DRAMA QUEEN!: "The Play's the Thing",...part 1

After careful consultation with the voices in my head,...and my agent. I've decided to make my current adventure on the streets into a play. 'Makes as much sense as anything else that happened to me lately.

One of my relatives sez I should seek out a book deal as this "Middle Class Homeless" thing is gonna get hot. I'm on da ground floor of a media feeding frenzy.

Apparently I have the makings of a good tv guest, and or radio talk show item.

"Radio Announcer thrown on street! "His heroic struggle to retain his self respect,...and his porn collection"

Uncle Sydney, "The Homeless Satirist" is available for media interviews, and public appearances...blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

You get the picture.

This is nightmare. I will wake up,...won't I?

Anyway I'll leave my fame building for later. Right now there's the play. I see it as a one man show with props,...gotta have props.

Jars full of pressurized foam, rabbits in hats, stupid puppets, burning hoops to jump through all the usual conjurers nick-knacks.

I'll need that stuff to show how I have been transformed from a person into a thing.

Which is what this state of Homelessness is.

You become an object.

Then you cease to exist.

You disappear.

Hell of a Magic Trick.

'But then it happens everyday,...doesn't it.
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"THE PLAY'S THE THING",...part II

"Great Expectations"

I've been advised to keep a daily record of my life on the road. That is other than what you've been reading here so far. Basically a laundry list of the hour to hour, day to day mayhem of this mini-series of which I'm the main character.

Swell.

My life as an urban ghost then. You are seen, but not seen. There's the humiliation one feels in this new identity. There you are with a large back pack, and bulging should bag. In this era these things scream "HOMELESS!" to all, but the most socially innocent.

I feel the eyes of the whole city on me when I am so encumbered.

This profoundly sucks.

'But to the details,...time, time is very different. Your internal chronometer is knocked to hell'n back. The days melt into one another. Soon if you stay the months, and years will do the same thing.

Appearances. One tries to maintain a middle class 'aura' like Harry Potters "Cloak of Invisability" for protection. "No the cops can't harrass me I'm middle class!"

"For Christ's sakes I watch "LOST!"

"I'm normal!, I'm real!"

"I'm not one of "THEM!"

'But enough of the internal voice narrative let's get to the fun part.

The frigg'n play.

It's simple really. Visualize me up there on a little stage with all my toys, props, slides, videos, and music. Some musician pals is going to play live for effect. Eh. don't tell'em 'cause I ain't asked yet.

Right.

The arc of this story starts when my elderly cousin has a stroke. I say elderly 'cause my dad married real late so my cousins on his side tended to be 20 to 30 years older than me.

...back to the arc.

Scene opens,...I'm living with my cousin in the old family house.

I've always lived with family. 'Never liked the notion of giving dough to strangers, and sleeping in a strange place.

(Like the sister in "Little Women" that never wanted to leave home, and disappear into the world,...that was me.)

Well my cousin Tempy has a stroke. Then profound dementia kicked in. I'm the primary caregiver,...'cause I love her.

Jump ahead three years. Tempy dies, and with her part of me.

A period of family mayhem ensues as the "wolves" fight over her goods. You may be familiar with this tradition.

'Mayhem is resolved as the faction that wanted to cash in on my cousin's bones sells the house.

...and toss's me onto the street.

Okay you with me so far.

Now I go from street, to room, to street, to grand mansion,...I really did for a week, to street,...where I was robbed of my bags. The ones that were so embarrassing?

Good now the crooks can be embarrassed!

This game of housing ping pong goes on for a few months. During which I start to go nuts. 'Hearing sounds, and seeing stuff. This I'm told this is from stress, and malnutrition.

Actually dehydration is my worse enemy.

Well that, and my joints ache from the cold. Also my feet hurt 'cause you're always on the move. 'And btw you 'have' to be or the cops, and or maniacs will kill you.

I mean it,...I saw the cops kick the shit out of an old guy that gave them lip.

I now suspect that cops kill homeless folks sometimes.

The things I've seen.

However besides that, and all the other routine atrocities out there I've found that being Homeless is good for you.

...in a way.

Before this unimaginable nightmare from the bowels of Hell befell me I was a bloated beached whale like most middled aged cranks. Thanks to my new lifestyle I'm losing weight. I can actually feel if not yet see my ribs.

Ummm, ribs.

Oddly I'm not really that hungry, yet. 'But that dehydration thing... Gang if you're planning on this sort of life get a big frigg'n canteen,...two of 'em.

Where was I?

Right,...Home, Caregiver, Betrayal, Homeless, Street.
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"THE PLAY'S THE THING",...part III

"Recovery",...of a sort.

Here's the real "Great Expectations" part.

Recovery,...this bit has only just started, and is tentative in the extreme. Friends, and family are slowly finding out what happened to me. Rescue of a sort is on the horizon. Offers of help, advice, and a Miracle

Miracle?

Yeah.

I mean beside the heads up on possible homes or available apartments there was this 'Gift' from out of the blue.

Remember that scene at the end of "Its a Wonderful Life" where everybody in town comes together to save old George Baileys bacon?

Well,...good grief.

So there I am drowning in 'well earned' self pity when I gets a Fed Ex package at my job. I figure it's a summons or something the way things have been going.

I opens it up, and an envelope falls out,...no return address.

In the missive is a cashiers check.

(????!!!!)

A note sez "I hope this is enough to get you back on your feet."

....and that boy's, and girls is where I am now.

To be continued.
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