How To: Change Your Perception

12:08. Eight minutes past closing. Eight minutes of sitting on a bench awaiting Chyna. A few weeks or months ago, I would have left irritated at five after. I don’t like sitting still. But, suddenly I wasn’t in a hurry. Suddenly it was a quiet cool night and the sky was black blue, and there were just less than five stars shining in it. It was alright and I was patient. I found myself just going with it frequently; letting the routine be broken along whatever cracks it had and waiting to see what might come crawling out. It was unnerving at first. After the first time I moved out of state. And after the second. And right before moving for the third time. In my mind the words, “but I’m learning so much,” were forming and I was already laughing at myself out loud. It was something to get used to, it was unnerving as hell, but I was getting used to it or so I kept telling myself. I looked at the white pizza box titling on the iron bench next to me. I knew she would show, anyhow; she was hungry and I knew that hunger.

Then she was there, rubber bike wheels squeaking to a stop and a breathless apology that was unnecessary so I told her so.

“Hey. So I dunno what you’re situation is...” she blinked after I trailed off and I caught a thin line of lavender eyeliner running across her eye lids. Her skin was smooth, aged and yet unrevealing of how aged and blemish free. She smiled and blinked with clear fresh eyes. A sign I took that meant she wasn’t gone. One foot was propped on the bike pedal wheel still and the other beat sneaker was planted on the ground and she was leaning on it. I was still trying to hand her the pizza box and she still wasn’t grabbing it. I pressed it forward.

What I had meant by “your situation,” was a polite and vague way of asking whether or not she was homeless and without being blatantly accusative. Although, I had few reason to doubt it. She had hunger written all over her bony band aid ridden bones. She had also come into the pizza shop I was working at twice asking only for ice and leftovers.

“What time do you guys close?” she asked missing my point or wholly ignoring it. I would have, it was insultingly vague.

“Midnight.”

“Oh, you’re cute! You were waiting for me, weren’t you?” I didn’t answer and it didn’t matter she was carrying on still breathless. “I came racing down here, I sleep on Cedar and 7th. There’s a black gate there, in between the church and the women’s house. And me and my man sleep there- in between.”

I smiled and pretended I knew exactly where she was talking about. There was no sense in explaining where I was from or that I was impossibly ignorant when it came to directions in general.

“Listen, normally I head that-away,” I waived my arm down 4th street which was clearly the opposite direction of where she seemed to be motioning towards.

“I usually take whatever leftover slices we got and drop ‘em off by the Sevy. There’s a couple people that hang around there-” I was going to finish with instructions for her to meet me there in order to kill the birds with one stone but she was already telling me her cellphone number and asking me to meet her by the church the following night.

The following night I was relieved prior to closing and was unable to meet her.

The next day on my skate into work, I was whizzing by completely lost in my mind and she called out over the music blaring in my eardrums. I slid my foot down and pulled the earbud out surprised with myself for stopping rather than pretending I didn’t hear her, which I could have done and have done to folks I might even consider acquaintances. Some I managed to throw waives over the shoulder to along with a look that was meant to read “I’m in a hurry to get back to work.” Other’s I successfully completely ignored.

So, I smiled. I was proud of myself.

“Are you going into work?”

I told her I was and in the heap of clothes and junk and tents, I recognized another woman’s face. She was the woman I usually dropped boxes to. The last time she had been asleep and a small brown and white dog was wagging himself from the tent and was sniffing the box as I set it down. I doubted the pizza made it until the morning and I regretted leaving it within the little runt’s reach.

I checked the time. Now I was running late so my ear bud was going back in and I was telling her I would see her later that night.

Later that night, I was relieved from closing, again. This time I decided to creep around downtown and wait the hour and a half until close. Then, I would slip back in and back out with whatever old sad looking pizza slices were left. So, I was sitting behind a glass of pinot noir attempting to sip very slowly as to not let it go to my head. I hadn’t been drinking much (in fact it had been about two months) and it was in fact going to my head fast. Around 9:30 (half hour until close) my phone was buzzing and Chyna’s name appeared. I ignored the call. I’ve never been one for talking on the phone, not even to people I know well. I texted her back immediately pretending to still be at work. I could only handle being called “cute” about one time, therefore I felt it necessary Chyna was unaware I was in fact lingering after my shift.

