Photography

Since getting a new camera, I've become hooked on photography. Here are some of the shots I've gotten...

Allen likes to drink

By the time Kindred made his return from Holly Hill, I had become friends with Allen. Allen was a creative-minded chef with a quick wit and sarcasm that mirrored my own. And in that grand tradition of food service professionals, Allen loved to drink. A few nights before Christmas, he and I met after work for drinks, and Allen dropped $150 on food and drinks. By himself. Which presented a problem since we were in "The Program" (Progressive Housing Program), and were barred from drinking. By the time he finished his second "last" gin & tonic, he was swaying like an antenna in high wind.

We chain-smoked cigarettes the whole walk back, hoping to mask the smell of liquor and bad decisions. Having bluffed my way through roadblocks and cop stops before, I knew how to carry myself as we checked in at the front desk of the shelter. Allen, on the other hand, was a mess: sweating heavily, he was having a hard time regulating his footsteps. He vacillated between mumbled apologies and fits of giggles, when he managed to tear himself from the task of watching his feet as he walked. Apparently he didn't trust them to follow the given commands, with good reason.

Every person entering the shelter is subject to being searched. That meant that getting Allen back inside the shelter for the night would take some luck. One whiff of the fumes he was breathing would lead to a closer examination, which would have been disastrous. But fortune was on our side: the deputy who was working the door gave us a perfunctory swipe with the metal-detecting wand, and the front desk staff barely tore themselves from their conversation to get our bunk numbers.

I left Allen in the hall, stumbling back toward his dorm. Residents weren't allowed in dorms to which they weren't assigned, so I was prevented from actually tucking Allen into bed to make sure he was down for the night. Twenty minutes later as I heated up some canned goods I'd stashed in my book bag, Kindred approached me with wide eyes, asking, "Hey man, what the hell is that white boy on? He is gone." Dread tickled at the base of my neck as Kindred filled me in on the twenty minutes that had just passed.

Instead of making his way to bed, Allen had staggered outside to the smoke area, where he managed to impress everyone with his lack of coherent speech. Not one to let that stop him from attempting to speak, he finally nodded off in mid word. The quiet was so sudden that someone was scared he'd died and went to get help. He'd been awakened by the looming presence of the front desk staff with an assist from the deputy on duty. In what can only be described as The Miracle Before Christmas, they believed his assurances that he was just tired and would go to bed once he'd smoked his (unlit) cigarette.

My friendship with Allen presented something of a challenge to me. On one hand, the last thing I needed in my life at that point was an excuse to drink. Allen was as predisposed as I was to engage in Inappropriately-Early Drinking. I can't, in all fairness, call Allen a bad influence though. He never dragged me into any trouble. It was more like we were holding hands and skipping drunkenly down the road to ruin, side by side.

In Allen's favor was a simple fact: he was undeniably cool. We got each other's random pop culture references; we understood each other's devotion to a sometimes harsh industry; we both enjoyed toasting that industry with the free drinks we boasted we could talk out of the bartenders of the bars in downtown Raleigh. Whereas Kindred was like a younger version of me, Allen felt more like a peer. His mistakes mirrored mine, and his bad decisions had ended with results similar to my own.

The night before New Years Eve, Allen fell apart. I was walking home from work when I spotted a figure walking towards me through the cold drizzle. From as close as a block, I could tell that the hunched, stumbling person was Allen, and he was drunk. The fact that he was already drunk at 5:30 in the evening, plus the fact that he was walking away from the shelter in that condition, didn't bode well. Though he looked right at me, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, and didn't recognize me. I spoke his name, startling him into recognition. Relieved to see a friendly face, he hugged me and launched into a rambling story about how he'd "lost it...just lost it."

I knew he'd gotten some new responsibility at the restaurant where he was cooking. In fact, that very morning he'd been given the keys to open the place and take a large food delivery. At first I thought he meant he'd lost the key, but that would hardly have explained his appearance: wet, disheveled, with spots of blood on his shirt and face. Turns out that the food shipment was much more complicated than he'd anticipated, and he panicked. He was smart enough not to raid the bar, which was monitored by a security camera. But when he stumbled onto a few bottles of white wine in the cooler, his fate was sealed. He was found later, passed out in one of the booths, his half-empty to-go cup of wine still at the table in front of him. He was, of course, fired.

