Homeless Survey - Day One - Before and After (unedited)

I take an icy hot shower at 4:13 p.m. - dull cold to heat and about thirty minutes long.

It’s  shame to admit wasting that much water - a Californian, of all people!

I do, however, need my relief - the fourteen hour long day was finally over. It began after I skimped through two hours of sleep on Broadway and Divisadero, and walked into the casino early - too early. It was 2:49 am, so the drunkards were good and gone. A seemingly-sober, weary-eyed weirdo shooting inside and not gambling was different - I could feel the tension in the room.

Before I could seat myself, the security guard on duty shouted “Hold there, govna’,” and carded me. I showed him my ID, my club card, and I asked if there was a problem.

“You look like somebody I missed,” he said - and it reminded me of a firefighter that once said I looked like any other hobo.  Still, it was short and sweet, so I placed my order at the bar - soup - and shuffled on to the balcony, towards the corner that held the dishes. Even from across, I could hear a man enthralled by a proposed personal moment of truth. 

He was playing Hold’em, and spiked a King with an Ace kicker.

He said, though, that he knew that his opponent nailed his two pair, which came at the turn. Still, he played it anyway.

“I had to see it,” he said.

And that he did - incessantly betting till they capped the river and the pocket pair was exposed.

“I lost,” he said, “but I was right.”

It was worth a smile, and it was nice to think about poker for a minute. I wouldn‘t play -  I came for a meal, and had no stomach to walk to Denny’s, the drive-in to live-action plays and tales of human travesty.  I remember meeting an elderly woman at a Denny’s one night - the one on Divisadero and Abby. From what I gathered, she was on the Amtrak heading north from Los Angeles and got off the train a few stops too early. Nobody was answering her calls, and she had to settle for room arrangements somewhere up the street. She never made it to her room.

The cab she called never came, and she would run out of pocket change - no pay phone for her. I asked if she would like to use my phone more than once, but she refused. I even offered her a cab ride to her room, which she also refused. Finally, she fell asleep at a table in a neighboring McDonalds, and that was the last I saw of her. 

The feature presentation changes with each location, as you would imagine.

North east from downtown, there is the Denny’s along the highway. Many are drug-spent - if they are women, they are likely to be a part of the sex trade. This is no different for men, but not as likely. All the same - together, that sort of employment and lifestyle make for irreparable abuse of the body. I can always tell.

Many of them look twice their age; just as many look younger than me. I see them as often as commuters see the Fresno Area Express, and even if you accept that it is there, seeing it will always leaves the strongest impressions.

That world, was, however , quite far from the casino - or at least, as far away as the balcony stretched onto the concrete bordering Van Ness Ave. 

It made for a fine bit of contrast - to see people gambling hundreds and thousands on one side of the gate and people scraping up pennies, bumming cigarettes on the other. It’s like a Wall Street pipedream

So I ate and made an impromptu iced coffee, scribbled a small bit and began my walk to the shelter.

The surveying would start at the crack of sunrise, somewhere just before six, and we were off.  The P4 staff and volunteers took “The Hill”, which is further down G Street towards the overpass, while the volunteers hit the neighboring missions. I did not get to see The Hill - I had to go to work.

But I met a man who stuck claim to a trial with loaded jury, and claimed that the public defender was the public’s worst enemy. He was a welder before he made it to the shelters.

Then there was the man who was always running - nobody could know a thing about what happened at home, some fugitive of love kind of thing.

Together, our group of three surveyors accounted for five - not so bad, not so great for two hours.

Now there is eight hours of paid work to be done, and I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow. I’ve gone longer without sleep, but it was never a twelve hour day of work on two hours of sleep.

For whatever it‘s worth - we'll see what tomorrow brings.