I was sitting on the couch trying to fix a laptop, and the topic of homelessness popped into my head. I don’t know why; maybe it was because I haven’t written anything in a while, or maybe just because I had some funny stories I wanted to share with you…. “Ummm… Can’t it be both?” Sure it can, but let’s see if I can unite them all into a cohesive piece about homelessness. It might be trickier than expected (once you hear some of my stories you will understand).

I used to be the biggest supporter of panhandlers. Not all panhandlers, the ones that will actually do something entrepreneurial for their pay – wash windows (by which I mean smearing a dirty rag on your window), playing a musical instrument (by which I mean attempting a one man band with only one instrument, sometimes not too shabbily), etc. That got me thinking exclusively about Ireland. While I didn’t see many homeless people in Ireland, there were two that stand out. One tried to do the latter — except he had no instruments. So he stood there and crooned, belting out Irish versus. His head tilted to the skies, his eyes remained closed, and he put his all into the words he was singing. I thought this was really neat, so I threw a Euro into his hat. The other homeless man was neither of the two, and therefore, he got nothing. He was the “token drunk Irish man,” as we liked to call him. We joked (I guess kind of immaturely) that he was hired by Galway to play the Drunk Guy, because he was so stereotypical of what we’d expect (and see in America). He had the brown bagged liquor, the imaginary friends, everything down to the self-rants and the uncanny ability to stay in one spot for the whole day. Galway, a very touristy place, wanted to remind us of home while giving us some Irish flavour — hence the drunk guy’s Irish antics. I swear these were the only two drunk Irish men we saw the whole week we were there. My guess may be there exists more of a baseline in Ireland, as opposed to the extremes of America – that more people fall into middle or lower classes in Ireland, but escape homelessness. Either that or I just didn’t see the right parts of Ireland. Either *that* or I am just spoiled.

Anyway, as the story goes, the entrepreneurial homeless would earn their pay from me. It wasn’t always like that. I used to like to give to a homeless person before I would even, say, feed myself. And I would be mocked for this, particularly in freshman year at Penn. One event made me less willing to give. It happened during this freshman year, where the occasional homeless person (or mentally unstable resident of the nearby halfway house – now defunct), would harass you for some money. I guess I liked to reward their smartness for hanging out on a very wealthy campus (either that or I felt sorry for its not-so-generous denizens). Regardless, I would give freely. But I learned quickly. One man asked me for a dollar as I was walking down an alley to dinner with Keren, Frank, Alex, and some others. Well, sure, here ya go. I handed the dollar to him and he accepted it. But I didn’t get my hand back. Um this is kind of weird, I thought to myself. He pulled my arm toward him as he’s saying “Thank you kindly.” Okay, harmless, right? Nope, he didn’t stop there. He took my arm and pulled harder, yanking my body close to him. He then proceeded to lick the side of my face, from the jawline to above the sideburns. One quick lick. And that’s when I pulled away (why it wasn’t sooner, I don’t know – I guess I was curious as to what he was trying to do). Being an immature freshman, I then said “Yo man, I’m not a homo” and looked at him with a cocked head and disgruntled eyes. He does his best impersonation of the Wayans brothers, as he pulls up his pants fastened with a string, and says “It don’t matter… man” in very long, drawn out phrases. Definitely a stoner. Definitely probably had the munchies and thought I was a salt-lick. Yeah, so that kind of made me apprehensive about giving out change to panhandlers. From that point on, I got smart about it.

For example, I would not give out money, which would be used for alcohol or drugs. Instead, I adopted the idea of giving food. Several times, I brought the panhandlers into Wawa, which was one of their favorite places to panhandle, and bought them a cup of coffee or some food while I was doing my shopping. They always seemed to appreciate this more than money. Eventually, that same year, I saw that my cafeteria dollars were not being used as quickly as I should have been using them, and that there would be a lot of non-refundable dollars toward the end of the year. So, probably about 5 times, I used the meals for homeless men that would stick on the heat vents next to Stouffer cafeteria. I always had odd schedules that didn’t match up with my friends, so I would often just get lunch to go and eat in my room. Instead of doing this, I would ask one of the homeless guys if he wanted to get some food at the cafeteria.

“Are you hungry?”
“Of course, you idiot.”
“Come with me – all you can eat.”

“Uh… this is my friend…” I would tell the cafeteria worker as she eyed his raggedy clothes and unshaven self, “…from Cleveland.” Surprisingly, and as if she then understood, she let me “double-swipe” – once for me and once for my best friend from long ago that I never knew I had. We’d go in and grab lots of food – these guys eat like college students (except when they fill their trays, they usually eat every bit of it. College kids will throw out half the tray). This one guy I remember, a short black man named Jim, hadn’t been homeless for long. He and his wife both lost their jobs. A day before, he had seen me coming back from Wawa for my daily case of Pepsi, and he offered to help carry my bags. I declined, and he asked if there was anything I could give him.

“I only have soda?” which isn’t very nutritious, as I later found out from my dentist after getting my first 7 cavities (yeah, I said 7) from this nasty addiction following Sophomore year.

“If you don’t mind… My kids need something”, he replied gently and embarrassingly.

