Marco Aurélio: 3 feet away from legal

Downtown L.A. at night

Los Angeles, 07.04. 2021

Day 4

I'm sitting at a café thinking how my night is gonna go; feeling guilty. Homeless people are not relaxing somewhere, making plans, before they start their night, they are out there with a sense of urgency I have not seen anywhere else. I wonder if ever crosses their minds that after being homeless for awhile, getting a job, paying bills, working late and dealing with deadlines would be like being on vacation.

I have to think like them since I am sleeping on the street tonight, doing exactly what they do for the next five days; following their footsteps. Trying to answer the question of where they all go after the security officers, paid by the opulent buildings in the area, supported by the LAPD get them to move on. Where do they go? Where do I go? How to make sure I don't take the wrong bus and end up in a dangerous area at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. The subway goes off circulation at midnight, so wherever you end up, you are stuck there until they go back online at 4:30 in the morning.

Tonight I'll take the 460 bus to Disneyland; it is a four hours roundtrip and the homeless use it because it allows them a place to sleep safely for a longer period of time. Catching the bus at the wrong time means ending up at Disneyland with no way to come back. Alone. I'm pretty sure Mickey will be asleep. In the middle of the night, as my grandmother would say: " nothing good ever happens after midnight." I grew up in the theater so 11 pm is when I am applying make up and clicking my heels three times. Nevertheless, getting to Mickey's house to find him sleeping is a bit screwy.

I make it to the bus and they are there, about 12 of them. I'm fully vaccinated now but being inside a bus that is packed with people is fortunately a choice that I can make; and I make the choice of not doing it; instead I follow the other group that hop trains all night. Most of the homeless that surf the buses and trains are men; I have not seen any homeless female roaming the streets at night so I guess and hope they have made to shelter which is the next place I will go to after these five days.

I am flooded with the memories of my children; beautiful memories: running, walking to the Santa Monica beach, watching them playing at the sandy playground and laughing while making castles. My son always in t-shirt complaining of being too hot while I'm wearing layer upon layer of long sleeves and wind breakers. Santa Monica is about 10 degrees cooler than downtown L.A. and I look at these men hiding behind smalls walls to avoid the cold air that comes from the ocean and feel sorrow for their routine.

The ghost of my children plague me now and I realize that that time in my life is gone and it will never come back, maybe I get to experience that again with grandchildren. For now, the memories cut me like the cold air, as I see them everywhere; and a profound feeling of sadness wells me up in tears, as if the very purpose of my existence has vanished. They are now entering the college years in one of the most disturbing periods of our human history, so I am sure that they are having thoughts of their own about things passed and gone.

I need to focus. I need to walk to the train. As I walk I notice a commotion ahead of me, an older black man is talking loudly, surrounded by security guards and he is trying to kick them and saying things that I am too far to understand.

I quickly grab my camera and stand across the street taking pictures; it is too dark here so I walk closer and approach the security guards, whom by now stand in the corner a few feet away from the man; who has now gone back inside his make shift tent and is trying to sleep. Young people on the other side of the road are laughing and carrying a conversation on their way to a club, on their way to a good time. I approach the security officers to ask a few questions.

Before getting to them I decide to approach the homeless man first and see if he is willing to talk to me; " How you doing there, my man? My name is Marco. Like Marco Polo. What's your name?" As he talks back to me I hear that none of what he is saying is directed at me or anyone in particular, he is addressing his own demons and it is no wonder he is angry with the the security personnel; when you have to appease demons in your head sleeping becomes essential.

They go back to their argument but it becomes obvious that seeing me taking pictures had an affect in how they proceed, for now, they had made a call to the LAPD. While we wait, I am careful to stay out of their way, but I quickly realized that their job is done and there is nothing else to do than wait for the calvary. Even though we are just standing there I ask them if I can talk to them; situations like these are never over and can become dangerous in a blink of an eye.

I tried again talking to the man lying on the street but he is not home; I engage the security officers and one of them introduces himself as the supervisor and a full minute into our conversation I come to the conclusion he is not home either. Everything I ask is repeated back to me and he claims not to understand me, which is fine, I have an accent so I always take people at their word when they say that; I begin to enunciate every syllable but another minute goes by to see that my accent is not the issue, he doesn't like the questions.

"Isn't that a sidewalk? Why can't he stay there?" "Excuse-me, " he says. And pretend again not to understand me. I pretend he is not a certifiable jerk and ask another question. " If you get him to move on where will he go?" " That is none of my concern." he says.

Good it appears my english has improved. " What's his name? " I ask. That question he understood clearly because his expression spoke to me before he had to mutter the words; "well, I don't know that. My job is to make sure he is not sleeping on private property." "It would probably make your job a bit easier if you took the time to ask his name; it is everyone favorite sound." His clueless look told me that he needed more. " Human beings like the sound of their own name." I say, but he had lost interest in talking to me and told me so.

I ask him if he minds, being the supervisor and all, if I talked to the man again. " it is a free country." he said and I laugh but say nothing. What I think is " How free is it when you can't even sleep on the sidewalk?" I tried to talk to the homeless man and get his name but he was busy talking to someone in his head; I noticed the LAPD approaching and prepared my camera to take a few pictures. What the homeless man did next reminded me of the boy who had the common sense to toss his filthy blanket outside. The police officer was polite, respectful, but firm: " Sir, you cannot sleep there. It is private property." and proceeds to show the man where he could set up his bed. A couple of feet away from where he was. I asked myself if all the drama was worth the bother for a few feet. Eight people altogether engaged this man, including two police officers. Stretch your leg as wide as you can if you are sitting down and you will see the distance he moved too.

The next thought I had was that this system was missing a third phone call. The first call will always be made by the security guards when they call each other to try to get the person to move; the second call they made after they failed to convince him to move was to the police officers. The city of Los Angeles has groups that exist with that sole purpose: to offer an option to a human being that, instead of moving a few feet and sleeping on the sidewalk, that they can be placed somewhere warm for the night. That should be the second call, and only after they go nowhere, they would engage the police. Police officers should not be engaged with that, they are trained to deal with crimes, and complex situations and moving a homeless who has his things leaning agains a building is a waste of their time. And two feet away? That is total insanity.

I took some more pictures and watched the police car drive away; I watched one by one, as the security people drove away too and in the end it was just the two of us there. I stood watching him sleep for a bit, just as someone once did, a long time ago.