- Every man with the smallest inklings of humility and
courage is forever discovering new things about himself. The self-images
we cultivate through arrogance and ignorance are easily exposed in the
harsh light of life experience. One may think himself a hero or genius
or saint, but all too often, these grandiose self-analyses are born of
egoic delusion rather than objective reality.
-
- When one's false pride has fallen and his ego stands
defenseless and trembling, therein lies the greatest opportunity for self-
discovery. One can either wait for the ego to re-inflate and again retreat
to its comforting shelter, or one can leap head-first into the cavernous
abyss that the ego once filled. The latter is the action advised by some
of history's great spiritual teachers, but the former is the one preferred
by almost all of humankind.
-
- We only do the really serious introspection when we have
no choice, when we're at life's bottom. Stripped of every flattering self-
concept, one is given an unobstructed glimpse of his own soul. The key
is to not flinch when this mirror is held to your face. It is even more
advisable that you not shatter it and cut your own throat with the broken
shards.
-
- I recently had an opportunity to both engage in and witness
in others some brutally honest soul analysis. Whether it's ugly or beautiful,
cowardly or courageous, loving or hateful, all the soul can do is tell
the truth of itself. Mine, like everyone's, wants desperately to know
love and joy and peace, but it is badly stunned by trauma, heartache,
and loneliness. Mostly, it is barely aware of its own existence, let alone
its inherent greatness. This also describes the soul of Chuck, a homeless
man I met a few weeks ago on the streets of Las Vegas.
-
- I went to Las Vegas with the intention of investigating
the city's homelessness crisis from a first-hand perspective. I was going
to live on the streets for two weeks, with no money in my pocket and
only utilizing the resources available to the homeless. I arrived on May
6th, 2007, after a 30 hour Greyhound bus ride. The first evening was frightening
and disorienting. I was exhausted, and for hours, I asked anyone who might
be helpful -- mostly security guards and police officers -- where I could
find a shelter for a night's sleep. But each gave contradictory directions,
and most admitted that they didn't know the location of a single shelter.
-
- I had not slept for two days, and my brain felt mutilated.
I decided that my best bet for an evening of rest would be the outdoors.
I caught a bus to nearby Henderson and slept in an open field in an industrial
area. I worried that this trip just outside of Vegas' city limits might
constitute a violation of the experiment's terms and integrity. But then
I reminded myself that I was sleeping in a field and things were bad enough
as they were.
-
- After a few hours of fitful sleep, I caught a bus back
to downtown Vegas and restarted my search for homeless services. A few
blocks from the Fremont district, a hooker approached me and asked if
I wanted a "date." I told her I was broke and asked her for
directions. She did so and proceeded to give me the 101 on being homeless
in Vegas:
-
- "Don't ever walk around without money in your pocket.
The police will arrest you for vagrancy. And don't sit at a bus stop without
taking a bus. Don't stand in one place for too long, and don't ever try
to sleep in a park or in front of a building. And always have your ID
on you, or they'll put you in jail."
-
- I was concerned about these possibilities going into
the project, particularly since the Las Vegas police were already interested
in me. I had announced my project in an essay a week prior, and two days
before I took the trip, police in Beaverton, Oregon visited my home at
the behest of the LVMPD. I was a bit horrified at the prospect of being
jailed and would do my absolute best to avoid it.
-
- Following the hooker's directions, I took a right down
Main St. and headed toward a cluster of homeless services and shelters.
On the way, I passed a badly disheveled elderly man lying sprawled and
unconscious in the dirt. Held in his right hand was a pristine Holy Bible,
a "gift" freely given to homeless men and women all across the
United States. Upon seeing this tragic and poignant sight, my first thought
was, I wish I had my camera -- the image would have made great "art,"
and I might have been able to sell it to a newspaper or magazine.
-
- Self-discovery number one on my homeless journey: I am
not nearly as compassionate or empathetic as I had imagined.
-
- I spotted what l thought was a group of good samaritans
erecting a mini-campsite for the homeless off of a sidewalk, and I approached
them and asked for directions. They informed me that they were homeless,
and invited me into their "camp." There were four men in total,
3 of whom were Hawaiian -- an elderly man named "Uncle Dave,"
his nephew Mark, and a diminutive man whose name I've already forgotten.
