See my last three posts in this series for context if you’d like.
Everyone has a story. As I’ve gotten to know and speak with more and more of the homeless community in Austin, everyone has a reason they’re there. Some of them it may be a simple story. They have a mental disability and their family threw them out on the street and have been there ever since.
Others are addicted to drugs and find the best way to attain them is to live on the street.
But these little snippets are just the beginning of their story. Just the very edge of it. Almost all of them go so much deeper. What led to the things that led them to the streets. It goes back even to the time they were born. The circumstances, the people they were around, the right and wrong decisions they made.
I spoke with a guy a few nights ago who was out on the streets and the outside of his story is he got out of prison two weeks ago and is now out on the street.
As I asked more questions and dug deeper, I found out that this man had been a stone layer for 40 years. Was making over $40/hour doing it. He got involved with meth. Not for himself though. He sold it.
I asked him why he was interested in getting into meth and he said it was the power that he was able to have. To make them dependent on him. Women, teenagers, you name it.
But you dig deeper still.
This man has been married five times. He had two sons and 3 grandkids. When I asked him what his dream was it was to build three houses out of stone in Northwest Arkansas. One for each one of his grandkids. He wanted to be able to provide for them and give them what they wanted.
He pursued power. Almost everyone does. He just did it in an illegal way.
Now he had to start over.
To anyone walking by though, he was simply a man who looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month.
No one knew his story.
As I talked to him, I looked around at the dozens of other homeless people in sight and realized that each one of them has a story as well. Who knows, maybe this guy made up half his story, but it still woke me up to the realization that these people are people just like us and just have been a part of different circumstances and made different decisions and are now in the place that they are.
In the last three posts, I mention at the end of each of them that after my initial conversation with these people, I may never see them again. To anyone walking by on the street not paying attention, they would never know if one of the homeless people disappeared — or even died.
But as I’ve gotten to know them, I know a face and a story now. I recognize them when I park my car. I’ve developed friendships with them, and now when they leave, I feel it.
It’s the lifestyle of many homeless people though. Very rarely do they stay in the same place for a long period time.
I came to pick Enus up the night we agreed upon from dinner and he was nowhere in sight. I knew he might not have a watch, so I parked my car and went and sat on the street where he normally sat. Waiting for him to show.
10 minutes passed. 15 minutes passed. 30 minutes passed. My heart sank. It was at that moment that I understood, I might not see Enus ever again. I had no way to contact him. This was where we were going to meet.
He never showed up the entire night. After talking with another one of the guys on the street for a couple hours, I went home dejected.
I had hopes that I would come back the next morning and he would be in his normal spot reading his book, so I made sandwiches in the morning before I left so that at least we could eat breakfast together.
He wasn’t there that morning. And I haven’t seen him ever again.
I’m still hopeful that he’ll show up again some morning, but that’s the unsureness about interacting with the homeless community. You never know when they’re going to stick around or disappear forever from your life.
I’ve never heard from Karissa since the confusing and paniced call. I have no clue where she’s at. Unfortunately, I don’t even know if she’s still alive. I have no way to communicate with her.
David and Z I saw again last week. I got a pizza for us to share and we sat on the steps of a building while we caught up. I asked how his job search was going. If he had considered the carwash place again, but he assured me that he would not be shaving his beard.
He has a potential job opportunity working in a factory putting stuff together. He thinks he would love it. More research needs to be done.
We agree to try and keep meeting up, but the truth is, nothing is stopping him and Z from just disappearing like Karissa and Enus. I have no way to communicate with them besides when I see them randomly or if I schedule a time to talk.
When I started this title of ungratefulness, I didn’t know exactly where I was going with it. There aren’t specific things from each of these stories that I can point to and say this is why I named it ungratefulness.
The word is simply one of the largest I associate in my mind with the homeless situation.
Both on my side of not being grateful for all of the things that I do have and take for granted, but also on the homeless side. Ungratefulness is rampant. People annoyed that you got them water and not soda for them as they sit on the side of the street.
It’s baffling to me.
But when you see most of their faces, they have learned to be ungrateful for the life they are in. Why should they be grateful?
I have a lot to learn still about the kind of lives my friends on the street. And I plan to continue. But I know it’s going to be hard seeing so many come and go.