“Joe Smo,” he told me when I asked his name was yelling that I was a retard! “Your too stupid, to understand,” he said. “You should get a job, makeup with your husband and be a comedian”—your pretty funny, he said shaking his head after adding sarcastically, if I could afford a cell phone then I shouldn’t have a problem getting an apartment—make something of myself!
He went on and on, after being so violent I thought he was going to beat me up after he had already threatened to punch me and throw my stuff off the abandoned porch, “he was the landlord!” he bellowed, as if this implied he could do that, obviously having decided how Homeless people are and on a mission to humiliate, condemn them, and use violence if they questioned his directives. He was adamant it was all my fault and the answer was just taking responsibility for myself. Look at him, he said, he’s a success! he said.
“I know all about her,” he told the cop, she just wanders around refusing help. She’s a liar, doesn’t tell the truth. How can she afford a cellphone?—that’s the problem, he railed.
People fall on hard times, he went on, you need to make something of yourself—this is America!
I had originally thanked him for the lecture that he was now telling the cop, his voice rising exponentially. It’s no lecture he had said—all facts! You don’t want facts he said, you want a hand out! I’m doing well, see? as he points to his large white SUV. See how nice this is! Then gets out of it and heads to the back of the abandoned house where all the bags of garbage are strewed all over the yard and says he is going to call the cops!
He comes back as I continue to pack up my things and continues to tell me how “people like you,” give the city a “bad look!” He just bought these properties and it’s too expensive to demolish them, but when he does, he is going to build “something really great!”
She’s drinking, there are bottles everywhere and she has blankets setup and refuses the help she’s been offered, he continues to tell the cop after they arrive. He appears to be getting more and more aggressive with the cop, but by this time, I try not to listen, thinking about my “Criminal History,” once again. It’s so bad now, I’m too old to undo all the damage. It took my whole life to overcome my horrible childhood and with the success I had, I did; but what has been done recently now is far too damaging to overcome. People believe your a criminal whenever you have the least involvement with law enforcement. In order to get Professional jobs my papers all had to be perfect and still it was extremely difficult because wealthy middle-class people are connected.
When you’re just surviving, you don’t have time to chat up the neighbors or get involved with the local committees raising money to decorate the City Hall for Christmas; and they don’t want you there anywhere! Today, I understand something about power I never did as a girl growing up poor, I should have gotten that Law degree in-spite of the obstacles against me, but believed in the law, and especially when they told me I couldn’t be in the Honor Society because of a technicality, but like so much else—they lied. I had always been good enough! Many do it deliberately to keep you excluded, no matter how many accomplishments; men in particular that need a steady supply of “Welfare whores,”—the grooming starting as soon as you enter school!
Officer tells me “he doesn’t know my situation,” but the guy wants to arrest me and it’s better I move along! Have I gone to DSS? The Homeless Shelter? They can put me up in a Hotel, he continues and then adds he’ll keep me in mind if anything comes up. I thank him for not arresting me, which by this time is surprising after over 20 arrests that all go in a similar way. He helps me with the Target cart that officers had just the other day rolled up with a few of my things dumped in it and remarked sarcastically that I could now go shopping. I had told them I just bought some new clothes for Winter from Target and they had left them in the Abandoned House amongst so much else. “Like your new apartment,” a familiar one sarcastically says. God? I’m “familiar,” with cops?— my life is really over now, I think.
“Where is my radio?” I say. I had just bought a new radio because the noise was so bad and I wasn’t sleeping. Noise harassment was part of every place I had rented and been thrown out of—the Abandoned House being no different, along with heat! I’m ignored as “424,” ignores me again. He used to tell me his name was 424. I Googled it one time and it meant “Civil matter,” and then other places “Abuse,” encounter. I knew he thought he was being funny way back then.
A gentleman brought me nice rice/chicken dinner—delicious, said he didn’t like too see people this way. I had just set up my “new place,” on the sidewalk—it’s “Public space.”
It was warm and good! I missed cooking, after so many years of used Pots and Pans and low-end stoves, I was planning on a high-end one. I had no idea that Stoves were different. As a girl I eschewed dreaming of those things. “Get an Education, my grandmother constantly told me—save your money, she said. She only went to 7th grade, but was so smart! Had started her own business, been a manager and had accomplished so much. I loved her dearly in awe of her. My mother, total opposite. Today I know a spoiled rich-girl that pretended to be a “poor welfare woman,” not caring about anything, she played the stereotypes with the likes of Judges here. And who walks in? This has been happening to me a lot lately—synchronicities!
Judge Sise just walks in, of course greeted by admirers, I think of sleeping in front of his office to #PeacefullyProtest, but his violence lately like my mothers in trying to run me over has been so over the top, I figure I’ll write about it instead in the same way protesting in front of Lawyer Jeff Francisco’s vacant office was so violent—we went to high-school together, he was in the group destined for greatness, all becoming Lawyers!