And there was Chuck, a 49 year-old bespectacled white man who immediately
began offering me helpful guidance. He offered to show me the various
shelters that offered meals and beds, and I accepted.
-
- Chuck looked a great deal older than this years -- I
would have guessed him to be in his early to mid 60's. He explained this
by describing himself as "a straight up alkie" (alcoholic).
Indeed, Chuck placed no blame for his unhappy circumstances on anyone
but himself. He told me, "Mike, if I won a million dollars, within
5 minutes I would have a meth pipe in one hand, a beer in the other,
and my (bleep) in a hooker's mouth." As we walked, he gave me a brief
overview of his past. He said that he had earned a decent living as a
casino dealer in Reno, but that drug and alcohol addictions had drained
all his money and destroyed his ability to work. He had been homeless
in Vegas for the previous three months, and it was the lowest he had ever
been in his life. Twice, he had been badly beaten and nearly killed by
street gangs. He said that he didn't believe he would be alive if he was
still homeless at the end of the year.
-
- Our first meal of the day was an early lunch at a shelter
whose name I have either forgotten or never caught. (Lesson number two
on my homeless journey: I am a writer and not a journalist -- I am far
more concerned with the existential wanderings of my own psyche than
I am with gathering objective data.) The food was plentiful, and, not
surprisingly, not very good. It was bland soup and cheese pasta and all
the white bread and rolls you could eat. I found that I was extremely
thirsty and tried to load up on water, but it tasted the way tap water
always tastes in hot desert towns -- murky and gritty. Since I didn't
have money to buy bottled water, I hoped that the dirty tap water would
sufficiently hydrate me for the next two weeks.
-
- As the hour approached noon, I noticed with some alarm
that the sun was already having an effect on me. The heat in the desert
southwest has a different quality than what I am used to in Oregon. Even
when it's not terribly hot, the solar radiation seems to act like a microwave,
cooking your organs from the outside in. I asked Chuck how he had managed
to live for the past three months under such an intense sun, and he claimed
that his body had simply grown accustomed to it.
-
- We headed back to the makeshift "camp," which
was essentially a big tarp and blankets held aloft by shopping carts.
I had enjoyed perhaps ten minutes of shade when a police unit drove by
and instructed us to remove the cover. I was dumbfounded and asked Chuck
for an explanation. He said that the police always insisted that the tarp
remain down until at least 4:30 in the afternoon. Whether they were worried
about some nefarious activities occurring under the tarp or they were
trying to kill us, I don't know.
-
- Since the sun had already become unbearable, we needed
to find shelter elsewhere. Chuck told me that the only place where we
could legally take refuge was a shaded outdoor area offered at the Salvation
Army. This, I was told, was by far the most dangerous of all the shelters,
and I was advised to never attempt to go there by myself. Chuck claimed
that in just the previous two weeks, there had been a total of 6 stabbings
(including three murders) and one rape.
-
- One of the many crappy things about homelessness is the
lines -- you have to stand in them for long, long periods of time to get
whatever you need. The line outside the Salvation Army was exceptionally
long, and I passed the time by visually scanning the many countenances
in the crowd. I immediately noticed someone who seemed profoundly out
of place. She was a beautiful young blonde girl, surely no more than 19
or 20, with the clean-cut features of a prom queen or cheerleader. She
seemed to be alone and stared straight down at the ground with a peculiar,
slanted smile on her face. Given the shelter's reputation, it seemed like
an awfully dangerous environment for an attractive young woman to be on
her own. I pointed the girl out to Chuck and asked if he knew her story.
-
- "That's Kimberly. Don't ever try to talk to her
or look her directly in the eye. She's a 'spitter.' One time, I asked
her if she was OK, and she spit in my face and tried to kick me in the
balls."
-
- Chuck went on to explain the girl's generally accepted
back-story. Supposedly, her husband was a crack dealer who had a falling
out with a competitor, and repaid his "debt" by offering his
wife as currency. For several hellish nights, the girl was tied up, raped
and defiled in unimaginable ways by a horde of gangsters and druggies.
