Helping The Homeless

If you were going to try to pin me down politically, and I wouldn't advise it, it might be necessary to compile something like one of those monstrous Teutonic train-car constructions they use to describe the disappointment one feels upon biting into an inferior strudel or something.

Socialiberalitarianazisticratican might do it, but it'd go easier on you if you just assume that I like to consider issues individually and find that rigid adherence to any ism, party, doctrine, or teaching is a mug's game and part of what's so jacked about the current political landscape.

For instance, I feel strongly that having an army of filthy, drunken, muttering lunatics wandering the streets and stinking up the joint reflects poorly on us as both humans and Americans and that maybe some of the money funding government programs currently in place to ensure that Trump and his cronies have the necessary funds to feed their minks real Beluga caviar in order to soften and shine their coats before they're slaughtered to make seat covers for their lawnmowers so their undocumented gardeners don't get bum boils and strain the healthcare system (that's trickle-down theory in action) could be redirected to housing them in state hospitals, as in the past.

On the other hand, I feel just as strongly that anyone not actively, provably trying to extricate themselves from poverty or homelessness or truly unable to care for themselves should be exempt from receiving any government benefits and furthermore, should not be permitted to vex, molest, harass, pester, or annoy the citizenry to subsidize their laziness, i.e., no begging or “spanging.” If you are so violently opposed to working or otherwise providing for your upkeep that you are willing to abase yourself in this manner, you are demonstrably undesirable, should be designated as such, and run out of town on a rail bearing the memory of a fresh ass-kicking to dissuade any misguided notions of returning. If you are not willing to contribute to society you should not be allowed to participate in it. Period. I say, provide every means possible to educate, elevate, and accommodate the less fortunate who demonstrate a willingness to buckle down and match the state's effort with an equal one of their own; treat with care and solicitude those unabl to care for themselves, and everyone else can go fuck themselves.

Those everyone else who should engage in acts of unaccompanied copulation include the legions of grubby opportunists who infest the county every year with the ostensible aim of profiting from the region's marijuana harvest, but generally wind up absorbed by the ever-increasing and welcoming bosom of the street people, who expect the system to provide not only for their needs but those of their dogs. The nerve, right? It is the mark of a truly disordered mind to assume “responsibility” for the care of another living creature when you are unwilling to provide for your own. I say, dust off the old “no visible means of support” statutes and put 'em to work doing roadside beautification. The prospect of having to engage in actual physical labor should persuade the bulk of these layabouts to give the county a pass.

As a former employee of the Hospitality House, and as the employee most directly associated with the care and feeding of the clientele, it was at my discretion that the actual, practicable level of hospitality conferred would fluctuate. If I felt the person and situation merited it, I might crank it right up to 10 and give the guests an experience akin to staying in a very evil-smelling bed and breakfast. Or, I could dial it back as necessary to express my disapproval, depending upon my own impressions of need and merit, and sometimes just abandon the concept entirely and treat people with outright hostility. It probably wasn't very professional or fair of me, but that's why I don't work in the social services. That, and the people who do are a uniformly dreary bunch, an effect, I imagine, of the dispiriting nature of the work. One's general impression of the overall condition of humanity dips appreciably and settles somewhere somewhat lower than it was prior to becoming intimately involved with the lower orders, engendering an attendant malaise. Not me, though. Any discouragement I might have felt I took out directly on the less deserving. Plainly stated, I felt ethically obligated to treat certain people like shit and others with kindness and maximal TLC, and, as final arbiter, I was untroubled by concerns of futility and pointlessness.

It so happened that one autumn day a bearded brace of road-weary travelers wandered in from, it turned out, Michigan, one extravagantly turned out in Sideshow Bob-level ginger dreads and the other sporting a mousy man-bun. They were in their early 20s, filthy and bedraggled, but appeared to have been well-cared for in the recent past. Precisely the sort of perpetually stoned professional leeches to whom I was apt to be a little less hospitable.