He managed to talk his way into enough alcohol to keep him pickled until it was time to return to the shelter, where he promptly got into a fight with another resident. He got briefly tossed around before being tossed out of the shelter. By the time he encountered me, he'd stashed his things under the bridge where some homeless choose to make their homes. He was planning on sleeping under said bridge, but I wasn't having it. By Providence, before I got off work, my boss had given me my tipshares for the week, so I had enough for a single in the cheap motel across the street from the shelter. Allen nearly convinced me not to, but as it began to rain harder, I redoubled my arguments and convinced him to accept my gesture. I tried to soothe his wounded ego with humor, "Hey man if you're worried about paying me back, you can just take your top off and dance for a few minutes, and we'll be square." His laugh was deep and genuine, and it was the first one I'd heard since running into him that evening.

I hugged him in the parking lot, making him promise to get in touch with me and let me know his plans. I crossed the street, wondering what would become of Allen. When I next heard from him, he was still homeless, only this time it was in Hawaii. After getting fired from the restaurant, he'd collected his final paycheck and bought a ticket to the land where palm trees sway, intent on an adventure. He knew neither a soul in Hawaii nor where he was going to stay, but the same could have been said of his arrival in North Carolina.

He spent a week catching waves and chasing a constant buzz, then returned to the mainland, broke. Deciding he needed a major course correction, he went into a year-long rehab program and that was the last I heard of him.

I only knew Allen a short time, but we'd become close friends in that time. It was the kind of intense friendship borne of shared suffering and struggle, and it had changed me. Allen had served as a live-action Afterschool Special: "I'm Besties With an Alcoholic!" As I watched his life fall apart one drink at a time, I'd begun cutting back on my own drinking. Long after Allen left for Hawaii, I'd find myself remembering his decline as I turned down a drink with lunch.

The view from the top of the world.

Allen was the one that introduced me to the top floor of the parking deck that overlooks Moore Square transit station. He and I spent Christmas Eve downtown, and the eighth floor was one of our stops.

Before that, my highest vantage point was the sixth floor of the parking deck by the convention center. This was like seeing the world with a new set of eyes.

The unobstructed view of Raleigh's tree-lined streets never stopped thrilling me, inspiring me to climb higher. I wanted to scale the outside of the 584 foot PNC Tower and breathe in the rarified air.

The grey foreboding sky felt as if it was only inches outside of my straining reach. Eventually the rain that had been threatening all afternoon came to fruition. The fat drops chased us from the rooftop, down into the streets below.

Photos from the streets of Raleigh

In the shadows of giants, pt. 2

Everywhere I turn, there are people resting in the shadows of giants. In some parts of Raleigh, those giants are the looming crystal towers and condominiums. Not far away, the giants are those guardians of legislature in the Capital Building. Built in Greek Revival style, it sits surrounded by lawns dotted with memorial statues to the dead of several wars.

Also peppering the pristine lawns are a few homeless figures. The paradox is amazing to me: society's most powerless separated from its most powerful by an expanse of lawn.

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Photo credit: Alfred Perry

A return to the land of the employed

For the first three weeks I was at the shelter, I didn’t have a job. The feeling that I would never again be gainfully employed consumed my thoughts. Every day it ate away at my natural optimism like a cancer. And then, in one week, it was like the dam broke and everything started to change at once. I had three interviews scheduled at the end of the week: two on a Thursday, and another on Saturday. The interview Saturday was at News of the World Café, a restaurant located inside the NC Museum of Natural Sciences downtown. After responding to a Craigslist ad with my cover letter and resume, I got a call back from one of the managers, Sam, asking to schedule an interview on Saturday at four.

The day of the interview, I dressed carefully in khaki pants, a pale pink long-sleeved button down shirt, and navy blue sweater vest. I looked like “prep” personified, but I hoped to also look highly employable. I found out later that Sam had scheduled the interview so late because Saturdays are the busiest in the museum, and therefore in the café. By the time I got there, the craziness had died down, but I could still sense the dissipating energy all restaurants have immediately following a rush of business.

Sam was an enthusiastic white man with bright blue eyes, brownish-red hair, and a friendly smile. He was a few years younger than me, and slight in frame.  I would soon find out, however, that what he lacked in physical stature, he more than made up for in sheer enthusiasm. He greeted me like an old friend with a knuckle-crushing handshake and the interview began.  We sat at one of the silver tables in the café and went over my work history, my strengths, and my personal goals. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing about my background, and we chatted easily for twenty minutes. Finally, he gathered the pages of my resume together with my application and promised to pass along my name to the general manager for a follow-up interview.