The brutalization so traumatized her that her mind shut down and just
vacated reality. Now she was alone and psychotic, living in the shelter's
"psychiatric" unit, receiving medication but surely not getting
any better. True or not, I have no idea.
-
- But that's the way it is with every homeless person --
they are not automatons or ghosts or ghouls or shadows. They're human
beings and each has a story.
-
- When we finally made it to the outdoor sanctuary, Chuck
and I sat down and he began ascribing a brief biography to each individual.
There was Kathy, a rowdy and perpetually drunk ex-Marine who purportedly
still did some kind of nebulous "freelance" work out at Nellis
Air Force Base (when I asked her for a description of this work, she told
me to go f*** myself.) There was an elderly and functionally nameless
man who had supposedly not changed a single item of clothing for the last
three years. There was a gangster named either "Blue" or "Boo"
with the most terrifying countenance I had ever seen -- every one of his
front "teeth" had been transformed into a four-inch metal shank.
According to Chuck, the man had spent upwards of ten grand on this bizarre
dental procedure, the purpose of which was known only to him.
-
- I would have liked to have remained in the shade until
the sun went down, but Uncle Dave joined us drunk and out of his mind.
He immediately wore out his welcome when he screamed at the top of his
lungs, "De la Hoya lost! F*ck all the Mexicans!" Since perhaps
four dozen Mexican men were within earshot, Chuck and I decided to leave
the sanctuary post haste.
-
- We headed back to the "camp," and I was happy
to see that the tarp had been reinstated, hopefully for the remainder
of the day. A bottle of "Night Train," which along with Thunderbird
ranks as the top "bum wine," was being passed around. For "politeness"
sake, I took a sip, and as a lifelong non-drinker I was surprised that
it didn't taste too terrible. But it didn't help my emerging headache
and nausea, and I was growing more thirsty by the minute.
-
- I told Chuck about my dehydration, and he offered to
fetch me a jug of water from the tap at the Salvation Army. I laid down
under the tarp and stared for a while at the cars passing by. I noticed
a number of drivers smiling, laughing, and pointing at the camp in apparent
contempt. It occurred to me that these monkeys were so disconnected from
reality it was almost unbelievable. To take pleasure in another person's
misfortune is always an indication of mental illness, and these folks
didn't seem to realize how close they themselves might be to homelessness.
They could lose hold of an addiction, get laid off, miss a couple of paychecks,
maybe get the boot from a domestic partner. And without a loved one to
help them in their time of need...what would happen? They would be in
the exact same mess as the people they were mocking.
-
- Chuck returned with the water as promised, but most of
it disappeared into the Hawaiians before I got my hands on it. Uncle
Dave received the lion's share, since he was sporting a bloody nose as
the result of his impolitic comments at the Salvation Army. I again wondered
how I was going to stay hydrated for two weeks in the desert environment
and resolved to earn some money through day labor to keep water in ready
supply.
-
- Around 2 PM, Chuck told me it was time for another meal.
It dawned on me that staying fed and hydrated while homeless in Vegas
was itself going to be a full-time job. The meals served at the shelters
were offered during normal working hours -- in other words, anyone who
works is going to have to go without eating until he or she gets paid.
To make matters worse, without a car or even money for bus fare, the only
mode of transport is walking. And I was quickly learning that this entails
a very serious physical price in the desert heat.
-
- After another long wait in a long line under the hot
burning sun, I ate another crappy meal of starch and cheese and gritty
tap water. Afterwards, Chuck took me to a day labor office and I signed
up with them. I also signed a paper stating my availability for landscaping
work. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is eager to work outdoors for eight
straight hours in 105 degree heat, but hard, physical, outdoor drudgery
is the kind of work one gets through day labor outfits. I wondered what
it would be like to be 65 years old and homeless in Vegas -- the outrageous
heat, the lack of shelter, the necessity of earning money through physical
exertion. Since I was beginning to feel 65, it didn't take much wondering
at all.
-
- We made our way back to camp at around 4:30, and incredibly,
Chuck told me it was almost time for yet another meal -- my third in less
than 6 hours. According to Chuck, most of the shelters only served one
meal a day, so the only way to get three squares was to visit each of
them. I wasn't looking forward to any more time under the sun, but I knew
I needed to eat and drink. Chuck then offered me the alternative of going
to a makeshift "picnic" under a bridge. He said that a local
church offered this service once a week and provided such meals as Chinese
food, pizza, and various "take-out." I seriously doubted my
tolerance for any more of the shelters' cheese pasta or mystery meat,
so I happily agreed.
