Mike is missing. I think he's dead.

I haven't seen Mike in a month. I used to see him every day. I think he's dead.

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I first saw Mike back in Fall of 2008. Truth be told, he was pretty damn hard to miss. I had just started law school, and I got off the Red Line at Union Station every day. Mike would be standing outside, near the row of newspaper boxes, a five-eight black man with white hair, always talking to nobody in particular. At the time, my friends and I referred to him as "Talking Tommy"--just another homeless schizophrenic on the streets of our nation's capital.

It was almost a year later when he asked me for a cigarette, and a little past that when I finally met Michael Abbott.

snip


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/13/813649/-Mike-is-Missing.-I-Think-Hes-Dead.

Homelessness is a huge problem in this country, but the homeless schizophrenics is a tragedy.

I grew up in a major square in the inner city. As a kid, we (my friends and I) knew all of the "bums" by name. We occasionally asked them questions "why this and why that", but we rarely got anything more than a loud mumble and "got an extra quarter you can spare" from them. They were all alcoholics and needed money for liquor. Occasionally a good Samaritan would come along and buy them a sandwich from the sub shop across the street (giving them money was never a good idea as the liquor store was right next to the sub shop.) We used to watch them get hauled off to rehab from time-to-time, but they always ended up back on the streets. Some would deliberately get into brawls in the cold weather so they could spend some quality time in jail :eyes: During their moments of lucidity after a rehab stint, we would talk to them and find out details of their lives (kids are also people of the streets with little inhibition.) One was apparently a semi-pro football player - could he ever throw a football - holy (#%^! Another fellow lost his eye (one-eyed Kelly) in some sort of altercation - probably a bar fight IIRC. They were, by and large, decent people who had tough lives and fell onto the bottle to deal with depression (some due to a traumatic experience.) Hundreds of people walked by them every day. As time went on, they started disappearing. We would ask parents etc. what happened to so-and-so "bum" "oh, s/he passed away the other day" (or something similar). You just got used to it.

and the store owner would get disability and VA checks signed over, then dole the money out for a month in the store so the guys would eat. Oh, I'm sure he was well paid for his effort, but he kept them alive a lot longer than they would have if they'd gotten the whole check and blown it in a day. It was an arrangement that suited everybody and we all knew to run tabs on them. I got to know a few fairly well since I'd see them on the street outside the store and stop to talk. Most were ex military and busted their mainsprings in war. Others had been incarcerated in mental hospitals until they were tossed out to fend for themselves.

I know what the OP means about how they'd start to disappear, leaving a hole in the neighborhood life every time.

I don't look at bums the way my friends do. I give them money and try to give enough for a sandwich and a bottle of cheap wine or a 40 ouncer. The last thing they need is to be infantilized by somebody telling them what to buy.

We read that Utah was putting homeless people on buses for Tucson, but that's tale for another day. Just know the numbers increased as the temps fell.

Also, living in the sun-belt, I was constantly kept in wonderful fresh oranges and grapefruits by neighbors and co-workers looking to unload the bounty their back yard trees gave up in winter. Wow, good fruit and lots of it. People would show up at work with shopping bags of fruit to give away to those of us without citrus trees.

One day, a homeless (and obviously drunk) man came in, begging for the remaining 50 cents he needed for a bottle of wine. The boss wouldn't do it. He left, but she really felt like shit. She grabbed a bag of fruit and ran down the street after him. "I can't give you money for booze, but I need to give you food". She told him to come by early each day and she would see him through winter, and help him keep his street pals in fruit at least too.

She followed through.

She was a tax evading, racist, GOP fore-runner to today's tea-baggers, but she did actually find she had a heart and managed enough brain cell activity to solve a problem for someone else while solving one for herself (she had 4 orange trees and 2 grapefruit trees).

We knew many people who would keep coupons for free burgers on their dashboards to give to the guys standing on the medians in traffic, holding cardboard signs, and looking to 'work for food'. Lots of those cars were big, luxury models. I wish they would have offered real jobs, but a burger might help someone make it to the day a job would come.

The lesson I learned was to hold onto hope that some people really are capable of some level of redemption, and I ain't talking drunk homeless guys. Those chaps often are the redeemers of souls in their own ways.

My brother will ALWAYS give a couple bucks to the guy honest enough to have a sign that reads: Why lie? I need the money for beer. And he makes sure they get a burger too. But he drives an old car and has no job to give anymore.