I thought the people menacing me with their cars in front of his vacant office, were going to kill me. I hear people chatting Judge Sise up in that way that you do when you want to be nice to someone you have to be and not really want to be, but he is an ex Supreme Court Judge. He has labeled me a “Welfare whore,” so I figure that being I was denied defending myself I can lob the serve back and call him a Trafficker! You know how Welfare whores can never be lawyers!
Lovely Black lady comes by as the rain continues, I could feel myself getting soaked, feeling hopeless once again. She brought me McDonalds and asks if I had enough blankets? Yes, I say, God bless you, feeling the warmth of the coffee, I cheer up a bit and once again try and be hopeful this crazy stuff will stop. I eat the McDonalds even though my stomach starts turning in knots as the stress of once again not knowing where to sleep begins again. I can feel the acid start up my throat as mr “Landlord,” comes at me again, this time now in a Black SUV, did I say he told me he is really successful? He owns this property too!
“Your too close to my other property,” he says! My God, I think! I had just walked up the street, it’s pouring, to sit awhile and collect my thoughts, trying to eat what the nice lady brought me before who knows what. I’ve learned to eat when I can even if not really hungry because I never know when I’ll eat again. It’s wrecked havoc on my eating disorder, but I’m alive—I can’t be so choosy now. I overcame it in college; being Vegetarian, working out, practicing mindful eating, but that’s all gone. I even wanted to see if women in Menopause could not have to just accept a shape that falls apart, like men getting big bellies and skinny legs—I had a theory about Cross-training and weights way back 20yrs ago, when I first started working out, but they all made fun of me at the Gym too—“girls didn’t lift weights!” your a man!
If I go someplace hidden, I risk being assaulted again or worse. Being in the open is safer, but then people are bothered. If they were so bothered, seems to me courts would not do this. It’s not to say some aren’t genuine, but it’s only when things are out in the open for most of them.
If I’m hidden, there’s no problem, like Trap or Crackhouses! Wouldn’t it be a priority in a Divorce? Both parties housing? How about “illegal evictions,” for things like being denied heat? How about EconomicAbuse not being a “women’s issue,” but plain old theft! if of course we really are concerned and not just because most would rather I was hidden to get away with it!
So if I go somewhere and hide to make people more comfortable, I put myself in further danger, which all this should have been a consideration when assets were deliberated or not, as was the case with me! So the anxiety is exhausting. Either with cops threats of arrest, or more violence trying to hide somewhere—no one is aware of this faux sympathy?
Police officers, Judges and Lawyers understood fully you can’t live on the street—there are laws, but they did it anyway!
Hot looking black guy $5
“Joe,” socks and snacks
Guy with his daughter $10 “make sure you only spend it on food!”
I feel a crying jag coming on—being a “Drunk,” is finally sticking, I think and try to hold it back. My mother relishes that one as the crying starts anyway.
Lady and cool girl with artsy look—pretty green hair gifts me a wonderful warm jacket I love! I stayed warm all night! after feeling hopeless, I’m perceived as a “drunk, drug-addict, whose Mentally ill, but why are they so hated? I used to love the eccentric peeps in the bad part of time we moved to. They were often more interesting. I think wealthy middle-class people can be far more violent now!
Cute Hispanic or Italian guy $5 ones
Guy with beard $10
Others riding by asking if I needed food?
Dixie “there are nice people” she said, she’s Christian. She gifts me a beautiful blanket, lovely pillow and Chinese food! “I hope you like it,” she says. I love Chinese food, I say.
She asked how how I got here. I had a career, I say—Graphic Designer. “So your not really homeless,” she says after I say I’m trying to raise awareness. No, I am, but trying to turn it into something positive and hang onto the shreds of my career before it was destroyed. I continue to tell her about my middle-class achievements, to assure her I’m really homeless, she seems a little suspicious, but in the same regard I want to assure her the homeless aren’t all losers, but as I’m doing this I sense how confused we are both becoming. I feel all of a sudden like some slick used-car salesman. Are any Homeless people losers? No, I think struggling with conveying this to the beautiful Dixie, that has to go her sister is waiting.
Earlier a sweet little boy runs back from his friends on the way home from School and asks if I’m ok. I am I say, God Bless you I say. Do you need anything? He can’t be more than 9 or 10, my heart breaks. No, I say. He reached in his little backpack and takes out a small bag of Cheetos, one of my favorite nervous munchies, and says here, take these, in the most adorable way. My heart melts! The kids are alright. So many gangs I see recently, but here was this sweet little boy, being a caring little gentleman. I start to cry as he runs off to catch up with his friends, maybe God can call me home, I’m at peace now.