So I gave him 5 cans out of the 12 pack and thanked him for his offer to carry my bag. [This was back in the day when I was addicted to Pepsi, drinking a 12 pack every day or 2. This would be the addiction I speak of that gave me my first ever cavities – in one fell swoop.] So, I had known the guy briefly the day before, and figured, why not ask him to come to lunch with me. Well we got to talking and he told me about his family. He had 3 kids that he brought to the shelter as he went out looking for a job. His wife stayed with the kids for some part of the day, but was also trying to find a job. He could have been yanking my chain, but sometimes you just got to have faith in people. During the meal, I decided “All you can eat” should mean “All your homeless friend and his family could eat in a week.” I took out my books from my bookbag and filled it up with food from the cafeteria. As we were walking out of Stouffer, I hand the bag to him and tell him to be well. With that, I wished him luck on his Job Search. [If you are from my family and are reading this and saying “Brian didn’t lose his back pack! He gave it away.” Then, yeah, you figured me out. For all of you outsiders, I told my family I lost my backpack sometime during freshman year. I didn’t feel like explaining the story behind what *really* happened to the bag that I didn’t really need. I would only carry one notebook to class to take notes. Why would I need a bag. The most books I would have to carry was 3 or so at a time. No big deal. Jim could use it more than I could. He was carrying around his possessions in a paper bag from the local grocery store (while I actually usually prefer to travel with black trash bags, it’s hard to get a job carrying your stuff in one of those). But I’m getting off subject yet again. Back to the story.]

About a hundred different ideas popped into my head from that one afternoon I shared with Jim. I also thought of collecting the left-overs from the dining halls to distribute to homeless shelters in the area. I called around and talked to the Dining Services coordinator and found that they would not give me the food for health reasons. Upon persistence (and several emails later), he finally told me that they are working with another group that does something similar. This group, however, only collected non-perishable food stuffs. He went behind my back, but it appeased me. At least it was something. I called to group to confirm that they were working with Penn Dining, and they were. Oh well, I tried. Jim also gave me the idea of trying to start up a charity that would help homeless people find jobs. Something simple, like collecting old suits to give to homeless people to spruce themselves up for an interview. I had a catchy name for it, too – alas, I cannot remember it. This idea, however, got lost in the shuffle of Finals. I’m just now remembering the whole idea because I am writing about it. Maybe this will be a motivating factor that will kick me in the ass and make me work toward that goal.

Another thing Jim taught me was that not all homeless people are the alcoholic drug abusers they are stereotyped as. Each one usually has his own story, just as saddening as Jim’s. At or about this time, I was in a Filmmaking class. Our final was approaching, and this little afternoon with Jim gave me the idea for my Final video. I was going to juxtapose the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season in Philadelphia with the disheartening and depressing stories of some of the local homeless people. So I called up Anthony, and he graciously came into Philly and we went out and taped the shopping and the pure energy of the Christmas season in downtown Philly.

Rough Edit: Holiday Pains

A lot of this was just shot from his car, as I was extremely pressed for time and we had a mere week to do the final video (well, with all of my procrastinating, I had a mere week). Then, I set out to interview the homeless people on campus. I would give them money ($5.00 – I was kinda poor) and a Wawa sandwich for answering a few questions for me. The amazing thing is, the majority of them wouldn’t shut up once they got talking. This one guy who called himself Haram would have filled a 3 hour tape if I had one. I still resent that I took so long in deciding what I wanted to do for my project. The video ended up cutting out all of the interviews and just showed the frigidness of sleeping on heated grates; the humility of panhandling, and the overall depression of being homeless. The only audio came from a song I lent from my good friends The Beatles: “Yesterday,” juxtaposed with “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Burl Ives. You can see one of the rough edits of this film by clicking this link or the image to the right. Unfortunately, I never got a good copy of the final version saved on my computer. Damn me and being rushed. Jim, I hope you are doing well. You provided me with a different perspective on life. And for that, I thank you.

Okay, okay. This part really didn’t fit in anywhere. Since, for the most part, the story is about my generosity toward the homeless, this part will understandingly not fit. Because I had a rapport with said people, my friends often considered me one of them. Okay, I lie. I lie. It’s because I had started growing my hair out, grown facial hair, and, if you know me you know it’s true, I like to shop in thrift stores (exclusively). Well shut up! My friend Andrea drew this lovely picture on “Brian in 2015.” It’s me outside of my favorite store looking dapper. Anyway, for Halloween that year, I was a homeless man, a bum, if you will. I was one of the stereotypical homeless men, with the brown bottle, covered in dirt,, really bad teeth, extension chord holding up my rattered jeans (yeah I made up that word). You know, the works. It was one of my best costumes, at least in the environment that is Penn. I went around knocking up on my friends’ doors. I recall Lizette, the almost famous model, almost shitting herself.

Knock. Knock.

“Who’s there?”

“I see you looking out of the glass thing. Open up.”

No response.

She wasn’t budging. She would not open the door for me. Talk about looking authentic. Others were not as lucky to have one of those looking holes on the door (what the hell are they called anyway). Even fewer were lucky to not have locked their doors. I would walk right in, as I was accustomed to doing (right Jenny and Vanessa?). Let’s just say the costume was a big success.

The moral of this story: be nice to homeless people. It could be you. And I will end with Bob’s great lyrics (my favorite song of freshman year, and the song that my computer woke me up to every morning, now that I think about it):

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?

People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”

You thought they were all kiddin’ you

You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hangin’ out

Now you don’t talk so loud

Now you don’t seem so proud

About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be without a home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

God, thats good “s”.