-
- Shortly into our walk, we came across a towering homeless
man who was having a very animated conversation with himself. I thought
he looked a bit like Christopher Lloyd in his Back to the Future role.
Ordinarily, I steer a bit clear of the overtly insane, but I noticed
that his T-shirt was emblazoned with an interesting phrase. It read, "This
Is Not the Life I Ordered!" The sentiment seemed more jovial than
embittered, and I could see in the man's eye a glint of genuine humor
underneath (or perhaps within) the craziness. I walked directly toward
him, gave him a thumbs up, and said, "I like your shirt, man."
He returned my smile and simply said, "Yeah."
-
- At that moment, the T-shirt's maxim seemed like the most
profound teaching I had ever encountered. Think about it. It's not as
if anyone has ever set out to intentionally suffer. And we don't ruin
our own lives out of "sinfulness" or "evil" or
- "badness." We are each of us doing the absolute
best that we can in a culture and a world that lives in direct opposition
to the truth. Some of us have had our bodies and brains and souls damaged
by circumstances completely beyond our control. And others are continually
harmed by the inevitable consequences of their own bad choices, but even
these individuals are doing their best and are thus deserving of compassion.
-
- Who among us feels that his life is the one that he "ordered?"
Nothing turns out the way that we plan. When you're young you have a
million strategies for a perfect little life, but as you get older, your
choices become evermore narrow. Your identity in the world is firmly entrenched,
your personality is set, and indeed, your very consciousness is growing
dimmer and dimmer. It's a myth that people improve with age -- most become
caricatures until they finally submit to their own worst inclinations
-- the addictions, the prejudices, the neuroses, the obsessions.
-
- I walked with Chuck and expressed some of these thoughts
to him. He commiserated, but insisted that he was not yet ready to throw
in the towel. "This is not the end of me, Mike. I'm gonna get back
on my feet, and when I do, I sure as hell won't take things for granted
like I did before." I then reminded Chuck of what he said he would
do if he won a million dollars. He just laughed and took a pull from his
cigarette.
-
- When we finally arrived at the "picnic" after
nearly an hour of wandering ("under a bridge somewhere" is not
the most helpful direction in a big city), my throat was parched and my
head was pounding. I was able to drink a couple of bottles of water, but
I was dismayed to see a line of roughly a hundred people awaiting the
promise of a meal. Chuck believed that the front of the line was located
where a sermon was being performed. Unfortunately, this turned out to
be false -- it was in fact the END of the line. We endured the boring
and soul-numbing sermon for nothing, and when it finally came our turn
to be served, the best of the pickings were long gone. I felt physically
ill when I saw our remaining food choices -- cheese pasta, cheese sandwiches,
Pepsi, and Chee-tos. I forced down the soft drink, begged another bottle
of water, and said a prayer that I wouldn't wretch my stomach's rancid
contents.
-
- We got back to the camp at around 7:45 or 8 PM, and the
sun was mercifully all but a memory. I lied down and tried to ignore the
throbbing in my head and turning of my stomach. The ever-helpful Chuck
offered me more Night Train and cigarettes and even some pot, all of which
I politely declined. I dozed off thinking of nothing but that T-shirt
and its world-weary axiom.
-
- At around midnight, I woke up and instantly knew that
I was going to vomit. With knees buckling, I very slowly stood and began
shuffling up the street away from the camp. My headache had grown from
a dull throb to a full-blown migraine, an electric spike shoving through
the base of my skull. I doubled over and coughed and hacked a dry heave
for maybe thirty seconds. Every wretch made my headache more agonizing,
so I was enormously relieved when an ungodly eruption of pasta and goulash
spewed from my mouth onto the Vegas sidewalk.
