Homeless people are not very well thought of in the community. I suppose that is not a shocking statement, but they are people just the same. During my time on the street, I ran into some issues with authority figures. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to survive.
One was at the Marriott. I would go there in the mornings to the downstairs restroom to shave and brush my teeth. The Mission wasn't exactly the most hygienic place to do those things, so I thought the Marriott would be a good alternative. Besides, there is nothing going on at the hotel early in the morning. A security guard came in there one morning and asked me if I was a guest of the hotel. Of course not. Guests have their own bathrooms. He kicked me out and told me never to come back. I did come back twice after. Once was to the bar to have a coke with my friend Mark. The other time was to listen to my friend Bruce put on an impromptu Christmas music concert on the piano. I was a bit paranoid both times.
Another was at a restaurant downtown. Some of us would go there to play chess in the corner. There was one homeless guy who was a chess whiz. Nobody could beat him, no matter how hard we tried. We would also go in there to get warm. The manager told us that we had to buy something to stay in there, so we would get the cheapest thing on the menu, which was either hot coffee or tea. I went with the tea. They had free refills. We tried to stay in there until 9am, when the library opened. Apparently a customer complained, so we were asked to leave and never come back. The chess games were moved to the library.
Another place was Baptist Hospital. On the third floor of the doctor's building across the street was a restroom I started using, after the Marriott kicked me out. It was great. I could lock the door and chill out. I went in the building one Saturday morning and found the door locked. So, I began walking down the corridors looking for another restroom and to get warm. A security guard showed up and asked me what I was doing. I told her, and she said I had to leave. It didn't make much sense. The doctors weren't there, and everything was shut down. She didn't care. She escorted me to the hospital's ER and watched me walk out of the door. I went back to the hospital, but not to get warm.
I would get horrible leg cramps while sleeping at the mission. After getting up in the morning, I would walk outside in the dark before breakfast to loosen up my leg muscles. I would usually walk around the block and find a dumpster to pee. One morning, I was walking behind some downtown apartments and through their parking lot. A city police officer spotted me and followed me in his car back to the Mission. He parked and called me over to his car. He wanted my ID. I asked him what the problem was, and he said that there had been car break ins in that parking lot. I assured him that I was just out for a walk. He ran my ID and found I was "clean". Every morning for two weeks after that, he parked on Main Street watching for me to walk. Sometimes, I would take a different block to walk around. Other times, I would walk past his car and wave. But, I never went back to that parking lot.
There were homeless guys who got in serious trouble like Eddie, who was a 19 year old guy who slept in the bunk just up from mine. His feet sometimes hit my head. Eddie got arrested for dealing drugs. We also had another guy, who was a drug dealer. He actually had a home in North Columbia, but it had been raided too many times, so he was hiding out at the Mission. There was one guy who slept next to me. We called him "Goldy", because of his gold teeth. He had seen what my church was doing for me, and he wanted some of that. So, he joined the church and got baptized. He got mad that the church wasn't doing for him what they did for me, so he robbed a bank. He also carjacked a woman's car and crashed it into a bunch of other cars trying to get away. He did go away for about 10 years.
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