Street Kid Folklore
From GSLISWiki
Since people have asked me on several occasions about what it was like to be homeless, and Betsy Hearne said that there really had not been much work done on the Folklore of the homeless, here's an informal recounting of some of my impressions.
I want to note that I was always an outsider to the group. I will explain it in more detail below, but I was never truly accepted into the group.
Contents |
[edit] Culture
There is definitely a street kid culture, and while it varies from place to place, there are some definite commonalities between places since street kids travel so much.
[edit] Natives vs. Travelers
There were generally two types of homeless people I knew, natives and travelers. Natives either were from the city I was in, or had lived there for several decades and never left. Travelers were constantly moving around, and rarely stayed in a city for more than 6 months. I was definitely part of the traveler culture.
[edit] Race, Gender, & Sexuality
[edit] Race:
The homeless communities tend to be segregated along racial lines. While this is not a hard and fast rule, the culture I was a part of was largely made up of white kids who were travelers. The black population tended to be older, and tended to be natives of whatever city I was in. Local white kids often interacted with both cultures. Other ethnic groups tended to be travelers as well, and so they tended to be incorporated in the street kid culture, and there were some black people who were travelers, and they always were a part of the street kid culture. There was little open tension between the two communities, and for the most part, most people got along fine. Most of the street kids I knew well had no racist tendancies. But there was definitely some mistrust between the groups, and as many of the members of the native black culture made money by hustling, and they did not hesitate to hustle street kids who were naive, they were sometimes stigmatized/stereotyped as being untrustworthy by street kids. I have no idea how the street kids were perceived by the black homeless culture. In both communities, any outsider was fair game. There was more respect for insiders, but there were some kids who would hustle or steal from anybody, and you needed to know who you could trust. Being an insider did not make you immune.
Older whites tended to be natives, and alchoholics, and tended to have been forced onto the streets when their lives fell apart due to some crises. Many of them had accepted their lot in life, though some still hoped to live a normal life again. Many of the stories of their youth were greatly exagerated, and there was always a strong emphasis on how they had been financially well to do, but had lost it all, often due to the meddlings of a particular person. While mental illness was prevalent among all groups of homeless, nearly every older white person I met was moderately to severely mentally ill. There were some exceptions to this rule, and the exceptions were nearly all travelers: ex-bikers or old hippies.
[edit] Gender:
There were no gender differences, as far as I could tell. Kids were kids, and they treated eachother equally, and behaved the same. Everything I write applies to both genders. There were more boys than girls. The one role that some females had was that of a Mother figure. There was a fortune teller who took care of the street kids she knew--she was very nice. And there were some female street kids who were older who looked out for some of their more vulnerable friends. This caretaker behavior was absent in the males.
[edit] Sexuality:
Since in some ways, the street kid culture is a crude mirror of mainstream culture, there is a certain reluctance to talk about being gay, especially among the travelers, given the fact that many of them had a conservative rural upbringing. And some have absolutely no tolerance for gays. The openly gay kids I knew tended to be locals, though emphatically not part of the black local homeless culture (there was no tolerance for gays there either). The locals who were regulars in the downtown area tended to be not very intelligent, or tended to be cultural outcasts, and the openly gay kids tended to fit in either of those categories. A number of the fortune tellers in Jackson Square were cautiously gay (gay, but only told their friends to avoid getting beat up).
Travelers who had gay tendancies tended to be unsure of their sexuality, and this uncertainty exhibited itself in a variety of manners. One common reaction was to openly make crude, homosexual comments (John' ass is so sexy and tight I want to fuck it till he screams), but then denying that they are gay, and pretending that they made the comments to shock people (there is a high, unspoken value on the capacity to shock outsiders, and one way to fit in is to laugh at outsider's reactions). It also expressed itself in media choice. Homosexual experiences were not completely uncommon even for straight kids (though they would NEVER talk about it with anybody they did not completely trust), but usually they were the result of a type of prostitution. Openly gay street kids, almost always locals, who did not fit in with any crowd, often were prostitutes. Female street kids were rarely prostitutes, though a number of them had prostituted themselves on occasion. This irregular prostitution (female and male) often happened either in cases of extreme desperation, or due to pressure, or high reward. And it was very circumstantial--never planned.
Male street kids are actively targeted by older or richer gay men. Nearly every guy who offered me a ride when I was walking along a road but not hitchhiking was gay, and some of them insisted on taking me to their houses. Many older white guys were very nice, and never asked for anything. They liked to talk, and tell me about their problems, relationships, etc. One even liked me so much that he would buy me lunch or things just to spend time with me, even though I made it very clear that he was not going to get anything from me. I was the only person he knew he could practice his german with, and he tried to get me to come see him sing in his church choir, but I declined. The younger, richer ones were more predatory. One let me shower in his house, and offered me a drink. When I was in the shower, he walked into the bathroom and gave it to me. I thanked him, took the drink (sealed can), and continued showering, and he got the message, and once I was done, drove me back to town.
