Homeless Hell Bytes

If you ever want to be alone in your home - free of all intruders be they vampires, zombies, bill collectors, or jackbooted JSOC operatives - one need only spread an ample fragrance of what I call "Free Clinic Smell." Even if an invader were tempted to breach the premises he would be rendered impotent by this life draining aroma; the intruder rendered helpless as a baby as his mind dissolves into wondering what possible purpose his life ever had. This is the end of line, so sayeth the odor.

Luckily - I should have put that in quotes - I have built up a minimal but sad tolerance to this olfactory malice. Those who work in free clinics are immune by virtue of receiving the smell's permanent brain damage, like doctors contracting leprosy from treating leper colonies. To survive these occasional ordeals I prepare myself as a Zen lord would before an especially difficult regime of discipline. One does not win, one simply hopes to endure.

We without the benefit of abodes - who then by conjecture must be deficient as human specimens as well - are herded like children into events "for our own good." Because, Lord knows, we couldn't possibly know that on our own. Our self-appointed heroes shepherd we sheep so that we may be poked and prodded to see if we are fit for continued survival. I assume the weakest are purged in merciful furnaces of the governmently contracted. Never is the world so foul as when it wishes to appear noble.

"Good news, Mr. Homeless."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"You're fit as a fiddle. Amazing, really, given your circumstances. You must tell us your secret!"

"Daily masturbation. Got any pictures of your wife?"

Dr. Welby's enthusiasm waned after that. "I see. Regardless, you're on your way to decades more life. Another good 30 or 40 years, at least."

"Worst news I've had all year."

"I don't understand."

"You know, what I should of asked is if you've got any daughters in high school. Now that would be hot!"

"That's not funny. Quite sick, actually. Frankly, sir, after a remark like that you can die tomorrow."

"Now we're on the same page!"

Then I heard the doctor mutter on my way out: "Fucking asshole."

*****

She was upset, but wouldn't say why.

"You care more about that cat than you do any person."

"No doubt."

"If you had to choose between that cat and a person's life, you'd just let somebody die, wouldn't ya?"

"I think I already confirmed that."

"There's something wrong with you! People can't be acting like that."

"People act all sorts of ways. How do you think you ended up in this hellhole shelter, anyway? The milk of human kindness?"

"That right! You lucky you got a place to go! I never met anyone so ungrateful in my life."

"Don't worry. You can kiss their ass all you want, no one's going to give you a ticket out."

"They do if you work hard. You just be lazy is all!"

"Hard work gets you nowhere but used up. I'm more valuable than that."

"No you ain't! And that cat ain't either!"

"Don't hope to compare yourself with my cat or you'll live to regret it."

"How can you say such a thing?"

"My cat lets me be nice to her, I can please her, and she lets me take care of her. Can you say the same of me?"

"No, I can't!"

I took that as an ender but she stood there waiting for a response. Still she remained mute on why she was upset. I petted my precious kitty until she finally stormed off. "Fucking asshole," muttered my adversary in hasty departure.

*****

How to get me to agree with you

No matter how down and out or desperate or hopeless a situation, people always feel they need to lecture you on the secret of their success. I suspect were I to engage a convicted soul on death row he would attempt to regale me with pearls of his wisdom ("I might be gonna die but..."). So even among the homeless one will find a good portion of conservatives clinging to our myth of civilization even as they bear the brunt of that lie. If everyone simply fought back every time they were shit on and left their ideology outside the door the world would be fixed in a day. Politics is religion by any other name.

One favorite false axiom of the morally challenged is right and wrong are determined by what does or does not make people upset. Jesus would not be remembered today had he subscribed to that lunacy. Funny how it's those who claim to be his followers who believe this sacrilege the most.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: anyone who fought in the Iraq war wasted their life for no reason. They died and were damaged for nothing. Total pointless waste. They did not serve their country. They did not serve their fellow man. Being told to sell your soul makes the crime no less egregious nor the price any less dear. Only people who say otherwise are those who betray the soldiers - just like those who ordered (or supported) the war."

I've seen even those who claim to hate religion as the untruth of all untruths desperately seek to cover up this truth just as badly as any bishop covering for a molesting priest. What is it about politics makes us want to speak well of evil? What do we hope to gain in the end? Fool's gold is the devil's currency. But my sin is not that I speak the truth - however accurate or not I may be - but rather that I speak that which is unpopular. Many are those who track such things and if they feel you've said something that does not poll well that gives them in their mind free reign to rip you to shreds hurling epithets disparaging your integrity, your lineage, etc.

"You just don't care what anyone thinks, do you? You better work on that attitude or you won't get along nowhere!"

"That's a double negative so you're really saying I'll get along fine. Of course, Jesus said people were evil all the time."

"You're not Jesus!"

"But I want to be like him. Don't you?"

"Don't you be twisting this around. You better change that attitude and start respectin' folks or won't you ever get a job!"

"Right. Let's keep pretending the soldiers died for a good a reason so others can follow in their steps. That's what's going to bring me success in this world. If being a lapdog is your idea of success all I can say is I hope you like dog food."

"You want to be like that, that's fine by me! See where that gets you. Nobody's going have nothing to do with you! See how you like it then. But don't come whining to me. I wash my hands of you. You ain't ever gonna have a place in this world. You your own worst enemy."

"If you're saying you're going to crucify me then I'm certainly in good company."

"Don't you say that! Don't you ever say that! You ain't Jesus, not by a long shot."

"Right, but no one is ever crucified for telling a lie. Know how I know that? Because truth-tellers don't have a need to crucify. Only you do."

"Fucking asshole!"

*****

"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed."

But they don't like me, either.