Day 43

Today i woke up late, 8AM. I got dressed quick and 10 minutes later i was eating breakfast at BK.

Mind you that i don't always order their food. When people give me food at the turnpike i save it and eat it either as/with breakfast or dinner.

At night i usually try to order a salad rather than a whopper jr.

I left BK and got to the turnpike corner at 10AM and signed until 1:30PM, then went to the Shell gas station to use the bathroom quickly.

When i returned the other corner was taken (it was empty before i went to Shell). The guy there tells me is he friends with Mike and we agree he stays for 20 mins then i can have the corner. All seemed fine.

Then Mike shows up and tells me it's his corner and to get back to my corner (the turnpike), i explained i couldn't go back because of the trooper and well... from that point things seriously deteriorated. He started with an attitude and from raising his voice he went to screaming at me, inches from my face.

God knows i don't like violence, i love peace. However if i allowed him to walk over me, even just verbally it would show a weakness which i felt that could easily spread among other homeless and i would very likely become an easy target for others to push me around.

I dealt with "Poppa Pete" last week, now i had to do the same with Mike without actually swinging at him.

It's not easy to turn a volatile situation around, but i'm not a kid and i've been in tough situations before in my life.

He kept going at it, so i had to raise the stakes to make him feel i would fight him if it came down to it, not because of the corner but because of the disrespect he was showing me publicly.

I made it clear, that i would not swing at him first, but that if there was a fight, i would certainly finish it. I even had to tell him if he wanted to "throw down" we could do it in a parking lot so we wouldn't get arrested.

I had to appear willing to fight, even tho inside i was scared, not of pain or death or anything that could happen in a real fight... i don't like violence like i said before... but i know that if someone did throw a punch, i can take it... the problem is not me getting hit, the problem i see is me beating someone because i've been in fights before in my 20's and i know that there is a place i don't want to go... a place where everything and everyone turns grey, faceless and i will go at it hard until whomever is in front of me, is down and won't get up.

I've been in that place a few times, and i consider myself lucky to not have seriously hurt anyone back then.

First i guess it was common sense which allowed me to keep myself in check once i became a husband. Now i think God has given me the strength to keep myself from going to that place i fear.

Well, back to what i was saying.

Things were loud, however i managed to use reverse psychology on him by asking him if i ever disrespected him or if i ever had put my hands on him. He mentioned something that happened last week which i don't even remember. Then is when i saw my opening, he was pissed about that and it was the foundation of his anger... so the easy way to defuse it was... to apologize and offer my hand for him to shake it. A man knows when someone apologizes in the middle of a loud arguement and offers a hand... it's likely to be sincere and not taking the hand makes the person look petty.

He took my hand and shook it, from there the emotions went down. He calmed down and i lowered my voice to a normal tone.

Within 10 minutes we were talking normal, and we started to agree on many things. How we get kicked off corners and slowly the conversation turned from volatile to friendly. In the end Mike even hugged me as he apologized again for screaming at me!

Being homeless may look like an easy life, but there are hidden dangers in the lifestyle that normal people don't see.

Other homeless are the #1 problem, #2 local authorities like the Sheriffs and Troopers that can give you tickets and even arrest you (but at least they won't throw a punch at you), #3 are those people who hate homeless and scream at you or insult you verbally which you don't know if they will come back to do real damage to you (anyone can throw a rock or something else from a moving car and it can hurt you or kill you).

Every time at night when i ride back to my tent i look around, try to listen for footsteps in the grass or anything that would give me a clue that someone may be near me or my tent. I always open my tent and check inside with my flashlight before i go in.

Things that i've never mentioned in the blog because for a normal person it may appear to be paranoid behavior. But you don't know how many times i have to look behind my back, looking out if a Trooper is coming, or a Sheriff or if someone is following me to rob me since... well, never heard of the police being concerned about a homeless guy getting robbed, have you? their priority are the normal people, those with an address, tax paying residents/citizens that pay their salaries.

After it was all said and done, i rode to Lyons and Glades. I got there at 2:10PM (the incident with Mike took a while to resolve) and signed for about 30 minutes in the rain... made 35 cents (yes, cents). Clearly god didn't want me to sign for the rest of the day, heh.

I deposited the little money i had made today in the bank.

I got to the library at 3PM. I'll be taking out the book "Confessor" for Dwayne, he had asked me to get it for him last time we spoke. I'd forgotten the title of the book and had to google a bit to find it since i knew it was a fantasy book. We have that in common, we're science fiction/fantasy readers.

A graphic novel caught my eye, as well as another Star Wars book by Timothy Zahn (a new book it seems), and i will be taking them also.

My library card has helped me cope with the fact that i'm alone.

Well, i'm not really alone. Physically yes. It's just me and the world. I know i have a good number of online friends out there supporting me emotionally and some even helping me a bit financially through these tough times.

But still...going to my tent, in the night and having nobody to say hello to, nobody to ask "how was your day?", nobody to call and just plan to hang out or go watch a movie... you know, normal everyday stuff... it's not easy.

I've adapted faster than i thought, learned the ropes, the do's and dont's of being homeless. But this is certainly not a lifestyle i wish to stay in, not by a long shot my friends.

I rather have 7 layers of clothing, cold in Canada working, doing anything legitimate rather than stand at a corner with a sign depending on others to help me.

However right now, the fact is, i make more money signing. After december i know (from what Dwayne told me) that the influx of cash even at the turnpike decreases significantly so January (if i have to stay another month, hopefully not) i would have to get a regular job, probably as a dishwasher at the japanese restaurant.

I've been thinking of what i have planned, and how to deal with contingencies, like "what if i can't get a passport in a day? what if they want an address to send it to?", i need to plan things out to anticipate the possible problems before they exist.

Maybe Luis (yes, that is the name of the mexican that wants to go with me, we have the same name) could lend me his address so he could receive my passport. I will mention it to him in January, not now, it's not something that has to be discussed, yet.

Wow, this is one of the longest blog entries so far. Probably because i didn't write it on my notebook; i'm going straight from memory and how i'm feeling right now. It's 5:30PM, early still.
I will stay until 8:30PM i think, reading and then hit BK until 10PM or so, swing by Dwayne's and leave him the book at his doorstep as a surprise. I trust that he will be able to read it within the 2 weeks i'm allowed to borrow it.