How to be homeless *updated*

One might think this would be easy.  But I know that being homeless takes a certain something and I generally practice my skills in major cities, not often, but when the situation permits.  The first time I tried this, I was in New York.  I was freezing cold so I wore my usual eight layers with all the hoods over my head, plus James’ overcoat.  He said I looked like I was homeless.  I stooped over, turned in one foot, let my bag slump to the ground and started shuffling about, muttering to myself.

 It rained rather hard in Rome and I forgot my umbrella so I’m sure that it would have been a good idea to go home straight away after school.  But I didn’t.  I walked up the Corso with my hair all bedraggled and my cuffs all wet.  I cursed at the men on the street who tried to sell me an umbrella for 5 Euro.  I really was shuffling at this point because my feet were wet inside my clogs and my back was sore from leaning forward and holding the weight of my bag.  It seemed the perfect opportunity.

I’m used to seeing a fair amount of homeless in both Santa Barbara, where the climate is inviting, and Los Angeles, where people often end up down on their luck.  But one usually has to travel to Europe to see people prostrating themselves on the street in front of a church, their foreheads to the ground and holding a cup in their outstretched hand.  There are lots of homeless with dogs.  But I attribute this to the shear number of dogs that roam the city and assume that the homeless men and women adopt them as companions, providing for them as best they can. 

The first few people that I saw in Rome on a regular basis were of non-traditional social standing.  There was the crippled beggar who wore a purple coat (not unlike my own) who followed me, stumbling along the cobble-stones saying, “Bella, Bella.”  I saw him three times that day.  At our last encounter, he called me “Super Bella” and that compliment was not lost on me.

But by far, my favorite recognizable character in Rome is the Lady Gaga Bag Lady.  I’m not even kidding when I say that she looks exactly what I predict Lady Gaga will look like in ten years...and I do mean ten.  The LGBL wears a colorful assortment of layers, a cap over her white-blond dreadlocks (naturally occurring on both counts), large pink glasses, and (wait for it) make up in wildly fantastic patterns across her face.  Imagine horizontal black and white stripes down the length of her nose, bright shadows on her lids and rouged cheeks not unlike Anna Piaggi on a face near enough to Anna Piaggi’s own age.  In fact, I might not have thought she was homeless except for the many bags filled with trash that she drags with her at all times.   Since I’ve seen her about five times, I think it’s safe to say she is a bag lady and if you saw her you’d think that’s where Lady Gaga is headed, too.

The dirty aspect of cities really appeals to me and I’m sure that makes no sense to most people.  I walk a lot every day and it is surprising what one sees.  I’ve seen more people shooting up in parks during daylight hours from LA to Rome than I have been worried for my safety at night.  At night, I tend to see more people walking their dogs, almost all of those dogs are Beagles.

I ‘dined’ at an Autogrill, being surprised to find on in a city.  I’ve only ever seen them on the highways in Italy as a cafeteria-style restaurant at a rest stop or gas station.  They have a buffet of uninspired dishes in large quantity and of questionable quality.  It seemed the perfect place for a homeless person to eat.  I had four plates of food and two desserts.  When I left the Autogrill, I wrapped my scarf around my ears, tried to look simultaneously forlorn and suspicious, and snarled at the man who tried to sell me an umbrella for 4 Euro.  In order to prevent people from trying to sell me an umbrella, I decided that there was probably an artful way to acquire one for just an evening.  Stealing one from an umbrella stand in a doorway would be uncouth.  Pinching one that sheltered a paper menu propped outside a restaurant would be just as tacky.  Besides, a broken one would be more ‘authentic.’  I stumbled upon a red tartan model which had lost its ability to property close.  But since I only needed it in its open capacity, I snagged it.  As I walked back in the rain to my cozy apartment and its tiny shower, I thought about all the people who were homeless by necessity or by choice but not by experiment as I had so flippantly been practicing.  When I was thirteen and in Manhattan for the first time, I remember seeing a mother and two children huddled together in the doorway of an abandoned theater.  It was late and I was just getting out of a show, formally attired and giddy from the lights and the music of ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’  I remember thinking that I probably had no grasp of reality because, at age thirteen, I had paid $80 for a ticket to see a play.  In Paris this past weekend, I saw an old man at a bus stop crying as he pissed himself.   I had that same feeling again. 

I left the umbrella near the train station where someone else could get some use out of it.  About a block from my apartment, I slowed because a cat poking around a dumpster looking for some dinner.  He skitted away as I approached and just as I was passing by, a second cat flew out of the dumpster, grazing my head in his panic.  I shrieked a string of involuntary vulgarities and the cat ran away down the street.  I stood there for a moment, next to a dumpster, my jeans were wet up to my knees, my fingers wrinkled in my soggy gloves.  I was one step close to reality.