The early birds in Harrisburg are the homeless. But they only catch the left over worms.
“Hey! Hey! You can’t sleep here!” The security guard yelled at us and walked away. I rubbed my eyes and got up. My mind was blank for a while. I looked back and asked Andy what time it was. “Guess it. It is 12:00 am,” Andy answered with a frustrated tone. I was stunned and began to understand the situation. My thoughts were not coming together. Panicked and baffled, I was thinking “where should we go? It is too late and cold to find another place!” On the other hand, Andy looked placated and he started to wrap up our sleeping stuff.
We walked to the Presbyterian Church with our blankets and made our beds again. The wind was stronger than it was at the parking lot; the wind carried snowflakes so every time the wind hit my blankets, it made noises (which prevented me from sleeping for an hour or so). I opened the bag from Angel and started to eat the snacks. Munching the snacks in the cold gave me mixed feelings. I was very upset and depressed about my current situation. I was kept asking myself the reason I was out on the street. A strong desire to go back home quickly dominated me. Stifling my anger and depression, frankly, was extremely hard.
Andy anxiously walked around our sleeping place. “Andy what are you doing?” I asked curiously. “I need to pee” I paused for a second and burst out laughing. “Just find a place and take care of it” Andy pointed at a blue box and said “I think that is a portable bathroom but it says ‘No trespassing’ on the sign.” Andy ended up going some other place. As I laid my head on the my pillow (which was in fact a rolled sheet of blanket), I felt like Andy and I were completely abandoned by everyone that night. It was a tough night.
I opened up my eyes when I heard Andy bustling. Even though I did not have my watch with me, I could tell that it was too early to wake up since I was still very tired and the sun has not risen yet. Andy asked me if I heard a guy telling us that he will buy us Dunkin Donuts and coffee. “No I didn’t,” I replied trying to express my tiredness with my voice. We waited for the guy for about 20 minutes but he did not come back. We were still not sure whether he will come or not; therefore, we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts. Surprisingly, there were many people in the store at that early time. We went inside the store so that we could keep ourselves warm. Andy bought a cup of coffee and I bought one Boston cream donut (probably my favorite kind).We sat down and started reading books. I took out my water bottle (we got it from Angel as well) from my back pack but I could not drink much since it was frozen. After I had water, I looked around and found guys sitting on the other side. They were talking furtively as if they were CIA agents or something. My eyes stopped at the box of donuts and several cups of coffee in front of one of those guys. I whispered to Andy “Andy, I think that guy is it!” but Andy frowned at me telling me not to say anything. Eventually those guys left.
“I think those guys were dealing drugs,” Andy told me as he was explaining his action. He continued “One guy had a wad of cash. People who would have wad of cash in Dunkin donuts at 5 in the morning would either be wicked rich or dealing drugs. And… they were definitely homeless people.” I could not believe the things we were experiencing. I could only see this kind of things from the movies but now I was seeing them in the reality.
We came out and walked to Salvation Army to get breakfast. We were supposed to meet Greg there – yesterday, we asked Greg if we can hang out whole day with him. There was already a line of people but Greg was not there yet. We figured that Greg will come for breakfast, thus went inside to get breakfast. Apparently, the cook at Salvation Army got fired so lately, the homeless people have been getting cold meal for their breakfast. When I heard the story, I was expecting cereal at the most. I waited on the line and got a bag of food. I opened the bag to see what was there and could not shut my mouth; there were 5 sandwiches (they looked really good). I had a bite and it tasted just fine. I have heard from the homeless friends that it is impossible to starve in Harrisburg and now I really know why they are saying that.
Eating a sandwich alone made me thirsty. So I grabbed a bottle of chocolate milk and started to drink it. However, it tasted little different from my expectation of chocolate milk taste. I looked at the bottle and realized that it was outdated. “Well, I wouldn’t die drinking it,” I rationalize myself drinking outdated milk and emptied the bottle. I was beginning to notice that I was preparing myself to see more ingrained cultures among Harrisburg homeless people.
A line of the homeless in front of Salvation Army
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