Scenes from Two Weeks of Early Morning Homelessness in Empire
A homeless man splayed in the bed of a tiny pickup. I haven’t seen anyone ride in the back of pickup in decades. It was such a common sight in my Oregon City youth.
A homeless man strums a kid’s guitar in dense morning fog. He’s sitting on the ground with a leashed pit bull. I can’t make out the tune.
A homeless man sleeps on his back in the front lawn of an abandoned home.
A homeless man carrying a Santa-like bag of cans and bottles remarks how Elmer is.
Firemen trudged down to the homeless encampment in the wetlands to douse a campfire.
A homeless woman wearing a flowing red dress weaves in and out of traffic.
A homeless plays on his phone sitting on a bench in front of a bar.
A homeless woman tries to control three pit bull puppies with a piece of rope for a leash.
A homeless woman tears through free items left on a sidewalk.
A homeless man eats convenience store fried chicken on a bench overlooking Coos Bay.
A homeless man picks up a discarded container of convenience store fried chicken, sits down on a curb, and eats the chicken. (No, I’m not going to write a poem about convenience store fried chicken and the homeless, but it sure calls for one. Wait! Two weeks later I did.)
A homeless man shouldering a fishing pole walks on the crab pier.
A 50-year-old camping trailer that looks like it served as a command post at Stalingrad is marooned along Cape Arago Highway. How? Why?
A homeless man sleeps in the lobby of the post office.
A homeless woman hunches over in the middle of a sidewalk and plays a game on her phone.
A homeless man beats a sidewalk with a piece of re-bar.
A homeless woman shakes to and fro inside a bus shelter.
A homeless man dances with a light pole in a style vaguely reminiscent of Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain.
Three more solo shoes appear in the middle of a side street. Never pairs. Why? Someone needs to write a metaphysical treatise on this subject.
A homeless man waits for the donut shop to open.
Two homeless people converse inside their domicile carved into a hedge.
A homeless woman searches for (?) in a rivulet running into Coos Bay.
A hooded homeless man pushes his shopping cart past my house as Elmer and I step out the front door. We follow him until he turns into the parking lot of a Subway.
A homeless man digs through the dumpster at the boat ramp.
Two men and a small dog sleep in a battered SUV.