Another guy nice-looking about 11pm Hispanic $5
Cops came again asked if I needed anything, if I was warm enough, everything ok? I go back to sleep, think I’m dreaming.
Then Joe? Cute guy from porch way back in the beginning of April gave me weed and $20, said he would give me $20 to keep my other suitcase that I knew was getting harder to carry. Crackwhores ended up stealing it all, but at the time he was sweet to help me and try to save my things in it from Maine. I should just say Substance abusers doing sex work to survive and use! I think the $20 is probably for the “$20 blow jobs!”
Cops at 6:30pm, “it’s 6:30 Rhonda! too cold to be out here!” you think? I thought. Don’t you remember me? the officer says. Are you kidding? the Mental illness game again, I think! I was the “Arresting officer,” he continues. Which time I thought? thinking he wants some kind of personal involvement? seriously? I think. My Twitter feed now has “ACAB” at various times I could not help being so angry that no one wanted to talk to me like a person!
Remembering we had already had this discussion about his control of his “ThinBlueLine” persona or individual cop attitude that is now the “good-cop and bad-cop” setup they play, but he is undeterred. I asked if he was from around here, but he already told me he was.
A beautiful lady just walks up to me and generously gives me $20, I decline, she presses it in my hand tells me she hopes I find something. I’m overcome, but as I continue to write, I wonder if she is part of the $20 club that was only giving me twenties to make it look like I was a Crackwhore. I laugh away the tears falling again. I know how easy I was to deceive all the years of my marriage, I am more shrewd now, but she could be a madam of a local Trap-House.
Is that your cart she says? yes, I say. I don’t think she is running a Crack house, but I know God is calling me to be soft as a dove or pigeon in my case and as shrewd as a women hell bent on surviving and getting her life back together. Justice for me and if not then remembering all that don’t make it out—“Say Her Name!”
I would have liked to enjoy the sunset, but good cop started to ask me if I remembered things, if I was confused—if I needed to go to St Mary’s—Judge Lormans favorite approach to stealing your house pretending living on the street is an alternative housing arrangement—knowing the law!
Another guy offered $10 this morning, as he drove by, No Thanks I’m good with food, thinking he might be with the cops that joke about only giving me $10 for a blowjob rather than the street rate, which I was told was $20, but I’m an “old whore” an my rate has dropped considerably! Competition pretty fierce here, we have too many cheap men with good jobs and lovely whores or sex workers, but I’m being forced so no amount is good. I’m Spiritual, on shaky ground with God as it is.
After having Kundalini things with my Sexuality have changed anyway. It’s been 10yrs since I had sex, I might be contemplating the Aesthetic life at this point—after you have bliss, you can’t go back. Whole-body ecstasy not done on the fly, regardless of what they promise you!
How long must you wait for this?—Coldplay!
Leaving me here all alone, how long must you wait; I hear playing in the background, tears coming to my eyes as I remember all the years I played Coldplay thinking things would get better in my marriage. Coldplay such a game-changer, so cool.
Haven’t seen you in awhile, he says. Cute guy I met last Summer giving me the $20, but the only one I might have considered. He had good weed, but he had an old soul that I found cool. We hung out, “I can do that,” he says. I laughed after having misspoken and said hookup originally. “We didn’t hookup,” he said, smiling in that way that melted my heart. I love men that have a sense of humor, my ex never did. Laughing, I’m old I said, I get it mixed-up, it’s cold out. I like to hangout, I said. “I know,” he says in that way again.
I can’t very well tell someone; Hi, I’m Rhonda, I live on the street. Yeah, I know, he says, like let’s lie on the street. Plus I say, there’s too much heat for most men, laughing. Cops have been here repeatedly. I’m gaining too much weight anyway!
“You need pleasure too,” he says. I blushed, giggling. Some men can still do that to me, I guess I don’t hate them all like I want to. He had that way.
Got any of that good weed? thinking my explaining that pleasure is different now, being high would make it easier to talk about it—not sound crazy, something I have to constantly avoid now as the predators are still viciously circling me trying to allege to cover everything all up!
Have to be so careful of that nowadays, but he had such a cute smile and laugh. Some guys can be so seductive in that mischievous way. Old-fashion, making you think your not just another friend with benefits. Guys talk of not wanting to be “just friends,” with girls, but girls can be that way too, but I’m not the friend with benefits type, although I can see the advantage, it’s just I would get too hurt wanting more, especially if someone was my friend and I liked them.
I thought my ex and I were friends, but he never thought of me that way. I loved hanging out with him before I knew all he said was a bunch of lies meant to deceive me. Guys say they can never be friends—you always want sex, but they need to rethink that. There is so much sex everywhere, we have reached a point of saturation. It’s like sugar
Pour some sugar on me!—Def Leppard, I wish I could listen to music and write, but the music here isn’t too bad.