Walking out of the café into the fading sunlight of the evening, I couldn’t help but think I’d rather nailed the interview. I was left with a positive impression of the staff working there, and thought that Sam had been left with a similar impression of me. The only thing left to do was wait and hope that the general manager, Lily, would call me back soon for the follow-up interview.

Two days later, while walking back to the shelter with Kindred, I noticed a voicemail notification on my cell phone. I hadn’t heard the phone actually ring, but that wasn’t uncommon. It was a low-tech “Obama Phone” and I wasn’t yet used to its synthesizer-style ringtone or gentle vibration. I was used to my old smartphone that was loud enough to wake the dead and vibrated like it was trying to chew its way out of my back pocket.

Listening to the message, I came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I stopped so suddenly, that Kindred didn’t notice right away and took three or four steps without me before glancing back quizzically.

“Hey buddy! This is Sam Howard from News of the World Café. I spoke to my manager, Lily about you and she’s excited about sitting down with you. I was hoping you could come by sometime tomorrow afternoon, just give me a call back when you get this so we can set something up. My cell number is 919….”

When I got through to Sam, we agreed that I’d come by the next afternoon for a sit-down with Lily. Oddly, I wasn’t as nervous for this interview as I’d been for the first one. I figured if all she had to go on was what Sam had told her, he must have told her some pretty nice things about me. Plenty of people in Raleigh had relevant experience, but she was making time to talk to me. Realizing that boosted my self-esteem, and by the next day I felt ready.

This time I wore khakis and a blue and white gingham long-sleeved button down. Once again I looked like I’d crawled out of a J. Crew catalogue, but after having seen the denim-clad, heavily tattooed barista working at the café, I felt like my fashion sense was the least of my concerns.  My interview with Lily, a perky 30-something with sunny blonde hair, was remarkably like my interview with Sam. We chatted like friends, and I tried to let my personality shine without rambling on. After only ten minutes she nodded silently to herself, as if meeting me had confirmed something she’d suspected from her conversations with Sam. She concluded the interview by saying, “Well, I have three more interviews to go, but I’d call you a strong candidate for the position. I like how you express yourself, and I like the idea of you interacting with guests on our behalf. You should be hearing from us by the end of the week.”

After feeling so down about myself for so long, I was scared to be optimistic but I couldn’t help myself. As I strutted past the giant globe outside the museum, I sang to myself, “They liiike me…they liiike me….they really really liiiiike me!” Two days later, I got the call from another manager, Jeff, inviting me to join the staff of News of the World Café as an attendant/cashier.

To say that I was happy about the job offer would be a massive understatement. It was like a weight had been lifted not only from my shoulders, but from my spirit as well. Not only did I have the opportunity to make money again, I had taken the first step toward getting out of the shelter. No longer was my departure an “if”; it was a “when.” I was on my way, and my heart was glad about it indeed. 

In the shadows of giants

Since the shelter kicks people out every day at 8am, if residents don’t have a job they have to get creative when it comes to where they can spend time all day. Simply riding the bus all day isn’t an option—I once saw a homeless guy get kicked off a bus after having been on for an hour. Even the most tolerant of fast food restaurants will eventually need the space for paying customers, so that’s out too. Many homeless head to the Cameron Village Regional Library. It’s climate controlled and has couches, tables and nooks designed specifically for spending large amounts of time. CVRL is the largest of the area libraries, and has the most facilities for day lounging.

Located at the end of a long row of posh upscale shops, the Cameron Village Regional Library is a two-story structure with a wall of glass windows lining the front. Throughout the library, there are tables with electrical outlets and usb ports  for people who bring their own devices. Upstairs in the computer lab, there are about 30 pc’s for public use, and this is where most of the shelter residents hang out. If a computer is available, you can reserve it for an hour at a time. Once your hour is up, if no one else has it reserved, you can extend your time for another five minutes. You can keep extending your time as long as there are no upcoming reservations.

From what I could tell, the library was the first choice of homeless people looking for a place to hang out. A few people liked to stay at the shelter all day, but that wasn’t a very appealing choice. For one thing, unless it was a holiday or a weekend, the staff didn’t provide lunch. So unless you bought something out of the vending machine, eventually you’d have the leave the shelter to eat anyway. And with nothing to do other than watch tv and sleep, it got boring as hell after a while.