They buttonholed me on the back porch one evening after dinner as I stood overseeing my subjects having their smoke in the backyard, introducing themselves as Mogwai (the ginger) and Pepper. "Righteous grub, bro," said Mogwai.

"Yeah, that was even better than some meals we've paid for," said Pepper.

"Well, I think everybody deserves to eat well, regardless of their ability to pay, or work, or whatever," I said pointedly. These two, while clearly no scholars, were distinctly able-bodied and sane enough to participate in the work force, given a thorough scouring and shearing and perhaps a touch of corrective beating to soften them up a little, kind of ease the transition into the workaday world. Hey, I'll readily admit it's no picnic, but dammit, we've all got to chip in.

"Say," said Pepper, "you ever run across a cat here goes by Peace Frog?"

Cat, frog. ''Not that I recall, not by that name," I said.

"You can't miss him, he's got a Dead skull tattooed on one side of his face and Jim Morrison on the other. We met him up in Boise and he said if we hooked up with him down here he could get us a trimming gig."

''Nope, can't say as I have, and I'd probably remember a face like that."

"You wouldn't know of anyone who might be looking for a couple of trimmers, would you?"

"Happens I do," I said. I didn't. "But I don't know you guys from Adam. I don't know if you know which end of a bud is up, if you'll stick through the season, or even if you're here to try and rip someone off. I can't just blindly send two strangers out to the best goddamn job in the whole Emerald Triangle," I said, dangling the bait.

They fell all over themselves in an effort to establish their bonafides, proclaiming themselves true mavens of kine kulture and paragons of righteousness besides. Time to set the hook.

"Alright, listen," I said. "This place is called Threepenny Farm and it's nestled in a little glen by a creek surrounded by redwoods. It's run by a woman named Leilani, who looks like Stevie Nicks circa 1977. Do you know what that means?"

They both shook their heads no.

"Look it up on the internet. Anyway, she pays fifteen bucks an hour, all the bud you can smoke, and when the job's over you get a couple pounds of shake to take with you. There's an awesome sound system in the trimming area and they play nothing but Dead, Phish, Allman Brothers, Dave Matthews, Widespread, and maybe some Leftover Salmon. Pretty girls come by to rub your shoulders every once in awhile and offer you pot cookies and brownies. Once the job is over there's a huge party where everyone rolls on X and dances in the forest like a bunch of naked pagans. What do you think?"

"Why aren't you working there,"asked Mogwai.

"I'm on parole and I can't risk it,” I said. "Look, Leilani trusts me to send her good people, and if I make that determination I expect to be compensated for it. Twenty bucks each for the referral, and if she likes you and lets you stay you come back and give me 5% after it's over."

The pair splintered off for a confab, and after a minute or two of excited whispering came back and said, "Deal!" in unison. "We don't have the twenty yet,” said Pepper.

"Each," I reminded him.

"Right, each, but we'll get it to you tomorrow."

"Alright, cool. I'll call Leilani tonight, make sure she has a spot for you guys. Do not tell anyone about this. Stop by the library and check out Stevie Nicks, 1977."

"No worries, bra."

They returned to the HH after dinner the next day with 13 one-dollar bills and a shitpot of change, assuring me it added up to $40. I felt a little guilty knowing I'd profited from the harassment of the good citizens of Fort Bragg by this pair o' parasites, but not too. It was in the service of their expulsion and I felt confident all contributions to the cause were justified.

I gave Mogwai and Pepper very specific directions to a particularly troublesome locale in Round Valley, and if you think that was excessively cruel, I put it to you that if they in fact survived the ordeal — I don't know, I never saw them again — they probably emerged as better, stronger men and citizens. True, a mop like Mogwai's may have been irresistibly provocative to anyone with a predilection for scalping palefaces, and while heaven knows I don't want to engage in any stereotyping of natives (I would myself count that head of hair a trophy of inestimable value), it just may be those boys found their destiny up there among the Wylacki. They definitely didn't find the trimmer's paradise I described, though.