My local gym is surrounded on all four sides by tent cities. At first I was nervous to walk there after work, but soon I got used to the tents and their residents.
When I’m passing through on my way to the gym, I feel like I’m traveling from Rome to the Vatican—a city within a city.
They have artisans skilled in various crafts: one tent citizen knows how to mend fabrics (for clothing and tent walls), another works as a mechanic fixing wheelchairs (for the many, many people missing limbs). Still more work in other professions: there are prostitutes wearing neon mini-skirts (even in wintertime), cooks who throw meals together in a pot for everyone, and security guards who patrol the streets to keep trouble out of their community. As for entertainment: they’ll often sit and chat around a fire, play cards, and one time I even saw them with a laptop and Xbox controllers playing Call of Duty.
Some of the tent citizens greet me and I say hello to them; others disregard my existence entirely. None of the tent citizens seem violently crazy (unlike the people currently screaming at the top of their lungs outside my apartment which, were I not writing this post, I wouldn’t have noticed as they’ve become part of the background noise of the city).
The other day, my friend passed a tent city in a different part of town—underneath a highway overpass—and saw that someone had spray painted community rules on a cement column:
It made me wonder: does the community around my gym have a unique culture? Do they have their own slang? Do they have their own laws? Without money, is their economy based on the barter system? Are there leaders that act like judges to settle conflicts?
One tent citizen is instantly recognizable: he’s very tall, very skinny, is always squinting his eyes, and slowly shuffles everywhere he goes while wearing blue house slippers.
I was writing at a coffee shop, one day, when he came shuffling in. I felt at ease because I knew he was just going to ask for some water, but the other patrons all had the same reaction: first tensing up in anticipation of something bad possibly happening, then nervously trying to pretend as if they’re not offended by his presence so they don’t appear intolerant.
After getting water, he shuffled over to my table and asked, “Pardon me, is anyone sitting here?” I smiled and motioned for him to sit down next to me. When he sat down, the smell of shit was overwhelming.
I considered moving to a different table, but I didn’t feel like packing up all my stuff just to move a few feet. I knew if I waited, my nose would adjust to the smell after ten seconds. Besides, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
After sipping his water and squinting out the window for a while, he turned his head and inquired, “Do you know the Olympics?”
“Uhh, in general? Yes, I know what the Olympics are.”
“Is that where they do all those sports?”
“Yep. Running, jumping, all that.”
He paused.
Just when it seemed like our brief conversation was naturally coming to an end, he asked, “Do you know the Olympics?”
Years ago when my grandfather was dying of dementia, my family always treated him with dignity. They never teased him (not even during the funny moments—like the time he asked for his checkbook to buy a wedding gift for Cinderella because he thought the movie he was watching was real life). Some people, when speaking to children or old folks, use simple words spoken in a high-pitched, slow, baby-like voice. But for me, whatever the age of someone—child, adult, elder—I always speak to them like they’re my equal. The only time I use a baby voice is when I’m speaking to my cat.
Because this guy seemed like a good listener, I decided to tell him about the recent Summer Olympics in Paris: the debut of breakdancing, the nonchalant Turkish sharpshooter, and the incredible comeback in the men’s 400m race. While I was talking, I had the thought: he probably hasn’t watched the Olympics in decades.
He didn’t react much. He just sat there, squinting into the distance. When he finished his water, he looked at me.
“Thank you.”
Then he shuffled out of the shop in his blue house slippers.
Some tent citizens live in their cars (a different kind of tent). When I see them, I think of my uncle—he lives in his car, by choice.
My uncle has a computer science degree and worked for some top technology companies in the 80s and 90s. Eventually, his disdain for the employee lifestyle inspired him to try his hand at the entrepreneurial route. Turns out he's neither a good employee, nor a good entrepreneur. After a couple of bad start-ups, he went broke.
During my childhood he stayed with my family in our home (with the precondition that he maintains employment somewhere). It lasted...for a while. But he grew bored and left. Nowadays he prefers to live in his car and read books at the library than work "for the man".
I see him once a year on Thanksgiving. Last year we had fun talking about particle physics and black holes.
Last week, feeling burned out from my remote job, I took a break and went for a walk. Once outside I began daydreaming while staring at the treetops of my city, when suddenly, I heard a whine below me:
“ken i git sum lil’ debbies brownies?”
