 Without question, it is in moments
like these that I feel most insecure about my
decision to go and live on the streets. I experience real
conflict within myself. While I really want to
're-connect' to what the homeless experience on
a given night in a particular city, I also don't look
forward to getting sick or possibly taken advantage of by
being out in the cold all night. I realized that if I had
arrived at either shelter earlier, I might have had a
bed. The reason I arrived so late was because I didn't
get a chance to speak to the high school kids (the first
purpose of my Tulsa visit) until almost 11:00 p.m. The
Pastor wanted to wait until the football games were over
and kids had a chance to come to the special meeting that
night.
A few
minutes passed as I laid in the hard dirt praying,
"What next Lord?"
Suddenly, the desk-man opened
the door and invited me inside. On my way in he asked me
if I had any identification and then told me he would
provide me with a mat and a blanket. He explained that I
would be allowed to sleep in the lobby next to another
man who was also in the "overflow.” Within a
few minutes, I picked up my mat and carried it to a
stretch of the lobby between two sets of chairs. The room
was cold but the blanket helped a lot. I slept with my
shoes on.
 Before I closed my eyes, I gazed
at the clock on the wall . It was past midnight. I felt
restless but energized. The noises in the lobby made it
difficult to fall asleep. The night seemed very long and
the many noises made it difficult for me to get much
sleep. I kept hearing people talking and doors opening.
Around 5:00 a.m., I woke to find a large number of people
in the lobby. I think they were all going to work. I
never did actually fall back asleep but wavered into
periods of unconsciousness.
It's
times like these that I regret my decision to give a
speech the day after I stay in a homeless shelter. For
some reason, I seem to forget that I don't usually sleep
well during these experiences. This time, I had to give a
talk to youth the very next day before I spent the
afternoon helping them with a work project somewhere
downtown.
At
6:30 a.m. I decided to get up and turn in my mat and
blanket. It finally hit me that I am used to sleeping
with a pillow on something much softer and this may
account for another reason why I didn't sleep well. After
using the bathroom (which looked really disgusting), I
went back into the lobby to wait for breakfast. As I
returned, I observed both a discussion and a debate about
the nature of breakfast. It seemed obvious to everyone
that the cooks got a late start and breakfast would not
be at the usual time of 7:30 a.m. There were a lot of
staff workers present and they entered into the
discussion of breakfast as well.
As I
sat in the lobby, a woman came in to get her things from
the locked room. Her son (probably between 3-4 years old)
looked at me and kept saying over and over again,
"I'm gonna bust your face." I felt like saying,
"And good morning to you too!" but realized
that this might have provoked someone. I felt sad
thinking of the mental and emotional diet this child had
been receiving.
Food
is the centerpiece of the day for most of the folks who
live on the streets. It is immediate gratification to
numb the pain of reality. In fact, most of the folks I
have hung out with make food the matter around which they
revolved their whole schedule. On the streets, food is a
small form of power and sometimes, the keepers of the
food wield power towards the homeless with food being the
weapon.
Several
of the homeless men came into the lobby before breakfast
and asked for their personal belongings. Most received
their plastic bags; a few had backpacks. Mike, the guy
who slept in the lobby next to me was very talkative. He
asked about breakfast, talked about problems in the local
jails and had quite a variety of opinions about many
items for such an early hour of the day.
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