homeless

Jeremy was sitting in a motel room watching America's Funniest Home Videos when he realized he was homeless.

Damn, am I homeless? he thought.

He was. Then a man got hit in the testicles. The cameras panned towards the audience. The audience was all wearing formal wear and applauding.

I am not the homeless, I can't be. The homeless wear rags and ask for change and get drunk with that change. The homeless smell bad. The homeless population is mostly schizophrenic, he thought.

Do you have a home, Jeremy? He asked himself.

No, I do not, he thought, I am homeless.

He muted the television and microwaved a hot dog in perfect silence. Most days involved this, mainstream television accompanied by timid introspection. Jeremy would eat the hot dog on a slice of wheat bread with ketchup and mustard. He wondered if mustard was nutritious. Ketchup was a trick, he knew, full of sugar. Mustard was still redeemable.

I am not homeless in a metaphorical way, Jeremy thought, I literally don't have a home to live in.

Somewhere, something was rumbling. Jeremy listened. There was a quiet pounding on the wall in the room next to him. It was not the sexy kind. He heard a mumbled 'Jeremy' through the walls.

The man staying in the room next to him was named Clinton. For the last week, they had shared a wall. Clinton was an obese black man in an electric wheelchair. He loved Sammy Davis Junior. They met when Jeremy helped Clinton into his room, once.

"Are you Jewish?" Clinton had asked.

"No," he said.

"You just got that curly hair. You know I was Jewish once?"

"Really?"

"Yep. Married a Jewish woman. She was all kinds of New Left liberal; she thought I was in the Black Panthers when we met. Just because I wore sunglasses and black leather, I guess. She was funny about stuff like that," Clinton said.

"And you aren't Jewish anymore?"

"We got a divorce," he said.

"Oh."

Jeremy walked outside to the front of Clinton's door. He knocked.

"What is it?" Jeremy said.

"Latch locked me in. Nobody answering the phone up front. Go up there," he said.

Jeremy walked towards the front desk. He arrived at the front desk. He didn't see anyone. He hollered, a bit. It was a meek holler, but a holler nonetheless. No one emerged from the back. He thought about climbing behind the hotel desk but then saw some video cameras. Jeremy waved at the video cameras, and fixed himself a cup of coffee. No one seemed to be anywhere. He looked outside and saw no cars. This made him think about a made for TV movie based on some Stephen King book, where a bunch of meatball looking things flew around and ate everyone, so a bunch of people arrived from a parallel dimension or something and so no one. In the movie, one man beat another more hysterical man with a toaster held in a bed sheet. Jeremy looked at the toaster and felt nervous.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

A woman emerged from the back. Jeremy didn't know her name, but she worked a few of the evening shifts at the motel. Clinton called her 'perfect breasts'. Clinton had pestered Jeremy to try and have sex with her, but Jeremy knew she wouldn't, because he was homeless.

Most women like men that live in homes, he thought.

She had red hair and 'perfect breasts'. She had thick legs that connected to her butt. She had the proper number of legs and arms. Her nametag said Denise. She had a slightly crooked nose, like a boxer.

"Oh, uh, yeah," Jeremy said, "Clinton locked himself in his room, with the latch on the door. He can't lift his arms enough to take it off."

"Clinton?" She said.

"Room 138," he said.

Denise grabbed a weird, oblong shaped tool and walked with Jeremy to 138.

"How did he do it?" She asked.

"I don't know. He can't do much, I guess. I've only been here a week and I've had to help him basically every day."

"Oh. Where are you from?"

"Chicago," Jeremy lied.

Jeremy lied for no reason. She walked up to 138. She knocked. Clinton opened the door. It only opened an inch wide, and then stopped.

"Hello," Clinton said through the inch.

Denise put the flat, oblong tool through the doorway, and hooked the ball of the latch. She slammed the door and the latch flew open. Jeremy thought that she looked like an Amazon woman in the best way possible. The weird oblong tool looked fearsome.

"Anything else you guys need?" She said.

Jeremy didn't say anything and slipped back into his room.

They were announcing who won ten thousand dollars on America's Funniest Home Videos. A baby who laughed at a burping dog won. Balloons were dropped and everyone celebrated. Jeremy pulled his hot dog out of the microwave and ate it.

What am I going to do after this, Jeremy thought.

There was seven hundred and fifty seven dollars in a checking account in his name. He could either put a deposit in on an apartment and look for a job, go to Phoenix and convince an uncle he didn't know to help him out, or he could just sit around, being homeless.

He paid for a twelve pack of beer on his debit card. He walked back to his room. He watched Cops and got drunk.

I am drunk and homeless, he thought, I don't feel that bad.

Later on he saw other people swimming in the motel pool. He drank his last beer and put on swimming trunks. He greeted and intermingled with them. They were local kids, between nineteen and twenty, not staying at the motel. Their friend, Denise, said they could swim here.

"Denise," I said, "The one with the perfect breasts?"

Jeremy felt proud of himself when they all laughed. They asked him if he was twenty-one. They asked him if he could buy them beer. He did. They asked him if he wanted to go to a party. He did.

Jeremy was extremely drunk and making most people uncomfortable. Those he didn't make uncomfortable were equally as drunk. Jeremy cloistered off with those people, and continued to get drunk and alienate himself. He couldn't remember their names, but he said he loved them. He blinked and looked around. He was in a dilapidated living room full of rotten couches. The wooden floors were riddled with cracks and the white paint on the walls began to chip. It was summer, and the house felt like it was sweating.

"Denise!" People yelled.

Denise walked in with her perfect breasts, and people greeted her. For a while, Jeremy does not remember a thing. He remembers walking by Denise and her looking uncomfortable. He remembered talking to some guy.

Then he woke up, and took a shower. He threw up in the shower. He let it all rinse down the drain, then sat down, and placed his face in his hands. His movements were meticulous, efficient, and sparse.

Then he remembered Denise saying "please, don't talk to me, we aren't at the motel."

Then he remembered some guy putting him in a taxicab.

Then he remembered arriving to the room, unable to open his door.

Then he remembered saying "fuck it, fuck everything, I am homeless."

Then he remembered a man walked quietly past him, almost sneaking, trying to get to his own room. He remembered yelling at that man, telling him to help, and the man scurrying away. He cannot remember a single detail about the man other than that he wore khaki pants.

Then he remembered Clinton rolling outside, struggling out of the room, and getting his door open for him.

Then he remembered earnestly thanking Clinton. Then he remembered telling Clinton everything.

Jeremy held the tiny motel bottle of shampoo in between his thumb and pointer. The shampoo slunk into his hair. He half-heartedly rubbed it in. He considered soap. Housekeeping knocked on the door, and he hoarsely yelled for them to "please leave". He considered Denise and decided that he needed to immediately leave. He decided to try and call his estranged Uncle in Phoenix.

Then he remembered Clinton saying "us fucked people got to stick together. Ain't no good looking for good on anywhere but the bottom, if you are on the bottom, ya dig? Help from any damn respectable person might as well be divine intervention."

He dried off and lay down naked in his bed.

Then he remembered Clinton saying "throw up in this bucket, if you need it".

Jeremy saw it, and did.