Those who wanted to get out of the shelter for the day but lacked bus fare to get to the library would usually just hang out downtown. Personally, I loved downtown Raleigh. The streets were busy and diverse, and I could easily spend hours people-watching. The only problem is that there were certain things most homeless people were seeking in a hangout spot, and those things were sorely lacking downtown. They are:

A place to sit down for uninterrupted periods of time. When you don’t have a place of your own, you tend to stay on the move and the need to just sit down and not be bothered would arise. Even the computers at the express library downtown were on high counters with no seats. I honestly think it was set up like that to prevent people from whiling away the day there.

Electricity. For those of us with tablets, phones, or other electronic devices, the areas surrounding electrical outlets were prime real estate. It was even more serious when that electronic device was your sole connection to family and far-flung friends. For me, my tablet (which I named Tallulah) was my lifeline to sanity. Writing and posting on my blog and Facebook page kept me sane, and without the juice to run it, I’d have lost my shit.

Free wifi. See #2.

Public bathrooms. As with seating, electricity, and wifi, restrooms downtown are either employees-only or reserved for paying customers. I can’t really blame the businesses—I’ve seen what people can do to public or all-access bathrooms and I wouldn’t want to have to clean up after that either. But when the closest public bathroom was in the McDonald’s three blocks from the heart of downtown Raleigh, it could make a simple potty break very complicated.

For those reasons and others, a lot of homeless tended to just hang out at the bus station or in Moore Square Park across from the bus station. During summer months, it was common to see groups of homeless denizens clustered around benches and low stone walls, sharing brown paper-wrapped cans of Icehouse or passing Newports back and forth. At the bus station, the patrolling cops were pretty vigilant about enforcing the statutes: no smoking (at all), no alcohol, no rowdy behavior, etc. They would do laps around the station, rousting sleeping figures and generally keeping what order they could. I never saw them actually arrest anyone, but I think that had more to do with the fact that people knew they wouldn’t hesitate to do it and chose not to give the officers a reason to pull out the handcuffs.

Across Blount Street in Moore Square Park there was a little more leeway granted. While drinking in public was still technically illegal, as long as nobody’s behavior got out of hand and they weren’t too obvious about it, the cops would generally look the other way. The same could be said for people sleeping in the park in warmer weather.

Moore Square Park always struck me as a rather extreme paradox. A block away glittering apartment buildings, soar into the Raleigh skyline, home to some of the area’s most affluent residents. Moore Square squats in the shadows of these crystalline giants, giving meagre shelter to some of its poorest. The contradiction is glaring.

"My pride fell with my fortunes" - Shakespeare

One day at work I was talking to a coworker when he mentioned having seen me walking with two friends downtown. I didn't have a car, and I lived and worked downtown, so seeing me walking downtown wasn't all that extraordinary. But when he mentioned we were walking past Oak City Outreach, I understood what he meant and got a little nervous. The day before, Kindred and I had run into Calm Down Phil, and together  we'd walked to OCO to see about getting some free toiletries and snacks. Apparently we were deep in conversation and I didn't see my coworker when we passed him.

Being spotted like that made me nervous because I was trying to keep my residential status as low key as possible. While there's no particular shame in being "residentially challenged," there's no pride in it either. I've noticed that people tend to identify new members of a social group by the most easily identifiable trait. It was bad enough that half my friends knew me as "the gay one," I didn't want to be known among my new work friends as "the gay homeless one." I don't think I'd have been able to bear it.

Throughout my journeys in homelessness, I struggled mightily with my pride. When a photographer from the local paper appeared at the shelter to take pictures of the volunteers serving the homeless, I kept my head so low that I nearly got gravy on my nose. I once declined to join Kindred in line at the soup kitchen because my best friend was in town for the weekend, and I knew she was staying at a hotel a few blocks away. The thought of her driving past and seeing me in line robbed me of my appetite and produced a fit of anxiety that sent me scurrying back to the shelter for a lunch of peanut butter crackers and soda from the vending machine.

Deep down, I knew I'd have to set aside my pride in order to ask for the help I needed. Metaphors about squeaky wheels being greased reminded me that if I didn't share my misery with those closest to me, I'd be doomed to spend the rest of my life mired in it. But I just couldn't bear to admit to the people I loved how much of a trainwreck my life had become.

A little motivation