Just another Sunday

(Don't know what PCY is?Read this post first.)

For a large portion of my time at PCY I was a regular at all the feedings and I had quite a large group of people who would come along with me. I was laid back and remarkably drama free, which was a rare thing in PCY at the time so I quickly I became the person people would ask where the feedings where, or what time was I planning on leaving so they could come too. Some of the routes to the feedings were dangerous so their was always safety in numbers. It also just made the whole thing a bit more fun. Sometimes though, the people who came along brought their own set of problems....

One Sunday morning I was getting ready to go on my regular Sunday route (Which on the last Sunday of the month is 4 different feedings) and I had a couple of my regulars, my girlfriend, and two new people coming along. One was a big 24 year old with the mental capacities of an 8 year old. (Like literally, this guy acted like he was 8. He was already on disability and had a payee with legal guardianship but for some fucking reason he was running around PCY unsupervised.) We will call him Brian. (no real names used) the other was a younger woman named Maria. Maria had only been at the shelter about a week, and had spent most of her time hanging around this really nice but really unstable guy who kept trying to form a "family" in PCY. We will call this guy John.

So John and Maria had hung out a lot together and John started referring to her as his wife. This creeped Maria out but she put up with it because hey, she's new to being homeless and doesn't know anybody yet. But after a day or two of being John's "wifey" Maria decides to ditch him and hang out with us all day and go to feedings. So as we are getting ready to leave my girlfriend at the time tips me off that Maria wants to leave as discreetly as possible. We gather our things and had out the door (It was about 7 in the morning and the sun wasn't really out yet) Just as we get clear of the gate John sees Maria and screams her name. She says something about "He's so weird keep that guy away from me." and tries to duck and hide between me and my girlfriend. John keeps shouting her name and she tells him to go away and leave her alone. John says something "Maria, I was good to you. I even gave you my sweater." At this point Brian calls out in his 8 year old voice and tells John to "Leave her alone". John freaks out and, screams some profanity, followed by him muttering something about "oh this is fucking happening now. Right fucking now." John then ducks back inside PCY.

We walk a few blocks towards our first destination when my girlfriend points out that John is Jogging to catch up to us along with one of his friends. Just as we get under the I-35 overpass John catches up with us and starts another shouting match, this time with Brian. John and his friend are screaming at Brian for "Getting involved in other peoples business" and "showing disrespect", Maria starts cursing in Spanish at John, and the whole situation is getting heated up pretty quickly. I started to think a fight was unavoidable so I  balled up my fists and got ready to start swinging. For whatever reason at this point (but almost certainly not because of me, I am not that intimidating) John starts to back down. Brian kind of quasi apologizes, and we leave without further incident.

A couple of minutes later John's friend comes jogging up and apologizes to us. He says that John just asked him to come along and he didn't really know what the situation was, but after we left John started talking nonsense and he "just can't stand it anymore, that guy is fucking nuts. I don;t want any part of his shit." So after he apologizes we do a quick "We cool?" "Yeah we cool." and he decides to tag along with us to breakfast, just like that. A couple blocks further down he sees another group of homeless people that he knows and darts off to talk to them.

We get to breakfast, and its rapidly becoming apparent that Brian needs a ton of supervision. He is reasonably cooperative, but he is like a gigantic child and you have to pay attention to him constantly. My girlfriend and I kind of take it on ourselves to supervise him. Make sure he cleans up his messes, keep him calm, make sure he waits his turn in, etc. During breakfast we run into another guy we know from PCY. He is also really new and its his first weekend in San Antonio. He is in incredibly polite, super helpful guy who smiles a lot and goes out of his way to be inoffensive. So when he asks if he can come with us to learn where the other feedings are, we say sure. We will call this guy Frank.

As we leave breakfast to start the walk to the next service Frank suddenly stops and starts puking in the gutter. He apologizes profusely, but this is a pattern that will repeat all day. Frank eats, and then pukes every 20 or so minutes times as we walk along. Frank also has absolutely endless amounts of energy and is constantly doing pullups on anything sturdy enough to support him. He is also talking constantly about the wonders of nature and how grateful he is for the charity we are receiving and how awesome people are. So as we walk along its Frank is either puking or doing some sort of exercise, and John is wandering off and generally requiring alot of attention. In the meantime Maria is starting to open up and talk about her home in Chicago and how she is trying to get back there.

We get to the 2nd feeding. Food is excellent, homemade lasagna with a fresh salad and a cup of chicken soup. Frank volunteers to help with cleanup and starts walking around with a garbage bag getting peoples plates when they are done. John wanders off with a couple of kids. Maria wants to know where the Mega-Bus terminal is so she can look into getting bus ticket home.

After the second feeding we have a good 3.5 hours to kill before the next one, so we decide to take Maria by the Mega-Bus terminal on our way to go hang out at the RiverWalk. Once we get to the bus terminal Maria walks right in and tries to buy a ticket on the spot, but she can't because her debit card won't work. (It had a bend in it that might have made it impossible to read. Either that or it was invalid anyways, I have no idea.) Maria begs us to take her to other ATM machines to see if any of them will let her use her card. There are a ton of ATM's all over the RiverWalk so we head there and start wandering from restaurant to restaurant and hotel to hotel trying every atm. Meanwhile Brian is going hyperactive banana's and drawing way too much attention to us. Then suddenly he starts to get very nauseated and sick. (Frank has been regularly puking this entire time, then going on and on about how beautiful the world was and how grateful he was to be alive) It turns out Brian hasn't drank anything in a while and is probably dehydrated from all his running around, so we walk over to a CVS on the RiverWalk where I can spend my foodstamps to get Brian some water. A couple of bottles of water later Brian looks a lot better and its time to head over to the next feeding. On our way to the next feeding we run into another woman I i knew from a few feedings. We will call this woman Sarah. Sarah is a middle aged Iraq Vet that chatters, non stop. This woman never quiets down. But she is something of a well known figure in the homeless community (and the tourist community, there are apparently video's on youtube of her "dancing".) So now its Sarah chattering, Brian running around every which way, and Frank doing exercise moves on everything available and occasionally puking. And it is with this motley crew we arrive at the next feeding.

Waiting in line at the next feeding is a contrite looking John. He calls me over to him and gives me a cigarette, then apologizes for what happened this morning. He assures me that he was just worried about Maria's safety but he was happy she had been with me the whole day because "you know these streets and she doesn't". He then says he was never gonna hurt Brian, he just wanted him to understand respect. I try to explain that Brian is a giant 8 year old but he isn't having any of that. He tells me that he knows that Brian just got out of county for some sort of sexual assault on a minor. I have no idea if its true, but accusations of being a sexual predator carry some serious weight in the homeless community so I drop the matter. We finally get into the next feeding and the food is as always, awe-inspiring. (Last Sunday at First Presbyterian church is like a holiday to the homeless around here, its worth its own post honestly.)

During the feeding we wind up sitting in different places so we get split up. By the time my girlfriend and I are done eating and walk back outside everyone from our group has split off in their own directions. I try to track down Brian feeling some sense of responsibility for him but all I can find out is he was last seen heading off towards the last feeding of the day with another group of people. I decide I've had enough for the day and aren't really hungry anymore so I say fuckit and go back to PCY. Once I get inside I grab all my blankets, make a mat out of them and pass out in the shade. (You would be surprised how well you can sleep on concrete with a few blankets once you get used to it.