-
- It occurred to me that there was a very real chance I
might be dying -- sunstroke, dehydration, or food poisoning seemed the
likeliest culprits. With all of the bemusement I could muster, I sort
of chuckled at my own meekness -- it had taken less than 36 hours for
Sin City to almost kill me. Even those who had advised against my experiment
conceded that I might last at least a few days. Interestingly, my body
had not been damaged by an attack from a homeless person, as many people
had warned. Indeed, I had felt no anxiety whatsoever in their presence.
It was the natural elements of the city itself -- and the ultra harsh
circumstances intentionally inflicted by city officials, led by Mayor
Oscar Goodman -- that did me in.
-
- I took my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
I wasn't sure if this action was going to mark the end of my experiment,
but I felt that I needed some immediate medical attention.
-
- An ambulance came and took me to The Valley hospital.
After about 30 minutes, I vomited again, to which the attending nurse
commented, "Hmm...That looks like the stew they serve downtown."
For some reason, I didn't want the guy to know that I was living as a
homeless person, so I told him I had eaten dinner at the buffet line at
Circus Circus (a very plausible lie).
-
- Unsurprisingly, the physician who attended me insisted
that I needed some expensive tests, beginning with a Cat Scan. I agreed
to this simply because I thought it might give me an opportunity to catch
a few minutes of sleep. The physician then stated that he thought I might
be having an aneurysm, and he needed to perform a procedure called a lumbar
puncture (or a spinal tap). I don't know much medical jargon, but any
procedure with the word "lumbar" in it sounds way too f*cking
expensive. I told him I felt certain that I was dehydrated and not having
an aneurysm, and he responded that I knew no such thing. I then asked
if I had the legal right to leave the hospital, to which he replied, "Yes,
but you have to sign a waiver stating that you are leaving against medical
advice." I signed the waiver and walked out of the hospital at around
4 AM.
-
- I've done some catastrophically stupid things in my life,
but leaving the hospital in the sad shape I was in is at the top of the
list. And the fact that I had no idea where I was and didn't know how
to get back to the camp made matters worse. For the first time in my life,
my body was so depleted that I felt unable to simply put one foot in front
of the other. It was like trying to walk underwater. My throat burned
from vomit and my head felt like a canoe. Shit.
-
- I took out my cell and called my parents. They agreed
to Western Union me some cash, but they'd be unable to do so until 10
AM. I realized what this meant -- I would have to shamble up and down
the Vegas streets in a state near death for the next 6 hours.
-
- And that's what I did. I tried asking for directions
back to the camp, but I was too exhausted to walk for more than a couple
of minutes at a time. I found a bus stop that offered a little bit of
shade, but as soon as the sun came up, its glare beat directly down on
my head. I found it nearly impossible to stay awake, but every now and
then, I would see a police car drive by and I would snap my head to full
attention. I remembered the hooker's comment that the cops would arrest
anyone who loitered at a bus stop. I had no money in my pockets, so according
to Vegas law, my very presence on the streets was a crime. I began to
feel real terror that I might get arrested, a scenario only slightly more
appealing to me than physical death.
-
- Until perhaps 8 AM, I would sit at the bus stop until
the bus arrived, stand and lurch a few steps away, then return after the
bus had left. I felt desperately in need of water, so I staggered over
to the nearest casino/hotel, hoping against hope that my uneven gate would
not lead to an arrest for public drunkenness.
-
- Inside the casino, I asked one of the porters if they
had a Western Union, and much to my relief, he said yes. But unfortunately,
a casino is only a hospitable environment to those who are spending money.
I had none and couldn't just sit and stare at a slot machine to kill time.
So I walked into a bathroom with the intention of hiding in a stall for
a couple of hours.
-
- After drinking countless handfuls of water from the tap,
I sat miserably on the toilet and drifted in and out of consciousness.
The bathroom was equipped with a PA system which blasted an inane assortment
of bad 80's tunes by bands like Huey Lewis and the News and Air Supply.
When you're squatting and slowly dying on a toilet in a Vegas casino,
a song like "Hip to be Square" seems sadly appropriate. I wished
for cyanide capsules almost as badly as I wished for a 60 ounce Big Gulp.
