Bum of the Week (# 22)
August 19th, 2007
At 2 a.m. outside a wing joint on Harden Street, 50-year-old Sam, a homeless black man and Gulf War veteran with 38 confirmed kills knows he can’t go inside.
By Corey Hutchins
At 2 a.m. outside a wing joint on Harden Street, 50-year-old Sam, a homeless black man and Gulf War veteran with 38 confirmed kills knows he can’t go inside.
“I’m starving, man,” he says. “I can’t go in that bar…I’m a homeless guy, you know what I mean? There are too may homeless people around here, man. If I go in that bar it’s just like…are you going to fight with me? Because they’re going to want to fight, you know what I mean? The bouncer’s gonna get on me and all that because they know who the homeless guys are.”
While that’s pretty bad, it’s not as bad as being called a “crackhead” by folks just walking by simply because he’s asking for food. He’s once, tonight even, had to pull out his veteran card just to shut them up. It worked.
Sam knows all about the stigma of homelessness especially in Five Points. If you’re not being instantly labeled as a crackhead then you’re a nuisance by default in the eyes of local law enforcement. He points to three police cruisers idling in the College Mart parking lot and says how the police have harassed him, telling him he needed to get out of Five Points.
“It was a very clear understanding,” he says about when he was approached by the officers while sitting on a bench after someone offered to buy him a hot dog from inside. The police, he says, told him that as soon as he got his hot dog he needed to leave the area.
“It was very clear,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes stuck on the officers as they exit the College Mart.
He’s been arrested, too, just for asking someone for something to eat.
“I don’t want to go to jail,” he says.
Sam, dressed in black pants and a black T-shirt and baseball cap looks 20 years younger than he says is. He became homeless, he says, after he came back from the Gulf.
“When I got back from the war I was wounded, so, you know…I got shot a couple of times… in the back…in the shoulder.”
Sam stops to rub his stomach and show on his back and shoulder where he said he’d been shot. He shakes his head again and his tone grows cynical.
“You know this country don’t care nothing about vets,” he says. “They send guys over there, you know what I mean? And when they get back they don’t care nothing about you, you know? They just turn their back on you, you know? The police harass you… like the police sitting over there right now.”
Inside the College Mart two officers approach the patrons waiting in line to ask if anyone is in there buying “that guy out there” a hot dog.
“I hope he didn’t lie to me,” one an officer says.
When the police officers start walking back to their cars Sam knows it’s time to go. He’s got his hot dog, his bag of chips and protein PowerBar– enough to get him through the night. But he’s got a long walk out of the area and if he’s lucky he’ll make it someplace where he can sleep without the threat of arrest.
But Sam has seen worse. And while being homeless in Columbia isn’t as bad as the front lines of a war, it’s nothing a veteran wants to come home to. And while he’d been used to dodging bullets by adversaries, sometimes unsuccessfully, the enemy now comes in a different fashion and wears a more familiar uniform.
As the police get closer Sam stands up from the bench.
“I don’t want to go to jail,” he says again and begins his walk.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:17 AM
There is a crisis of our society’s failure to recognize that the majority of homeless are suffering Post Tramatic Stress, as American soldiers in a war they have been heroes to fight in the name of freedom of the USA , or from domestic wars in our homes which are ignored. Many women and children that are victims of domestic violence who were also brave enough to attempt to stop cycles of violence. Many homeless are not in the situation they are in because of some personal flaw, or lack of character, or their own bad choices. Many are in fact homeless because of their incredible bravery, faith and fortitude. They are homeless because when they speak up against injustice in our world, those who are afraid of facing their own weakness attack the messenger because they are uncomfortable with the message. Some are homeless because they were full of faith and trust and made a commitment- to our nation, or a spouse, and after their dedicated love and loyalty and service, they were unfortunately left with emotional scars from betrayal and abandonment. So officers, try to not look at these incredibly strong men and women of character with disdain. They are not very different from yourselves. It might only take one night on your beat where you are beaten up in your line of duty, or where you have to impose order and go overboard in doing so- whether intentionally or not, for that tipping point to be reached when you cross that fine line of honorable service with admirable loyalty and courage others recognize over to the side of those who suffer Post Tramatic Stress and have difficulty functioning. Instead be thankful for all you have, and that you haven’t crossed that line. And thank you for your service, for you too have the courage of your conviction to flirt with that line every day - whether you have consciously realized this or not.