If you have it all the time, you want more and more and it just gets less and less satisfying and possibly becomes more violent, extreme and dark as you use it for other things. Sexuality like other things is progressive or stunted as the case may be.
Give it up; then have something sweet and it’s delicious, but now you need so little. Things then taste too sweet, you start to taste the chemicals in it and want something more natural without preservatives; then you might want all natural, home-made or sugar becomes such a treat you have to only have it on occasion around holidays say; knowing also how it rots your teeth, causes weight gain, and other health problems.
I hadn’t showered in 2 weeks now and was starting to smell again eating the chemical stuff I was eating—I do better with Vegetarian not fast-food. How can I have any Sex? my clothes smell too and are dirty. He’s too young, they will really lock me up!
Thinking I just met a good cop! I’ve heard they exist in the wild, but had not met one here myself. It’s kinda like the successful Welfare Whore, does she exist? Does she exist without being a Prostitute? If she does, do we make assumptions about her?—slut-shame her endlessly!
We talked and I said at one point, “your not from around here, are you? I laughed when he said no! I hope he stays, I want to believe we can move forward and make changes, but it’s going to take work; some believe we can’t, but I’m always hopeful even if at times I feel so defeated and hopeless. I don’t think we can abolish law enforcement really, not in the time I have left, but I think we can do something, reform in some sense, but not the old ways of reforming—something else, something better.
“You have a criminal history,” he said they told him! I cringe thinking how demoralizing this has been, how I worked so hard to never have that. I knew growing up this was a road to hell—you never escaped from! What I didn’t know was that it could be done deliberately. I’m grateful to #BLM for helping me understand that some people have always known this. I feel sad growing up as I did that I didn’t, but I was phobic about “getting in trouble,” spending my whole life trying to be a good girl, good wife, do things right to never be in the system; only to find myself continually in the system now. It can destroy a person. The shame, humiliation, and abject failure of believing it’s really true.
6:30am! still sleeping Rhonda? the cop says. My God, I can’t get any sleep. You can’t stay here Rhonda! I get up after they leave afraid of being arrested again and needing to go to the bathroom really bad; it’s cold outside, but I so was warm and finally sleeping.
I start writing again worried about letting everyone know how generous they all have been in helping me believe again we can heal, move forward; and if not agree, then at least live in some kind of civility—the America I believe in. The violence has to go!
“We’re worried about her,” he tells the cop! oh God, one of them that is going to convince this good cop I’m crazy. Everyone is getting money in some way, but Artists never do—“just keep writing!” my muse says, they did the same to me. See what’s going on with Factory Farming now? He’s so cute, we need money for writers! I need more places to write in, with alcohol would be nice—weed even better! Careful, they already got you going with the drunk label. Writers often drink, I say, the great ones often a lot! What is it about drinking and writing? I’m running out of money anyway!
Maybe the guy was just concerned about me? yeah ok, no really. See, the Schizophrenia? he says. We can do this all day! Your funny, I say. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you! Ok, seriously where do we drink now? I say. No one drinks now, they are busy stalking and scheming people. Junkies and Crackheads love dissing alcohol, I say.
There are gangs openly in McDonalds now—imagine that? They have often attacked me! Oprah almost went to Jail for questioning meat back in the 1980s—dear God! My ex almost killed me for becoming Vegetarian. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! Even when someone never talks about someone, in their deliberate not talking, you know; it’s like they were there all along. Maybe my muse is my Twin-flame, I think! Ok, that will really make them say—crazy! I love that my muse is a writer, famous one too! He laughs, your Schizophrenic! Animals have feelings, I say!
We need more love, but not the wham-bam thank you kind, we have all had enough of that one, but the deeper, enduring kind. I’m hopeful even if I still don’t have a place of my own yet. We wander on down the road, next week Court again. It’s triggering, especially when I know this Judge has it in for me. There’s a progression, in the same way, the Professional career I pursued, having had all my papers in order, years of excruciating work and sacrifice, gone with a wave of her pen, but today I know there still is good.
No ticket for my homeless cart parked in the parking space today, I promise Target to return it and I’m grateful to write about how difficult this all is and how pushing a cart is so humbling, especially when you have to go to the bathroom. I think of Jesus, he must have lost his bowels hanging there for so long. God, I pray for the equanimity if it happens to me as some continue to taint my food and drink and I can’t find or use a restroom. I think of those really Mentally ill people or those with health concerns and know we can no longer continue to deny people the dignity of the right to be housed. I’m grateful to be called to try in my small life to contribute something and it’s in part to my community that once again is surprising me—this time in a good way. Thank you guys for being here!
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