have 57 cent for me to get something to eat, I'm real hungry."

With those three quarters he now has enough money to buy a pack of cigars both for his day's supply of smokes, and to sell for a quarter apiece, and that revenue, turned over several times as he acquires enough quarters to buy more cigars will feed the beast of his 3-pack a day habit he has had since he became homeless twelve years ago.

The rest of the quarters and dimes and nickels he will needle from bus passengers, neighborhood passers by and acquantances will be spent mostly on his crack head girlfriend who will sleep all day at their "spot" a couple of blocks away under a highway underpass, and then will rise mid-day and stumble down the short path to the bus station and demand her usual egg sandwich lunch, a soda, cigarettes and enough dough to buy a couple of vicodin to keep her nerves straight until she can score more rock tonight.

And at some later time in the day, which neither of them will know, she will make the excuse that she is going to the john, or to the corner for a paper, or across the street for a soda and then disappear, for hours, or days at a time, and spend all of  Slinger's money on her rock of crack.

All of the money for all of that will  have come from Slinger's day long entreaties for the loose and/or small change his 'customers' , these strangers,  give him as he snares them on their way through the bus terminal.

Slinger doesn't travel far during the day's trawling.  He doesn't fly a sign, or sell papers on the street.  He sticks to the area he knows best, the bus terminal, his "office,"  and the people who will give up their change.

People he can spot fifty yards off he knows he can hustle, sometimes just by the way they are staring at the ground, or straight ahead, or right at him. 

And he's no fool.  He knows he has to give something in return, so he has become a walking font of information regarding directions...so long as the information you want extends to a couple of square miles around the bus station.

That and the free newspaper he snaps up from boxes within the two square miles around the bus station, then piles next to him and hands them out to customers...many of who, for years, have thought the paper costs a quarter.

But, hes an honest man.  He wouldn't steal -except for the free papers - he's not an alcoholic, or a drug addict.  Once a year, on his birthday, he goes to a Karoke bar way up on Nebraska Avenue and sings songs in his beautiful and soft voice and drinks three beers.

And when his crack head girlfriend disappears for hours or days on end, he misses her, cries for her, and is always happy to see her return. 

You know this, because you can see the light in his eyes, and the tender smile that spreads across his face when he first sees her step off the bus upon her return.  No matter what shape she's in.

Slinger's life wasn't always this way.

He lived up North.  He had a family...parents, and siblings all part of a middle-class life he cherished and never thought would change.

He married.  A woman he loved so much he tried to commit suicide when she died suddenly on their 14th wedding anniversary of a disease neither of them even knew she had.

He loved her so much because she was a woman so worthy of love.  She was loved so much that the father of one of her students at a tony private school where she was a teacher, a father who was a famous movie star paid thousands and thousands of dollars for her funeral and a huge party afterward.

After the funeral, the party, and the suicide attempt, Slinger just simply closed the door to their home and walked away and never looked back.

He ended up in a deep Southern state, as far away as you can get away from Upstate New York. and survived on odd jobs and dishwashing gigs he could do even on days when he was terribly hung over or just plain blind drunk.

He ran out of odd jobs a long time ago, and settled for life at the bus terminal, where he knows everybody, and everybody knows him, and he gets all of their change and knows how to give them all directions to anyplace they need or want to go.

Anyplace that is, within a two mile radius of the seat he perches on at the bus stop.

Slinger has made a home in Homeless Nation, right there at the bus stop.  His bus stop.  Slinger's bus stop.

Slinger made a couple of attempts to leave his corner of Homeless Nation.

He scrabbled together enough money to buy a bus ticket to Texas to live with a woman he had met on the internet on a computer at the library.

He ended up walking most of  the way back from the little backwater Texas town  after two weeks with the woman in her little house in the middle of nowhere with her six dogs and five cats and a drinking problem and bottles and bottles of meds for the bi-polar affliction.

On the  1,600 mile way back,  to the bus stop, he slept where he dropped from exhaustion each night.  He woke up one morning in the middle of a bear habitat

The next time he walked all the way to another town a couple of  hundred miles away for the promise of a job that didn't work out.  On the walk back from that adventure, he lost his shirt and ended up with the worst sunburn he had ever had in his life.

He doesn't take trips anymore.

Time has no little  meaning to him now, except for one day at a time, and enough of that time to gather enough quarters to take care of the crack head girlfriend he loves with all his heart.

And, someday, he will die here, within a couple of square miles of a bus stop where he knows everybody and everybody knows him.

But for now, he will scramble around every morning and snatch the free papers, and hustle for the quarters from his customers and other strangers, and wait for his crack head girl friend to step off a bus so he can love her with all of his heart.....no matter what shape she is in.