The Septimus Notes

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

I've been reading Sidewalk, and been thinking a lot about "unhoused" persons -- how they survive and on what they survive.

I didn't turn in my "reaction" paper for class to Sidewalk because it hit a little too close to home: my mother, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins -- all of them currently suffering or at one time or another suffered from severe drug addictions. My uncle having told me the staggering amount of money he's spent on crack in his lifetime and the fact that, no offense to my uncle, I'm quite certain he couldn't have made it in a proper manner. My mother never had money, but one of my earliest memories is of her drawing lines with her friends in her apartment. I have to wonder what they did to get by (get by = supply their addiction).

Although I don't really want to [wonder].

And these feelings about living on the street and doing what it takes to survive are swirling in my head. And then I was on the subway today and... for a few years now there has been this singing trio of aged black men. They moved from car to car singing hymns and asking for money. Today it hit me: they were no longer a trio, but a duo. And I realize I have been seeing them as a duo for a few months now.

Where'd the third go? Rehab? Prison? Death? What a terribly incredibly credible reality.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 22:18.
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