Some of the gay men on the street are very predatory. Any time a homeless man goes out of his way to be nice to you, it is a clear warning flag that he wants something from you. Black men tend to want your money, white men tend to want your body. Bad things don't always happen, but sometimes they do. The first time I went to New Orleans, I knew nothing of the city, and was very inexperienced at being homeless when I could not fall back on couch-surfing. I met a guy in the train station, and he sold me some fancy story about how he was a foreman at a construction company. Because I was desperate for a job, I fell for it. It turned out to be a lie, but because I had nowhere else to turn, we spent the next week or so hanging out, and he introduced me to the town, showed me where the day labor place was so I could work, etc. At first all he talked about were boobs and girls, but I've never been much of a lecher. Over time, he started developing this habit of smacking my ass, and I thought it was wierd, but figured he had played football in highschool, and it was some locker-room habit of his for his close friends. Then, one day he was watching out while I slept so if a cop came by he could wake me up and we could move on. This was not unusual practice for homeless people, and I have watched out for a number of my friends while they slept (you only do it with someone you trust). I was just dropping off to sleep when he started feeling me up. Clearly he crossed the line, and if someone crosses the line when you are living on the streets, you need to make it amply clear that you will not allow yourself to be taken advantage of. After I made it clear that the line had been crossed, he left me alone from that point on, and even paid me $40 to get my glasses fixed.
[edit] Gutter Punks, Gutter Fucks, and other Travelers
Of the street kid travelers there were two major divisions, the Gutter Punks, and the Gutter Fucks. While there were some kids who hung out with both types of street kids, that was the exception more than the rule. This did not mean that people from the two groups did not know each other, or did not interact with each other, or did not share squats or sidewalk space with each other, it just meant that the majority of time they spent hanging out with people of their own groups.
[edit] Gutter Punks
The Gutter Punks were largely kids from small towns, and they tended to be quite intelligent. They were bored by their surroundings growing up, and from families that were too poor to give them a chance at escaping the small town life. They had two options, either join the military, or start traveling by hitchhiking or catching trains. Many of the street kids had good childhood friends who were in the military, and a couple of them actually had been in the military themselves. A number of them were avid readers, regularly lifting books from bookstores and the library (sometimes even authors like Dostoyevsky), and there was some bartering of books. While the Gutter Punks got their name from Punk Music, and while lots of them liked Punk music, and readily identified themselves through their music, there were some exceptions. One of the kids I knew firmly insisted that he wasn't a Gutter Punk because he did not like punk music--he prefered classic rock or hard rock.
[edit] Gutter Fucks
The Gutter Fucks were the stupid kids. They tended to be less careful about hiding illegal activities, and often allowed themselves to be taken advantage of even though they knew better. The best example of a gutter fuck is a kid (nick-) named after pond scum. He loved to brag about how he got beat up, and show off all of his cuts, bruises, dried blood, etc. So he would pick fights with guys twice as tall as him. In one incident I witnessed, he jumped a guy smoking on the steps by the river from behind, and started hitting the guy; it was totally unprovoked. The guy turned around and beat the living crap out of the kid, while he was laughing. The next three days he spent walking around the city bragging about how badly he got his ass kicked. And the surprising thing is that he had groupies who emulated his behavior and followed him around.
[edit] Cheesewhiz
Cheesewhiz was the nickname that was given to all outsiders who did not belong in any of the other groups. It was primarily used by gutter fucks. I was sometimes branded a cheesewhiz (rarely to my face, as it was a term primarily used about people behind their backs). These were often misfits who did not fit into the street kid life, did not dress the same, or act the same, and was largely composed of kids who did not choose the life, and often who were running from something. Most cheesewhiz would be considered nerds in mainstream culture.
[edit] Hippies
This is the group I most identified with. Most of the people who self-identified as hippies paid little more than lip service to most of the hippie ideals. The term was mainly used to differentiate themselves from the Gutter Punks, as they were less crude, valued hygene, and did not put a strong emphasis on shock value. The love was more important than the peace, but all too often it was only physical love which they advocated. Some of the people who fit into this group simply identified themselves as street kids, since they did not like any of the other labels used to identify homeless people. The hippies and the gutter punks blended together as groups, and it was very difficult to distinguish them from one another. The names were more reflections of personal values than an indication of two seperate cultures. Many hippies also came from poor rural towns, though more of the travelers who grew up in an urban environmet were hippies.
There were some notable exceptions, however; people who exemplified the true hippie ideal. These individuals lived on kindness to strangers, peace, and love of their fellow humans. They were people of all ages, genders, or races. They lived to travel and see the world.
