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$5.00
#63

BEING HOMELESS

BY MARK GANSERT

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BEING
HOMELESS

Journal by Mark Gansert
Illustrations by Haley McCord

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Day four after being
released from federal
custody.

I am under a bridge next to the Miami
River on a walkway that borders it.

Many other homeless call this home.

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It seems rightfully unfair that I am risking having my probation
violated by being homeless. According to their own rules, they are
supposed to have placed me into a halfway house to allow me time
to get on my feet. Alas, this is not the case. They feebly attempted to
place me into the Miami homeless shelter system which is beyond
overwhelmed and has a waiting list that is months and months long.

As per the conditions of my probation and keeping them, finding
employment while being on the streets is a serious challenge. Just
how will I maintain this versus the looming threat of an even longer
incarceration? I am very stressed that the rigors of an “on the streets”
kind of homelessness, combined with the inability to follow my
probation conditions, is weighing so heavily upon my shoulders. I do
not wish to return to prison. Who in their right mind would?

I pray for some kind of miracle. That some door or window of
opportunity will avail itself unto me. I have applied for employment
through the computers at the library. Yet this in itself is not enough.
The job search is made even more difficult by the fact that I currently
own one pair of prison-issue blue jeans with a broken zipper, a stained

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white cotton polo-style shirt, and a now dirty black t-shirt which is
wildly inappropriate for my job search.

Being homeless is not an easy thing. Being homeless with federal
probation on top of it is unbearable.

* *

That unsettling feeling has struck again. The feeling of abject loneliness
as I lie once again under the drawbridge abutment.

I think back to just a mere ten months ago. I was comfortable and safe
in my apartment. I had a job, a dog, a car, a sweet loving girlfriend, and
everything was normal. I felt like I could hold my head high again,
unashamed of the taint of homelessness.

Now look at me…lying on a cheap, green sleeping bag with a blue
plastic tarp under it. Back to eating in the soup kitchens and the
Miami Rescue Mission. Lining up to take a shower at a homeless
shelter. Arguing with frustrated fellow homeless people, now in

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charge of doling out donated clothes over a pair of khaki cargo shorts
that are missing the button to fasten the waist. Listening to former
homeless pastors preach unto deaf ears; telling horror stories about
their special crack-addicted Christianity. No one on our side of the
fence is impressed with a crack addict turned preacher.

I avoid everyone. I talk to no one at length. I’ve learned that nine times
out of ten, that guy sitting next to me in the soup line is a douchebag.
I’d like to give some of them the benefit of the doubt; yet in another
bout of homelessness, my overwhelming urge is to use my fellow man
as cannon fodder to better my own place in the concrete jungle of
which I was rudely thrown. It is sheer survival of the fittest.

Am I so wrong with these thoughts? Even with these thoughts in
the soup line, I bandaged a man’s foot with my own limited medical
supplies. I can’t let them suffer even if I despise most of them.

Now as the sun begins to set, a chill begins to settle into me. The wind
whips through the abutment. Another night under the drawbridge.

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I hope the things I’ve been doing to alleviate my current situation pan
out. It’s really my only hope that I alone will pull myself out of this
situation. I’ve never met a former homeless person who’s said, “Yeah,
someone said to me ‘let me get you off the street.’” It’s always someone
who is willing to end the cycle themselves. “Gee I hope a house falls
out the sky from the homeless fairy,” said no sane person ever.

I don’t want to sound bitter, even though I feel bitter. I can’t hide my
feelings through my words. Resentment filters into me like a burning
hatred which I cannot seem to rid myself of.

Whether I am lonely, frightened, angry, embittered, or just tired, you
can find me under this drawbridge. You can find me however you
want. You won’t find me hopeless.

* * *

Sometimes it’s hard to see the beauty around you when you’re living
on the streets. Miami for all it’s ugliness is quite a beautiful city.

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It is a homeless Mecca. The year-round mild weather lends itself to
the throngs of homeless. I’ve met people on the streets of Miami from
Michigan, Alaska, Maine, and other points south.

As I write this, I look out unto Biscayne Bay with the high-rise
condominiums of Miami Beach two miles in the distance. It is a bright,
sunny day with only puffy cotton ball clouds dotting the otherwise
blue sky. I sit upon a concrete picnic table and watch the people walk
their dogs. It make me feel sad as I had to give up my dog ten months
ago.

I also see my fellow homeless, some sleeping off the nights drunk or
on drugs, others sunning themselves. All of them in this particular
park await the evening meal from the Miami Rescue Mission which
is five blocks away.

I had to move away from the drawbridge. Early one morning, I was
attacked by a couple of young thugs. They were trying to relieve me of
my backpack. After a brief struggle and a particularly violent Aikido
throw to one of my attackers, they retreated to lick their new wounds.

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My stress levels reached new heights after this unprovoked attack.

Soon I’d began noticing black eyes and other hallmarks of street fights
upon other homeless white males. It turns out that with a little indirect
questioning, it seems that these individuals have been targeting based
on race. What makes it worse is that I see these cowards everyday in
the line for the shower. They now cut a wide swath around me, all
while giving me the evil eye.

I moved from the drawbridge to the on-ramp of the MacArthur
Causeway. A long concrete wall stretches the length of the Museum
Park Metromover Station. A few other homeless sleep here. It is very
loud as the hipster kids ride their crotch rocket motorcycles which all
seem to be lacking mufflers. The Lamborghinis and Ferraris also blast
onto the causeway toward the trendy nightclubs and swanky beach
condos three miles away.

I’d slept here two nights until I was attacked again. This time, it was
a mentally-ill male with a weighted club. His feet shuffling near me
awoke me with a jolt. I swung my feet out at his legs. I caught him in

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the shin. He cried out while swinging the club at me wildly. I launched
up unto my feet catching the wrongly-wielded club. A strike to the
mound of his forearm made him drop the club with a shriek of pain.

I went animalistic, screaming primally, chasing him down the sidewalk
with the club in my hands. The other homeless awoke watching me
chase the man for blocks. He ran into an abandoned building site and
picked up two large hunks of concrete. Coming to my senses, I ran to
the nearby transit station and dialed the police.

When my attacker saw the groups of people all dialing 911 because he
had started chucking the hunks of concrete wildly at me and the other
people in the station, he ran away again. I told the 911 operator that
I wasn’t waiting for the police and to let the people in the station tell
them what happened.

Another night’s sleep ruined. Now my stress level was at the red line.
I wandered up unto the Metromover Station sidewalk saw an empty
bench and laid down again. Not sleeping, but fuming.

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The next day, the other men who sleep under the Metromover
platform (with the security guards’ tacit approval), Sam, the giant
Virgin Islander and Carlos, the deaf Honduran, invited me with open
arms to sleep under the platform. It was an offer that I couldn’t refuse.
We have to vacate the area at or before 5 a.m. It is well lit and comes
with security cameras.

* * * *

We joke that it is our homeless condo. We hope for the best. Carlos is
getting an implant for his hearing, and Sam is getting his knee rebuilt
soon. I hope they get off these streets. They are the few shining lights
in this city of beautiful ugliness.

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