Freedoms Just Another Word for Nothin’ Left to Loose/ Janis Joplin/ Me and Bobby McGee/

Six months ago I moved out of a 2000 sq ft home into a 150 sq ft ‘studio’.  It is called downsizing.  I was forced by circumstance to throw a large portion of my possessions into the alley.  It is a brutal dose of the reality of the present housing market in Mountain City.  It has been a hard summer.  But then I am used to hard times.  They find me like a buzzard finds carrion. 

I allowed myself the luxury of self pity.  This is something every alcoholic loves but is a mortal danger because it feels so good.  Oh, poor me, will hurl me back down that long hard road into my alcoholic hell quicker than a woman.  The black curtain of loneliness enveloped me.  I, after all, deserved more than this.  I needed room to turn around without breaking something else.  I needed companionship.  I needed someone to share my miserable life with.  (Like anyone would volunteer.)

            Then I met an angel—they do walk among us---He sat in front of me on the bus.

Metrosexual.  Hip and Trendy.  I knew, just from looking at him, that that S.O.B. had an attitude.  On the sidewalk I saw his shoes.  Beautiful pair like the brown and tan wingtips I used to have before the feet went south.  I commented on them.  He was one of the nicest guys I ever met.  He introduced himself.  His name is Daniel.  He is a law student working with the ACLU.  So much for pre-judgment. He pointed me toward the Occupy movement and I found a cause I believed in and one that could occupy my mind.

At the Occupy village I met this guy.  He is one of the occupiers who sleep on the sidewalk and hold down the site during the night for the marchers on the weekend.  He proudly took me to see what he called his house.  It’s a fuckin’ cardboard box!!!!  The only part of it that was made in America is the piece of cardboard that serves as his front door.  And the Mountain City Police already had orders to demolish it at dawn.  Let me show up at the home of one of the 1% with a bulldozer some time and see what happens to me.  Suddenly my home---The Black Hole of Calcutta--- looked palatial. 

There is a growing number of disenfranchised people out there.  They are called homeless.  Homeless means that you don’t have a home.  If you don’t have a home you don’t have a bathroom and therefore cant wash, and make yourself presentable to apply for a job that went to China years ago.  You’re screwed.

The Shadow