Coping

When the dawn rose on the next day; it was met with a determination that we wouldn’t concede to defeat. We chose to press on with our attempts to get items to consign. At first all we were getting were cheap items, perfume, wish-you tissues (By the Watcher, who throws out those things?), stuff that we wouldn’t be able to get anything for. Those went directly back into the dumpster. Or sold off to a passerby. “Hey ya need a box of kleenex, maybe a half used bottle of Chanel No. 5? Five simol...”

“Ewwww get that thing away from me, Are you kidding me?” Well, so much for that entrepreneurial tack...

As our dumpster diving experience grew, we were able to grab things like a lamp or a rug that would sell for more simoleons when consigned. Hey, at least it was an illuminating experience owing as to how much we could smell with our heads in the dumpster. And we left a yucky green stench trail as we walked home. If it wasn’t for the fact that we had to deal with the smell because we didn’t have a shower yet to speak of, we would have gladly used an inordinate amount of water to clean the disgusting scent off us. Let’s face it, we frankly stunk. And frankly, if I were a proprietor, I wouldn’t serve us either. It was more than revolting. River and I oft-wondered if we’d ever get the smell off us.

The tent got hot and muggy too. There was no air-conditioner to cool us down. Even if we had one we didn’t have a generator to use electricity and to tell you the truth, with gas prices at §1.72 a liter, it was uneconomical. If you put in 2 gallons of gas for maybe four hours of running...you’d be spending in the neighbourhood of §16 and what would that get you? An iota’s worth of cooling and then you’re back to being hot and miserable again. Trying to gain sixteen simoleons was practically a hit or miss option when it came to finding stuff in the dumpster that might give us a leg up. And the costs of furniture and other items that one needed to start building a house let alone buying a lot sizeable enough to live on were astronomical and the large earning potential options were capped with sizable fines if you took the route of poaching a spotted sixam or a falcon which would nail you a §10K Department of Wildlife and Fisheries fine for sale of a restricted and protected species or consigned a plutonium or tiberium which would more than likely net you a §50,000 fine plus seizure of all restricted items in your possession. So no...one would prefer not to have something like that happen. The §42K top consignment proceeds limit of a tiberium large spire wasn’t worth getting nailed by a §50K fine. We’d have to watch our dog or cat if we ever got either and make sure he/she dropped his/her find somewhere where no-one would know we’d had (past-tense) one in our possession. Shhhhhh...

Only in the interior rural areas were we able to get some respite from the imposition of the law enforcement that seemed to permeate the urban areas...they would make your life miserable by fining you for all sorts of infractions. If you dropped garbage on the ground instead of in a waste receptacle, they’d nail you for that. If you loitered a bit too long at a location or sat down to use a park bench, they’d hustle you along, telling you to “beat it...” If you were homeless, you weren’t human, according to them. And thus, you were stuck being miserable, out in the elements and in the cold or the heat depending on the season. So we were here in Appaloosa Plains watching the rich people with the horses and farms going off to do whatever it was they do; riding lessons, horse racing, etc. Who knew, all we knew was that we didn’t have that kind of money. Maybe we could bet on the horse races if we had the money to, but we didn’t. Money was too precious to come by and most of it went into our stomachs trying to keep up enough strength to get up and do what we had to do the following day. Maybe life would get better; maybe it wouldn’t. The only thing one could do is just keep getting up the following day and keep trudging through. At least that would make things a bit better in the end...hopefully. At least that was the hope.

In any case, River and I tried to keep our spirits up, whether it was using the cover of a good bush area near a water source to swim in...and at least hope that no-one saw us trying to bathe there. There was also a substantial fine for polluting a waterway. But if you didn’t get clean, you didn’t stay healthy. And becoming sick was a quick trip to the morgue if you were homeless. Colds could quickly turn into flu, flu could quickly turn into pneumonia, pneumonia could lead to lung and organ shut-down. You’d be placed into an in-ground group plot with a bunch of other no-names and no-one could care anything about who you were, what you were about, and why you came to be that way. If you’re a homeless person, you end up being a non-person.

So, River and I took every possible opportunity to stay clean, stay close to a water source and found a way to decontaminate water whether it was via a Puri-Straw that took river-water and purified it to potable/drinkable standards.

We had a cooler so that we could use it to keep stuff if we were lucky enough to have money enough to buy ice...but it didn’t last more than a day so we could only use it on a hot day to keep just enough perishables cool to eat for that day. Then we were back to square one. On the other hand, it could keep enough water in the cooler so that we had drinkable water for a day or two if we boiled it or drank it through the purifying straw.

Our routine became one of get up...eat a fruit or two (an apple) and then go to the nearest orchard to try to see if we could get some more fruits for the next day. We couldn’t get into the firehall and the leisure center wouldn’t allow us in either, so our only bet was to use the washroom facilities at the park and they were closed from 11:00PM to 7:00AM which made things really troublesome if we had to go in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to end up needing the use of the facilities. It was either break in (which was illegal) to the firehall or the leisure center or just find a convenient bush to use as a toilet which might net you a fine for indecent exposure. After all, if you gotta go, ya gotta go.

