After putting my dirty – well my dirtiest laundry anyway into the knapsack if I had been given a package of cookies and a small bottle of water or some drink either canned or bottled on top of that and I would go to the library. You have to also know I always had a notebook and sketchpad at all times in the bag.
    In the library while it was slow and only a few patrons I would take my bag into the men’s room where I would wash my clothing by hand. Usually I had to use the hand soap as my detergent but I was happiest for having hot water I could use. I would rinse it all out and wring as much out as I could then it would go into plastic garbage bags and back into the knapsack. The plastic was to keep my backpack from soaking through. Stuff like my jacket or pants were the hardest items to clean this way in a small sink but honestly though it never happened if anyone had walked in on me washing out my underwear I think I would have just hid under the sink from embarrassment, curled up into a little ball and hoped the Earth would have opened up and swallowed me!
    Mostly I rinsed stuff out in the sinks at the parks when they first opened in the mornings when no one uses them but that water is ice cold only! The sinks are smaller too.
    If it was early enough I could return to my car and hang stuff up inside it. Drape most of it over something would be more accurate. This was hidden from the world as the windows on the sides were covered on the inside by cardboard and I had taped Aluminum foil over the windshield to keep out the light and some of the heat from being in the sunlight. I would leave the windows open a little for some ventilation. Until the schools let out the street was empty so I was seldom seen nor bothered by anyone on this block I lived on. Though “lived” is such an odd word in this context, “resided” isn’t any better as they all imply something more normal feeling. Indeed I so often felt like some strange revenant waiting for the right exorcist that maybe “haunted” is correct!
    If I couldn’t get back to the car I would sit outside the library and have that packet of cookies or peanut butter sandwich and drink my water and that would be my big meal of the day often. I had come to a pattern of eating only a snack as my meal one day and the next having a peanut butter sandwich as breakfast and late at night having my other meal – usually the Vienna fingers on a roll or a can of tuna the same way. Every fourth day or so I didn’t eat. There was a stretch where I only ate every other day to make what I had last. I would fill water bottles at the parks and had a gallon under the car for washing my hands. Thanks to a large dollar store a mile away I had a couple of bottles of hand sanitizers that I found to be invaluable. One of the big cans of waterless hand cleaners was useful for much washing, it was more like cleaning what I could get to when it showed up rather than being able to shower every day! I could also smear it on my face and use it as a shaving cream. It helped make my cheap razors last a month. Not that I ever knew how long they were supposed to last! The idea of using them once and throwing them away is almost unseemly to me!
    But I’m getting ahead of myself there as that all happened late at night and technically speaking this narrative is only in the afternoon. Sometimes I had an interview scheduled or I had seen something that I thought might be my chance for employment. But by the end of the day I would be back at the library till it closed at nine. During summer it was still light and I wouldn’t head “home” till after dark. I could go lounge in a park or window shop and watch all the people go by. The last part could often be painful leaving me so lonely! I don’t care how much you may hate your life but if you notice a homeless person staring at you it is because they envy it - even with all your troubles! They would so readily trade places it isn’t funny.
    But don’t do it! Believe me there is nothing “brave” or ‘heroic” about anything I’ve described. “Desperate” is the word that comes to mind.
    At first I walked everywhere except for riding public transit busses. After about a year I was able to buy a bike (Which still needs a name! Hint, hint!). I was able to increase the distance I could travel in a day. Also the bus doesn’t go everywhere but if it came anywhere near the bike made so much more accessible to me. I could just put it on the carrier on front and off I go!
    On the days when I helped Dee at her shop I preferred to get there early so I could help with vacuuming and wash the windows before she opened for the day. I’d put my bag on the side back by one of the racks of costumes and would often change into one of the white shirts which were used in so many of the costumes. Later she bought some knit shirts with her logo embroidered on it, which I really preferred anyway. After closing the shop she let me have one. I still wear it from time to time. Most days she would pick up one of these enormous breakfast burritos from an independent fast food place up on Sunnymead Blvd. and we’d share it. They’re so much better than the usual stuff for breakfast from McDonald’s™ to my taste.
    If you notice a lack of interaction with people in this it isn’t an accident. Once word got around that I was now homeless I lost so many friends you didn’t need even one hand to count the remaining ones. Even the ones who openly sympathized with me, or more accurately “at me” made a point of not answering my hellos much less if I knocked on their door. One would even pretend not to hear the dog barking because someone was at the door. Well I figured I was better off without people like this anyway! Like I wrote I’d go back to the car usually after dark. In months when dark came earlier I could drop off my bag and go browse the local stores until closing. Then if I had the money I could stop in the supermarket and pick up a roll and some tuna or three slices of something from the deli, sometimes a can of chicken noodle soup or minestrone to eat unheated straight from the can. I found that I couldn’t stand my favorite (tomato soup) this way! If I bought a dented and discounted can of soda I could eat for around a dollar and twenty-five cents.
    So I would be eating around 10 or 11 at night maybe even later on some nights in my car. I’d curl up in back under my blanket and in my sleeping bag. Mostly it would be quiet but some nights the younger guys in the neighborhood and a few friends would gather to party or just hang out (looked the same to me) and that could get a little noisy way too late at night especially once when a couple of the guys got into a loud fight.
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