I’m sitting on an orange seat, on the Orange Line, eating an orange. I know you’re not supposed to eat on the Metro but what are they going to do, arrest me? Ah, they do arrest people who eat on the Metro–never mind.
So, I was eating my orange and locked eyes with a hobo. An hobo homunculus. He was riding the metro (sitting on a yellow seat, mind you) and his eyes were not orange. They were blue.
He was crouched there, on his seat, like he was afraid that someone would come up to him and beat him up. Maybe he was caught eating an orange on the Orange line. This led me to wonder: Where do the homeless folks on the Metro head to?
Maybe it’s actually a magical Hobo Line, interposed with the Metro like the Hogwarts Express is to the Kings Cross Station in London. Is there a Farragut 3/4ths, where various and sundry homeless, disadvantaged, and disturbed folks get on? Is there a secret door behind the escalators from which these denizens of the underbelly of America emerge from?
The scariest part is that these people, these afflicted and hammered by Fate, pass by unseen and unheard like white ghosts. Businesspeople and Duponters, Logan Circlers and highschoolers all sit on their yellow, orange, blue, and red seats, just recently vacated by these gritty Hogwarts Homeless. Their paths do meet only briefly. They may share a bit of leftover seat warmth, but they do not breathe the same air.
Wealth collects in a trouser pocket, wallets fattened by America’s plenty, while the Metro seats get grayer and dirtier with those downtrodden. Noses turn up, voices cry, “The seats are getting dirtier!” It is this dirt that transfers evidence that the downtrodden was there; that he does indeed exist, even if ignored by those around him.
Is the phenomenon of grayer seats the only way we notice those less fortunate around us?
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World Largo War (The Day the Bag Was Lost)
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Sure, if you only pay attention to those grayer seats while riding the metro. Homeless folks are in plain sight all over DC—just take a walk through McPhearson Square after your Whole Foods Dupont excursion (just walk on 14th straight into downtown and you’ll see the metro stop and park right in front of ya). Or take a bus ride on 8th St in SE/NE area. It’s a, “Welcome to Hobo Homunculus World” bus. What you saw is quite tame, I’m afraid. According to Idealist.org, approximately 140 non-profit organizations in DC area serve the homeless community. That’s nothing to sneeze at. But, I agree, it’s a huge problem. And not to mention unsettling at times to see. Every year, Fannie Mae Foundation hosts this massive walkathon to raise money and awareness on battling homelessness. It’s a great event to participate. They might give you a free gift that’s far better than a t-shirt (that’d eventually end up as a toliet rag). I got a free fuzzy red scarf when I participated in the walkathon a few years back. I still have it, I think!
http://www.helpthehomelessdc.org/
Will the $500 fine for illegally eating and drinking all worth??
The WMATA police is well known for their no-tolerance policy (rough arrests without asking any questions)!
RLM
I lived in the Seattle area for about 11 years. They have a huge homeless problem also. They have tons of programs and handouts for the Homeless. I have seen many Homeless that make it a lifestyle- they go from shelter to shelter, critiqueing the handouts at each. I was in a shelter at one point for six months- it was a renovated hotel. You had to have a job, and prove that you were saving money in an account, and you could stay only a certain amount of time. In my experience, there is a combination of things. There is a definate “welfare” gimme-gimme freebies mentality going on, and that is despicable. There is also a large portion of mentally ill homeless, who cannot function well enough to have a job, and cannot adjust mentally to the concept of not being homeless. They are just well enough to not be hospitalized, but sick enough to where they cannot function in normal society. Being homeless definately provides a person with a certain “group” to hang with, a family of sorts, an earthy, real, raw identity. That is often lacking in our society, where we drive our cars to and from the office and live meaningless lives, from paycheck to paycheck. Some of them prefer to be homeless for this reason. Others are drug/alcohol addicts. The fact remains that for much of the time, the Programs end up enabling the people who just want to remain homeless, and refuse to work for a living like the rest of us. The ones who are truly physically or mentally disabled need to be taken care of- but unfortunately, those places are no longer around. They closed down many mental institutions years and years ago. So what is the answer? I think it has to do with having a lot less touchy-feely “compassionate” enabling of just plain bad behavior, and getting them working, period. That, and re-open the mental institutions, so the mentally ill homeless are no longer on the streets. It’s a very complicated situation however, and I don’t pretend to have the answer.