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So. I’m at the Shalom Center in Bloomington, Indiana. College town. Trees. Cute shops. Parking meters to discourage the riffraff…
I’m in line for a free breakfast...
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Looking down the long queue toward the steam table.
“Damn all the instant oatmeal’s gone…” I mumble out loud. A lot. “That shit settles my ulcer…”
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See, I just got off the ancient bus that the Genesis Project works as a shuttle.
They used to run a warming shelter for the homeless. We hang out there & sleep on cots in a large tent. 8pm to 6am. March to November.
The rest of the day, we’re on the street… I usually hang at the library… internet.
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But they kick you out if you’re caught napping. Meditating, too… Wow, that was embarrassing.
But right now… the library’s about a 6-block walk, breakfast, and a public shower away…
The next guy in line looks like he just woke up… in the early 70s. Army fatigues.
Knit dread cap over scraggly gray hair… Thin guy. Musta heard me cuss out the oatmeal.
I’m in line for a free breakfast. Looking down the long queue toward the steam table.
“Yeah. Depends on donations.”
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He doesn’t look at me… directly. Little bird glances. At my face. My hands. “The good stuff comes and goes.”
“Yeah. Sounds like, ya know… life.” Okay. I was a wannabe class clown. But it did help me survive 2nd grade.
The white Rasta warrior peers into my eyes… real fast.
Then goes hazy a moment… like he’s lost inside. Then… cracks the goofiest grin I’d ever seen on the streets.
“You’re okay.” He shuffles down the line. I shuffle behind him.
“You too.”
I like homeless folks. I never understood social status anyways, maybe cuz I’m autistic.
Most homeless don’t pay any attention either. Bob Dylan wrote about the street, “When ya ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.” Homeless know EVERYONE’s just a pink slip away from nothin’ to lose.
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Me and Rasta end up at the same round lunch table… wobbling awkwardly back in the corner. Wrapped in vinyl floors and cement walls. Cold. Like a crypt.
“I’m Johnny,” I reach out my hand. “Been on the street a coupla weeks.”
He disappears inside.
Comes back with another smile. “My name is Theo. I have been on the streets off and on since grad school.”
As I remember, he’d set off to be a psych researcher. Cracked up before his orals. We had a lot in common.
We swapped grad school war stories a while… This was way more fun than dodging crabby librarians. So we hung.
We got into what a blast it is just to discover new shit. Any new shit. Academic or not. ANY shit. If it was cool…
“You know… I never wanted to teach.”
He blurts out… in the middle of my best story. Then he looks away. “Or run a department. Just research. Use my brain. But the weird thing…?”
A man of few words. And many pauses…
“I have jobs sometimes. For awhile. But I don’t like the ones where I use my brain.
I like the repetitive ones. I like factories. Janitor. I can think… I’m in a different place…”
And there it was. Two homeless.
Both crazy, more than likely. Both “failures,” demonstrably. Certainly neurodivergent. He knew it. I didn’t yet…
But here we were, strangers.
Talking joy. Openly. Unashamedly. First time in our lives. In a homeless center...
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Johnny Profane Âû