Torn from my reverie, I looked down half-expecting to see a child. Instead, laying on the concrete sidewalk in a pile of garbage was a mostly toothless man. He had dirt on his face and dirt on his clothes. I turned to face him and breathed in—it wasn’t dirt.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“i like lil’ debbies brownies, ken u git me sum?”
Still processing the interaction, I noticed something small was on fire next to him and pointed it out. He reacted in the same polite way that a house guest does when they accidentally wear shoes in your home: “oh, sorry sorry, i’m sorry!” and he stamped out the fire with his bare hand.
He was being a gracious host considering I had just walked into (what’s effectively) his living room. With no such actual room, or even a tent to cover him, he was truly home-less. If he was sitting in a barrel, he would have reminded me of Diogenes—he could have been a philosopher in disguise. But I was disillusioned of that notion when I looked and saw the thousand-yard stare on his face.
With the embers extinguished, he persevered: “lil’ debbies brownies?”
While pondering how the fire started in the first place, I contemplated his request. On principle, I don’t buy my friends junk food. Since I knew the grocery store around the corner sold fresh fruit, I countered, “I’ll buy you some bananas if you’d like?”
He whined, “but i like lil’ debbies!” I was taken aback. Here I am, offering to buy him food, and he’s being picky.
“Look man, I’m offering bananas. Do you want some or not?”
With an annoyed look on his face, he thought about it for a second. Realizing he’s not in a position to negotiate, he said yes.
Walking into the grocery store, I waved hello to the security guard whose job it is to prevent certain people from entering.
Unfortunately, they were all out of bananas. Looking for substitutes, I saw some chocolate and thought: it’ll make him happy, but there’s no nutritional value in that. Then another thought: he doesn’t care about nutritional value… Scanning the area, I spotted some French bread and decided that was good enough.
Upon returning, I discovered the mystery of how the fire started. He didn’t see me approaching because his attention was fixated on the scraps of garbage he was igniting with a lighter. Sitting there, covered in dirt, muttering simple words to himself, playing with fire—he reminded me of a caveman.
“They didn’t have any bananas. I’m sorry. But I got you this bread instead.”
The same enraptured awe he gave the fire, he now bestowed upon the loaf of bread. Without making eye contact with me, he grabbed the bread and muttered, “thanks.”
After I walked away, it dawned on me that buying bread for a mostly toothless man was stupid of me.
Back at work, I had a meeting with a colleague. When I told him about the food negotiations (between brownies and bananas) he joked, “Well, you know what they say: beggars can’t be choosers.” Then my imagination drifted—what if I had said that witty comeback, in the moment of negotiating, to the mostly toothless man laying on the concrete muttering to himself and lighting garbage on fire?
I don’t think he would have laughed.
Sitting at my favorite coffee shop, I saw one of the local homeless people walk into the bathroom. I’ve seen him around town, but he never hangs out in the tent cities. Perhaps he’s not allowed in.
Twenty minutes later, after I had forgotten about him, I needed to take a leak.
I opened the bathroom door. The guy had his pants around his ankles, standing over the toilet, and was getting butt fucked by another guy. He stared at me blankly. Aghast, I blurted, “You ought to lock the door!”
I returned to my seat.
Maybe I should have said something to the staff.
But I didn’t.
I was in shock.
Instead I walked home to use my own bathroom.
I was out-of-town the following week. When I returned and visited the coffee shop, there was a new lock on the bathroom that required a code to enter.
My gym’s located on a one-way street. The only way to walk there is to go up a hill and through Pee Tunnel (which is painted bright yellow, but there’s another reason people call it that).
When the tent citizens start going down the hill on a bike, they shout, “Git outta the way, I ain’t got no brakes!” I make myself flat against the graffitied walls of Pee Tunnel as they zoom past. Some of them wear a stoic expression and try to look cool; others smile wildly while speeding down the hill.
To slow down, they drag the bottom of their shoe on the ground. I’ve never once seen a tent citizen using a bike with working brakes. Do they purposely cut them? Is it considered uncool to use bike brakes?
We just elected a new mayor who made his number one campaign promise to remove all tent cities.
And he’s keeping his word.
While running along my favorite bike path this weekend, I noticed one of the biggest tent cities had disappeared—the major debris removed, the tent citizens gone.
I slowed to a walk to look for evidence that they ever existed. A beer bottle cap here and there; a used needle; a Snickers bar wrapper. Like an archaeologist digging through the remains of a long-gone human civilization, I couldn’t help but wonder—what happened to them? Where did they go?
Part 1: I would have shit in that alley, too
Part 2: A City Within a City
