Monday, February 14, 2011

smells like middle-aged homelessness

it will never be your problem--and by "you" i mean you dwellers of hills, you purveyors of peaks, you packers of heights.

you people, you voted for a ballot measure in favor of enforcing a sit/lie law on the streets of san francisco. fuck you.

tonight a couple came into my work. they were obviously homeless. they looked like homelessness. they smelled like homelessness. they asked for a table. i gave it to them. any reason i had for reservation i disregarded--my restaurant does not take reservations.

they sat. i took the order. they ate like kings, they drank wine. i treated them like royalty. deep down i knew they would not pay...and even as he looked me dead in the eyes, i knew. as he asked for butter and extra lemon, i knew. as i offered coffee and he politely declined, i knew. as he requested the check and i ran to calculate, i knew--and as he walked quickly to the door with his silent friend i considered the situation.

he left me a dollar bill and an old loehmanns gift card.

i stood still for a moment. and then i ran. i chased him down the alley. i knew he didn't have money. i yelled to him "HEY" caught up to him quickly and told him "i'm faster than you old man". he stopped.

i asked him why. i had treated him with respect, i had welcomed him to sit when no one else would and he had chosen me to foister the financial burden upon. i asked him for the food back--i took back what i had packed for him in to-go boxes and i apologized for him not being able to pay for it. he gave me his silent friends wallet and told me he would have money on monday. i do not believe him. he made this promise using the same honest eyes with which he had ordered his wine.

i threw his leftovers in the garbage. i am not sure what i feel worse about--the fact that i allowed this to happen--or the fact that it almost seemed i had laid a trap for them. all the while knowing, but refusing to believe it would actually happen.

in the end, i believe i felt worse about it than they did. i hated taking away the food. i hated that when all was said and done i found myself in the possession of his lady friends wallet with all of her important cards and identification bits--her food stamps. most of all i hated that i am poor and i was deceived and betrayed by other poor people--the battle to be fought is not between we lower classes and yet that is where we find it.

so you see, this problem with the homeless--it does not belong to the dwellers of hills, the purveyors of peaks or the packers of heights. it belongs to us, the gutter punks.

god save the waitress