To the Homeless Man This Concerns

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Dear Sir:

I have a lot of sympathy for homeless people, in particular vagrants suffering mental illness in a city that has little to no means of caring for them. Though I am sure some of you are vagrants by choice, most are sleeping on sidewalks and supping on trash because they are incapable of caring for themselves, and either they have no family or their family – after numerous attempts to help – have finally abandoned all hope. True, one is helped who helps himself, but some of us just don’t seem to manage all that well when left to our own devices. Drug and alcohol abuse may lead to the street. Abuse may lead to the street. Mental illness, as already mentioned...

In my twenties, I took homeless people out to dinner or shopping at a grocery store. Once I even allowed a filthy crack whore to hug me when she said she desperately needed one. She took our embrace as an opportunity to French kiss my neck, but I didn’t hold it against her. My neck is one of my better attributes and she was, after all, a whore on crack.

Now I’m in my thirties, I suppose I’ve become a bit more discerning and a tad more standoffish. If a homeless man tries to hold my hand on the bus, I don’t let him. If he asks me for my telephone number, I don’t give it out. If a homeless man masturbates in front of my friend and I while we’re waiting for the library to open, I walk away offended and disgusted. I very often give money when it’s asked, though I resent being verbally abused when I refuse. Charity isn’t something one should just expect and one isn’t always at liberty to oblige. For instance, the line between a homeless person and me is not a particularly thick one. Sometimes I have only $5 in my banking account. I have a job. And a place to live. But take away my job, and with only $5 I’d soon be out of a place t live. I have my health and my family, so I’m certainly not in the red, but I am not made of money and my parents won't live forever.

I’m also learning I’m not completely made of empathy, sympathy or compassion. In fact, of late, it's in rather short supply.

While I can understand your desire for a safe and quiet place to sleep, I’m not entirely comfortable with you setting up house for the night directly outside my bedroom window. Especially when my windows are open and the screens are pulled up because of the heat, leaving me somewhat exposed and vulnerable.

Now, even this intrusion I could have forgiven had I not been woken up by the sound of you urinating very loudly in my landlady’s garden. Then, as I tried to drift off to sleep pretending that a dog had been by to do its business, I detected and even worse offense: the distinct and undeniable waft of human feces. You, sir, took a dump on my ‘doorstep’, and that is unforgivable. I could no longer pretend you were a dog when I heard you sneeze, at which point I got on my knees to close the windows. Even without my glasses on, I could see you turn to look where the noise was coming from.

I contemplated calling the police, but that seemed a waste of their resources. Though you could technically slice through the screens and possibly reach through to stab my sleeping body, I wasn’t overly concerned. There are bars on the windows and I could remove myself to the living room sofa. After only three hours of blissful sleep, I tried to get in a few more winks but your defecation haunted me. I could still hear your pee, smell your ****, and mixed in with it all there was the dreaded stink of unwashed skin and hair. My olfactory senses were under assault.

I do not hate homeless people but I DO hate your smell. I’m sorry for that, but neighbors will have their differences.

As I got ready for work and the sun came up, I peeked outside to see the full you. You were lying on your back with your shoes kicked off. Your button-up plaid shirt was hiked up around your chest and your soft belly was exposed. I imagine in a shelter you would have been much more guarded. You had a discman on, drowning out what little neighborhood noise there is at five in the morning. I tried not to resent the discman but surely if you can find one of those, you can also find your way to a public restroom.

In conclusion, I gave you the morning. After revulsion and anger, I felt guilt. But after guilt I felt further indignation. I know that you are a human being in trouble, but I don’t pay over a grand in rent to live next door to someone who can’t afford a cardboard box and lacks the good manners and health sense to not **** where you sleep OR, more importantly, where I sleep.

If I hear you set up camp tonight, I’m calling the cops. I can’t ask my landlord to pooper scoop up human crap two days in a row. And, frankly, the very essence of you is a perfume made in Hell and I don’t want to wake up to it again.

Good luck. God speed. Now stay the **** away from my bedroom window.

With all due respect,
Eliza Hodgkins 1812

[Morrigoon]

[Kevy Baby]

Sorry. I'll move today.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

I'm ashamed to admit it, but Kevy did come to mind with that discription.

When I get to that gent's state in life I will remember this tale and refrain from ****ting in people's yard.

[Strangler Lewis]

Isn't that what great public buildings are for?

[JWBear]

You have far more patience than me. I would have called the police on his ass the second I knew he was there!

[RStar]

Since the homeless generally don't have internet access, you may want to print this out and post it on the side of your building by your window. Hell, paste it all over town, just in case. There may be more than one person who will refrain from said activities tonight, you never know.....

But all said, well said.

[MouseWife]

It should be in some type of publication. There are facilities for them to use. My husbands job, they were told they couldn't do a thing about it and the homeless were mostly {not all} drug users who did their business right there for everyone to find. They left their trash there, also. There is some sort of skin disease going around amongst the homeless, and, the cops and such are either getting it or concerned about getting it. I can't remember.

But, no place is safe. Once while driving through Burger King with my small kids, I turned to look over towards the right of the menu and there was this man. At first I was like 'What is he doing?' and then I realized he was pulling down his pants and taking a crap!!! Right there in the middle of the day, in the middle of a very very public place.

Umm. Of course, I wasn't thinking and I said 'Oh my gawd!! That man is taking a crap!' which of course made the kids look. Gotta learn to shut up sometimes.

I wish you luck and I hope that the police or whomever can help out. How he was allowed to sleep there all night without being rousted I wonder.

Oh, and you write wonderfully. Wow.

[CoasterMatt]

If you're gonna poop in public, do it with style, on the hoods of patrol cars

[tracilicious]

When I worked at a used bookstore, we had a homeless guy poop in a big comfy chair. He was banned from then on. Homeless people poop outside Michael's work sometimes. How hard is it just to walk into a McD's and use their bathroom?