The first time JC said he had come to the Day Center "to change my diaper," I thought it was his droll way of saying he wanted to use the rest room.
This week, I realized that in addition to his COPD he suffers from incontinence.
This makes him, as you can imagine, an unpopular visitor in many places. He told me had recently been booted from WalMart by a manager who accused him of leaving graffiti in the restroom, which he denied.
I said, I know you look sketchy but the only canister I've seen you with contained oxygen. If the manager really thought you'd vandalized the restroom, he might have pressed charges instead of kicking you out. He targeted you because he didn't like your looks.
He laughed and gave me a fist bump.
I'll go to Target and spend my money from now on, he said. It's only five more blocks. (It's actually closer to two miles farther.)
We've had lots of snow and relatively cold weather. I asked JC where he was sleeping.
On the streets, he said.
How is that, I asked.
It's all right.
He explained to me that he had a sleeping bag he topped with three blankets and another sleeping bag. He curls his legs in the sleeping bag back toward his butt for extra warmth. The only issue is he can't keep his shoes warm for the morning, even if he puts them in the bag with him.
He even tried warming his water bottle against his body and then putting it inside a shoe. The next morning it was frozen solid.
***
A man nearby asked Christian if his liner pants had been burned by his campfire.
No, Christian said. He got them that way, burned by somebody else's fire. Three men began to compare burn stories. One showed melted shoe edges. They all had spent nights illegally in storage units trying to stay warm. They talked about the safest warming stove to use inside a unit.
Last February, two men died in a storage unit fire. They drank, so they weren't allowed into the shelter. Instead, they died within sight of it.
One of the men was a laid-off oilfield services worker. He had a LinkedIn profile. He was enrolled with Life Leadership, a scammy multi-level marketing organization.
I didn't write about them last year. It was just too sad.
The police said they would look into whether the municipal ordinance was being followed—not whether people had safe places to sleep at night.
Well, if you drink, you don't have a safe place. If you wear a diaper, you don't. Trust me.
***
The little things we do—laundry, rest rooms, phone and mail, storage, a warm place to sit for a few hours—may seem mundane, but they can make a big difference for folks on the edge.
A new guest checked in and I gave her an intake form. She almost cried when she found out she could use our phone number to put on work applications and we would take messages for her. She had applied for a number of jobs when she hit town, but the husband she left cut off her cell phone.
***
With the snow and ice, we had sprinkled rock salt outside. By the end of my shift, a good amount had been tracked inside the vestibule.
One guy leaving dove to the floor when leaving and pretended to find a meth rock.
"Tweaker's paradise," laughed his girlfriend.
Laughter means you're alive. It creates a little distance from your problems.
We just laugh about different things at the Day Center.