I scrolled through the paragraph text she had sent me with one eye. She was wondering whether or not she could meet me right then. Could she meet me outside of my work? Something about a ferris wheel and a carnival she had just been at.. (maybe she was a little gone, there were no carnivals that I knew of around town) and when (again) could I meet her?

It was all very reminiscent of something from my not so distant past. I remembered texts such as these, the impatience, the fickle meet up points, and the waiting all night to meet someone. The only difference was I was not the one sending the impatient texts, and that I was slinging dead pizza slices, not drugs.

I realized I had a lingering sensation of doing something wrong. I also realized I was already mentally preparing myself for an argument with the owner, and potentially defending my job. In my mind all day I had been calculating what loss he would be taking with me and this shady pizza slinging business. The slices would inevitably end up in the trash if they were not sold. No money lost there. The boxes, however, the manager had already snapped at me for forgetting my left over slices a few nights earlier. Which I had also cursed myself for seeing as I shamefully skated by the tents I normally stopped at with a pretend look of, “Sorry we sold them all tonight, I hope you weren’t depending on eating tonight!”

So, boxes. They couldn’t cost more than a quarter a piece...I could offer to pay for the boxes and then if there was still an argument, I’d have to give it up. And by give it up, I mean go about my business more stealthily.

But why was I feeling this way? Why did the donation of leftover food feel like a shady drug deal? Why was I anticipating resistance over this?

And why, do so many speak of the ‘homeless’ with such disdain?

The magnitude to which I have heard other spew hate over those living on the street has made me uncomfortable; made me physically nauseous.

I was never much of the ‘people person’ however I kept a fairly positive outlook on all other living beings. .so long as they mostly leave me alone. Where did such violence, such anger and coldness come from? It was as if we were some kind of vile antibody gone rogue and killing off innocent pieces of our own body.

The hatred comes from some sort of conditioning to attack those who appear weak, who in fact need a kind gesture the most. We have been taught to fend only for ourselves while letting the rest of the world burn in hell. I was hearing the lyrics to a Roots song running around my mind, “Out on the streets where I grew up, the first thing they teach you is not to give a f*ck.” Except it’s not just the streets, it’s the classroom, it’s the television buzzing late at night, it’s the social media. It’s your friends who make jokes about throwing champagne bottles at the heaps of rags and bones sleeping on the cement. And it’s you when you laugh so you can look cool for the moment, when you forget under that heap is a living breathing being with dreams and nightmares, same as you. And later at night when you lay your head against your pillow, when your friends are gone, when no one cares whether or not you’re cool will you suddenly see the eyes of the man laying on the sidewalk? Will you regret that moment? Will you be able to look your own eyes in the mirror?

I did eventually go to 7th and Cedar. When I got there and looked around the fat white church, bodies were strewn about. It was dark and I couldn’t count how many and they were embarrassed and shuffling about and I was trying to search for someone’s face I recognized. She was running late.

I had brought A, ONE singular piece of pizza with me and I felt like a chump. I knew when Chyna did show up, she would be worried when I told her I was going to meet her there from now on, instead of across the street from my job.

“Yeah, but they’re greedy,” she had skidded down the sidewalk and I had handed her what I had and she was worried.

“Don’t worry I’ll make sure I’ll hit you first,” as soon as I was saying it I was already wondering if I was going to be able to and something started to drop like a rock down my throat. And when I took off down 7th to Pine, to 4th I realized it was going to take more than just a few dead curly leftover pieces of pizza. It was going to take a massive shift in all of our perceptions.

And that is why I’m writing this, it’s not about what I’m doing. I barely know what I’m doing. It’s about what you can do. It isn’t hard to figure out what the right move is. Spread the leftovers, spread the love, spread whatever you can.