[edit] Surviving the Streets
I don't recommend the life for anybody, as it is not safe unless you know what you are doing. But here are some pointers in case you don't have a choice.
- Never have anything. Travel light. The more bags you have, the more you stand out (I had two large bags). Anything that you don't carry with you all the time you need to stash someplace. Hide it, hide it well, hide it where nobody else will find it, and don't use somebody else's hiding place. If you leave your stuff sitting out in a squat, it will get stolen if it has any value at all. If you have money, keep it on you at all times, in your pocket, not in your wallet.
- Never, ever show your desperation. Every time I hinted that I wanted something, I got ripped off. If you don't show any want, people will give you what they have. If you show want, they will hustle you out of what you have. I was always looking to find a good job, and every time someone offered to go out of their way to help me get a job, I got hustled.
[edit] Sleeping
You are most vulnerable when you are sleeping, and sleeping in public can get you arrested. One solution to this dilemma is to sleep during the day in a park, or in a public area like a train station or a library. It is very important not to look too much like a homeless person (dress, cleanliness, tidiness), and to pretend you accidentally fell asleep (book in your hands or over your face usually works well). Otherwise they will kick you out. However, it is very difficult to feel comfortable doing this, and rarely will your sleep be quality, so it is not easily sustainable unless you find a niche. In New York you could sleep in the subways at night as long as you were careful, but you tended to be interrupted by policemen telling you to move on.
If you are going to sleep outside, you need to hide yourself well (in bushes which people don't use as a toilet sometimes works), or in a place which other homeless people have found safe, but only if they invite you (under a bridge in a group sometimes works).
The best place to sleep is a squat (an abandoned building). Never show up at a squat uninvited, if you are checking out a place, and find it occupied, apologize and move on. People are very protective of their squats, and they don't want to get busted because some idiot lets the neighbors watch him enter the squat, and the neighbors call the police. Some people have even stolen cable, electricity, and phone service in their squats, and nobody knows that they don't actually own or rent the building. A good squat is hard to find. The best thing to do is to get to know some people well, and then ask them if they know of a place to sleep. Eventually, if your luck is good, you'll find a place.
[edit] The Police
The police are not your friend. Every city is different, but be very careful of trusting any police. If you see them comming, get up and start walking away. Never run unless you want them to chase you. If they talk to you, always be polite, and if they ask you to move on, apologize and leave. Do nothing to provoke anything. Unless, of course, you want to go to jail, or don't care.
I suspect that part of the mistrust between the races on the streets, which is much more pronounced in the north than in the south, is the fact that most homeless people not only have been to jail, but spend 25-75% of their lives in jail. Out for a few weeks, in for a few months, when released, move on to the next city. In most jails, and especially in prison, the races are strictly self segregated, and it is a matter of survival that you join your own racial group. Otherwise you are extremely likely to be beaten, raped, or killed. And racism is very pronounced on both sides. When you are released from such an environment, it is very hard to loose the ingrained impressions, predjudices, and behaviors. And most people don't make the effort.
[edit] New Orleans
The police in New Orleans will arrest you for no reason. They will make up a charge, and there is one judge that is a hardass, and always gives the full sentence for any crime. So you will be doing jail time if you get arrested, no matter why. The charge written on the copy of the police report of one of my friends was "Urinating on an Officer of the Law". Obviously, there is no such charge. The police will often steal your money if you get arrested, and they will sometimes steal all of your IDs, because if you can't present an ID when you are asked for one on the streets, they can detain you indefinitely until they find out who you are (and they take their time). If you piss them off, they will beat the crap out of you before taking you in. And the only jail in town is OPP: Orleans Parish Prison, so you will be in there with hard-core prisoners.
Obviously, there are some nice police officers in the city. Most of the ones I encountered just wanted to do their jobs, get their check, and go home to their family. But there are some, especially young white males who are ex-soldiers/ex-MPs, and feel compelled to exercise their authority at every opportunity. Those are the ones you want to avoid. Motorcycle cops and horse cops are, more often than not, of this type. Avoid state troopers like the plague.
[edit] No Hitchhiking Story
One of my friends was hitchiking somewhere rural, and he missed a ride, so he was walking down a highway. He had gone a couple miles, when a cop car pulled up to him, and cop said "Hey, no hitchhiking is allowed in this state."
He replied, "I'm not hitchhiking, I'm just walking."
Cop: "You're not allowed to walk along the highway."
The kid looked around, and there was no exit nearby, and no road running next to the highway, it was all fields.
He said, "Oh, ok, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Can you give me a ride then to the next town?"
Cop: "No."
Kid: "Um, sir, what do you want me to do?"
Cop: "I want you to stop breaking the law."
Obviously, there was nothing he could do, since if he walked into the fields, not only would he be lost, but he would be trespassing as well. So he got arrested on the spot, and spent the next while in jail.