If one couldn’t, then well, other problems propped up...such as kidney failure – dialysis and eventually death. But then nobody really cares, do they? It’s just a homeless person, not an asset to society, anyways.

There were countless roadblocks to the homeless getting back on their feet and society never acknowledged it. If you don’t have ID, you can’t get benefits to get an income stream to stay healthy enough to go and find work. If you haven’t eaten in several days, you’re going to be in no condition to search for work. If you’re not clean because you haven’t got a place to shower. , the door’s slammed shut on you practically immediately. “Thanks for coming, next! Hey, secretary, ditch this guy’s resume in the circular file. I’m not having him stink up my joint.” Even for those with government health care, if you don’t have an ID, you can’t prove that you’re entitled to health benefits so you’re SOL. And nowadays, it’s getting so that you have to have yourself an online ID in addition to your card just to prove exactly who you say you are; just to access anything government related. So if you have no computer, or smart-phone or heaven forbid, you’ve lost your physical ID, how exactly are you going to prove that you are who you say you are?

Like I can say that I’m Haruo Chikamori, but the only thing that proves that I am who I am is sitting in my pocket in my wallet; a nice government issued identification card that I had to stand in line for forty five minutes for just so that I could show another government issued ID (my social insurance number) so that I could prove that I was who I said I was in duplicate form. And Watcher help me if some pickpocket decides to lift that vaunted government issue identification out of my pocket. In fact, the governments are getting so paranoid that they’re now wanting triplicate identification which means you have to own a smartphone since you’re expected to have provincial “internet”-based identification as well to prove that you are who you say you are.

So...that puts us in the lovely position of:

So now...I have to have a smart-phone to prove that I can prove that I can prove that I am who I say I am...because my picture ID card isn’t good enough to prove that I am who I say I am even with identification in pictorial form...and even when I had to show yet another card (my SIN – see a lovely little acronym...with a nine-digit ID number)...to prove that I can prove that I am who I say I am? Are you fucking kidding me?

...completely flummoxed now? And you need all that shit to “go get yourself a job, ya lazy bum!!!”

George Carlin was right... Never underestimate the power of stupid people...and bureaucrats.

So its easy for those entitled sitting in a nice home and a comfy cushy existence to say, “If you’re homeless...go get yourself a job.” So that’s why homeless panhandle and look through dumpsters. Because the barriers that society places on gaining gainful employment are so high that it’s pointless to even bother when you have to jump through oxymoronic hoops just so that you can get yourself some picture ID...and if you don’t have your birth certificate (which you may have lost or had had stolen) and you’re looking for your next meal out of a dumpster, there’s no way that you can get a replacement. So tell me this. How does one go about replacing your picture ID when you need a birth certificate which you also don’t have and to get the replacement birth certificate, you have to have a picture ID? Isn’t that just running around in circles? Or you can have a friend vouch for you at a registered notary who will give you a government approved and notarized document to present saying that so and so Goodheart said that you are who you say you are. Good luck with that as all your friends have headed for the high-road the second you got fired and ended up homeless. You think you have friends? No, you don’t and you only have so many hours in a day and if you have to use every minute of your day to look for food, how are you going to rustle up the time to go get your ID situation straightened out? And, well, if you haven’t eaten for three days straight, you’re in no condition to wield a pick-axe for eight hours straight let alone look for a job anyways.

If you have friends who stuck with you while you were homeless? Make sure you hang on to them because they’re the true friends...and not leeches hanging on waiting for your opportunity to make it rich.

River and I, despite everything, that had been thrown at us have tried to stay optimistic; that maybe eventually someone will give us a chance and let her have a job and I can find a way to make an income too and maybe we’ll get back on our feet, somehow. We took the little moments that we had in order to be able to keep our spirits up, kisses, hugs, making out and well...hey, we were married after-all...woohoo...although that in itself was a risk considering we didn’t have the income to support a child. But sometimes, you just need solace and we took comfort in each other; the feel of each other as we took and gave pleasure to each other.

We sold our cameras, so unfortunately, there was no way for us to buy another one so that I could pursue photography. And photography was a rather iffy proposition. Even if you had the skills, it all hinged on how much business sense you had. If you couldn’t field a logical business proposal, you were pretty much tied to the ground in terms of getting your business up off it.

We’d tied our lives together for better or for worse and well, River now knew just how much worse it was in terms of our financial situation. Unfortunately, it was going to be a long hard slog through the muck of homelessness and the fact that we had nothing left of the life that we had when we both had good-paying jobs. In fact, the stress would have led anyone lesser to drink themselves to the point of inebriation...and/or find themselves some chemical cathartic release.

