the first time I was ever at a homeless shelter, I was 20, living with my parents, right at the begininng of my dope career, I was doing all sorts of shady shit to my poor family man, selling my dads tools, pawning sterling silverware....
I came home one night and my mom had locked me out....It was wintertime, about 11 at night, and she said. "I couldn't stay there, but she'd drive me to the local homeless shelter"....It was all to teach me a lesson I guess....My mom has been "sober" in AA for like 25 years and started going to Al=anon when she figured out I was starting to fuck around with heroin and shit....So she had all kinds of people feeding her all this "tough love" shit...
Anyway, she must have talked to the shelter and worked it out with them because theyd normally not let you come in that late at night....It was on the grounds of the state prison in RI(theres only one prison).....
I had just started with the dope and I snuck a few bags in....when I checked into the shelter they took a polaroid picture of me sitting there, lookin a little doped out, wearing a big oversized flannel with a duffel bag....
I never even saw that picture until I found it in a stack of photos at my moms house a few weeks ago....I don't how the fuck she got it because it was supposed to be a picture for the files at the shelter...IDK
I remember, back then, just thinking that, all the people staying at the shelter were the biggest fucking losers! Some of them were acting all like they were "the shit" or something! walkin around and running their mouths!....It like, you're 40 yearfs old living in a homeless shelter and you're talking shit?! Then, there were people who were just apathetic and dull, aspiring to do nothing, just taking up space in the world...and a Lot of 'em were getting disabilty, 600 a month or somethin like that, theyd get it on the first and then theyd spend it all in a week on whatever, and then go back the shelter for 3 weeks broke....
there were a few junkies and crackheads there.... There's this particular breed of hood-rat that drinks cheap $4 a pint vodka and buys crack 10 dollars at a time....and It's like theres millions of these guys just running around the inner-city all over the country!....
These are the guys you see pan-handling, posted up downtown somewhere, just asking everybody for money! Or, hiding outside a store to ambush you when you come out!....Not to be racist, but this guy, the hood-rat archetype...always kind of looks the same:
It's always a tall black guy wearing rattie clothes, wearing a beanie(usually red or with an NBA logo), missing a few teeth, slurring his words and sayin "How are you folks doin tonight?" when they panhandle.....
I used to laugh at these people and think they were the biggest fucking losers! How could they not figure SOMETHING out?! I was 20 then and I never thought I'd still be chasin heroin 10-12-14 years later! I thought I was just gonna magically stop and forget about dope one day! I guess it doesn't really work like that, unfortunately....
Now, in my 30s, I can see how all the back and forth sleeping at shelters, being outside all day long, never really being able to afford any decent clothes or shoes anything...the booze, the drugs, the rain, the sun, the snow....It all just eventually wears on you and stop wanting to do anything, you basically just give up and become resigned to that life...
If you have no family or friends or anybody to help you at all, and you're relying on the system, its hard to get your head above water, especially if youre strung out, or crazy or both....and your self-esteem starts to go and you gotta fight just to feel okay with yourself
I just rambled all over the place, but a lot of what you're writing is bringing back memories, man....I don't know your situation, but do whatever you gotta do to get back in your families good graces(if you're not)....If it hadn't been for my family bailing me out of the shit countless times, I'd definitely be dead or in prison....
I don't know how this happened to you man, but it sounds like you pissed a lot of people off at the same time....
I'm sorry, none of my business but I hope you can pull yourself out of it....I know its boring, but if you start networking with these career "library nodders", you'll be that guy gettin somebody bags 10 years from now! shit!