-
- After maybe an hour, I was jarred from my stupor by a
loud pounding on the stall door followed by a deep voice that bellowed,
"Security!" I guess that someone found it a little suspicious
that the same pair of shoes could be seen in the stall for an hour without
so much as a flush (this makes sense -- the function of a bathroom is,
you do your business and you leave). I opened the door, and this big burly
behemoth with real alarm on his face asked me, "What's the problem,
sir?" I felt certain that I was about to be arrested, so I used the
truth as my only defense.
-
- "I'm waiting for a Western Union, man, and I can't
wait in the lobby. You have to spend money to be out there, and I don't
have any."
-
- He responded that I couldn't just sit on the toilet.
Apparently, it frightens people too much.
-
- Much to my surprise, I was allowed to walk from the bathroom
a free man. The Western Union was not going to open until 10, so my challenge
was to exist in the casino for almost an hour without getting the boot
for not spending money. I sat in front of a slot machine and punched at
buttons while trying to stare attentively at the screen. I counted the
minutes in my head and tried not to look as wasted as I felt. I hoped
that when the Western Union opened I would be coherent enough to communicate
intelligibly with the agent. The minutes passed and I kept stabbing stupidly
at the slot machine buttons.
-
- With legs filled with cement and acid, I staggered to
the gated booth that I hoped might hold my salvation. The woman behind
the counter looked at me and shook her head. "We don't open until
10." I looked at the clock on the wall behind her and it said 10:07.
In a moment of blind and irrational panic, I wondered if she meant 10
PM rather than 10 AM. I watched her walk back and forth shuffling papers
and stapling things and looking busy for the next few minutes. Finally,
with the mercy of Mother Mary herself, this stupid yet wonderful lady
asked me for my business, and I could have wept with joy.
-
- I got enough money for a motel room, where I would wait
until my sister (who -- thank the love of Christ -- lives in a small town
a few hours away) could come and pick me up. It is with no shame I admit
that without the loving assistance of my family, I might well have died
on the streets of Sin City. For the record, I am 31 years old and in excellent
physical shape -- I don't smoke or drink, I eat a healthy diet, and I've
been a devoted marathon runner for the last 17 years. I knew that Vegas
was a tough place to be homeless, but my God -- less than 36 hours, and
I was at death's door and crying to my mammy and pappy for help.
-
- Going into the experiment, I had been communicating with
a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun newspaper named Tim Pratt. When he learned
of my experiment's premature and pathetic end, Pratt insisted that it
might still make for a good story. After all, the reason I almost died
is because I had no money, minimal resources, and was trapped in a viciously
hot climate. In other words, I was in EXACTLY the same boat as the approximately
12,000 homeless human beings who live in Las Vegas year round. 36 hours,
and I was almost dead. Imagine trying 36 days, or 36 weeks, or 36 months,
as many have.
-
- As an interesting footnote, Pratt informed me that roughly
40 percent of all homeless in Vegas have no valid ID whatsoever. This
prevents them from getting work and even receiving many essential services.
I experienced the horror of this first hand -- I lost my birth certificate
in Vegas, and while trying to get some temporary work while staying with
my sister in Arizona, I found that no one would hire me, since I had only
one form of ID. I don't casually use the term "police state"
to describe America, but the first rule of any police state is, don't
go anywhere without your papers.
-
- Synchronistically, as I write this, I am a couple of
days from returning to Vegas under much happier circumstances, to attend
a scientific conference. It is with little fondness that I remember my
hellish two days on the city's unforgiving streets. But I would give anything
to again encounter that lanky crazy fellow with the funny, sad, and oh-so-true
axiom on his T-shirt.
-
- "This is not the life I ordered."
-
- It's not the one I ordered either. But I have to believe
that my order still matters. Self-discovery number whatever on my homeless
journey: our choices ALWAYS matter. No matter how bleak or hopeless
or unforgiving our circumstances, there must be meaning in choosing wisely
rather than poorly. Alternatively, life is truly without purpose and God
a sadistic madman. Our choices have to matter. Always. In the gutter,
on a battlefield, right up to the moment of death.
-
- If nothing else, I want my order to be a true one. I
no longer ask for a "better life" -- no force in the universe
exists that can provide it for us. Rather, I want the ability to choose
correctly, now and forever. Sanity. Rationality. Integrity. Love. These
are the gifts I want for myself, because they ARE the road to a better
life. In this moment, this is the life I order.
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