But in that way the demon lies and we were not going to mess up our lives any worse than it already was. It wasn’t worth it. The malevolent lure of drugs was always a battle on the streets. Too much stress can do bad things to one’s health but that temptation of letting go of one’s stress in a drug-induced haze of minimal relief but instant gratification tied itself to much greater stress on one’s body and an even worse health outcome in the end.

So our best bet was just to “Say No” to drugs and alcohol and just try to use life itself as our drug of choice. Whatever life threw at us was going to be what caused our ups and our downs not some cocktail of stimulant with some obscure chemical makeup. We’ll stick with good ol’ H2O thank you. Good ol’ water, you can count on it to hydrate you, even if you weren’t a plant-sim.

...most of the time. Of course if you drank polluted water, it could potentially give you the runs...and that could do the direct opposite of what water is supposed to do and dehydrate you to the point of organ collapse. Hence the reason why River and I always made sure that we either used the purification tablets and purification straws or we took water from the river and boiled the living heck out of it before drinking it or using it for cooking.

When we headed up to do anything, we’d duck through the festival park because there were always flowers to pick – at least that hadn’t been legislated to hell and back and we were able to pick a few items to sell off. I had put one in at the consignment and it sold for a pretty penny. Unfortunately, a few of our consignment items didn’t do so well, so it wasn’t too great for us. Until we could gather together the money to license ourselves as government authorized gem-sellers, we couldn’t do anything with the gemstones that we found in the dumpster. So the only thing that we could do was collect them. And the government wanted you to pay §25,000.00 up front to be able to sell these things as an authorized seller. But at least that was a one time fee. We could hawk them but we’d only get a fraction of the price of these gemstones as opposed to ones that were cut and polished. So I’d found an amethyst in the dumpster...

...and I couldn’t do anything with it in any case. We were stuck hanging on to it until we’d gathered together the money for licensing as an authorized gem-seller.

River and I had our little spot in the area that was out of the way...within a grove of trees which kept people away from our little spot. We could also get in the water...and with a good lookout we could keep from getting harassed by the Dept. of Fisheries and Wildlife, while we were washing off and swimming. We also snorkelled a bit to see if we could find something useful. River did find a nautilus shell, but that might get us a nasty little fine for poaching sea-life so we may just have to drop it back where we found it. Better not to tempt fate. Me, I tried my hand at it but didn’t find a thing. River did also find a Blue Topaz so she’s doing ok; not that we can do anything about it at the moment. So it’s all dumpster diving at the moment...and only two items a day. It’s going to take a while before we can build a little shed to call our own, just to get out of the elements. Because it will be fall soon enough even if it’s at the height of summer right now...and I don’t think River and I want to be living in a tent when the cold weather hits. But if we have to, it’s going to make it really tough to stay warm; so we’ll probably have to make sure that we have plenty of firewood in the next while to keep us when the cold weather hits. It may be a toss-up on whether we may have to flout the law and break into the firehall or leisure center to have someplace out of the cold to sleep. We may have to look into sleeping bags to ensure that we have something that we can easily drop down to sleep in anywhere while keeping our tent as a semi permanent place to lay down our heads. In any case, at least the cops haven’t sighted where we’ve planted ourselves. There is a 64x64 lot by the riverside but that’s about §8,192 about §3000 more than what we can afford with how much we have on us at the moment. At least we haven’t pissed off the farmers since we haven’t gone in and stolen any of their fruits and vegetables although sometimes it’s been tempting to do so.

The last thing we want to do is give ourselves a bad rap with the cops and the citizens of Appaloosa Plains. We don’t have anywhere else to go at the moment and until such time as we’re able to make ourselves enough money to get settled down someplace, we just have to stomach living like indigents. It’s not fun, but well, you do what you have to do.

I said to River, my throat tight; “I promised you a better life than this...I’m sorry, honey.”

River told me. “Don’t ever apologize. That’s what our vows were, for better or for worse, my love. Whatever happens to us, I’m right there with you...and that’s all that matters.” How did I end up with her. Was it just the luck of the draw that I ended up with someone who would stick with me through everything that life would throw at us?

“I love you, sweetheart.” I told her as heartfelt as I could convey, considering how badly off we were in this situation.

“Don’t ever forget that I love you too...” River told me. “However tough this gets, we go through this together side by side. Unlike others who will bail if things get rough, I’m with you...no matter what...honey...no matter what...”>

I don’t know if I could see clearly at that moment because of the tears misting my eyes. But I pulled her into the biggest hug that I could.

...and somehow, I channeled her faith into me into a faith in her and with the aid of some dried up weather-beaten old wood, I managed to make her an easel so that she could pursue her painting. Putting it together was a labour of love and hope that included a box of nails and about four butterfly screws donated by a charitable fellow by the name of Kanoa Parrott. Have to remember that fellow one of these days when she makes it big. And the love in River’s eyes towards me when she saw that thing put together and the intense hug and kiss that she gave me healed my soul and made the effort all worthwhile.

We would do whatever it took to make it.