Hobophobia: The 5 Vagrants Who Ruined My Psyche

Where tape worms start their day.

Now up until this point, I was totally into the story. It had a likable protagonist (this miscreant), an epic journey (the trip here), adversity (the Holiday Inn plus Lou Gehrig’s leprosy or whatever) and now it was trying to chug towards the happy ending. But did I want to give him money? His suffering was kind of poetic, I didn’t want to ruin that. And then BAM! Motherfucker took his leg off. I didn’t know whether to throw change and clap or snap a photo for future enjoyment, but this dude just bent down and took his whole left leg right off his body and kind of waved it around, explaining why it was hard for him to make money because he didn’t have that goddamn leg! Like a robot I reached for my wallet and tossed him my last $5. While you might call me a fool, you've probably never been in an alley with someone who’d just taken off a limb. I consider it a minor victory that I managed to restrain myself from giving him my entire wallet and the pants I pulled it from. I escaped while he was reassembling himself, marveling at the ingenuity of a hobo with the courage to take off a leg and enough left over to support his sick wife at the Holiday Inn. Amazing. And then a month later in a different part of town the same son a bitch pulled it on me again, only his wife had a different disease this time. I had been shanghaied by what is probably the oldest trick in the one-legged hobo handbook.

Tumbleweed? More like tumble…weed. Fuck.

I hastily journeyed back up the stairs and informed the gentleman behind the counter that there was a bit of a hiccup with the washroom situation, which is to say there was a dude shitting in the garbage can. The guy behind the counter, a man in his 30s with a few too many gold chains around his neck looked at me and actually said, “Again? Jesus, I’m sorry.” I was forced to conclude that this pizza place, like the famous opera house, was haunted by a phantom. Only in this case it was a dude shitting in the trash can.

As you can see, I have no business trying to start shit with anyone at any time, so if I get cornered in the toilet, I pretty much have to ride it out. It’s science. Plus, if you ever find yourself with your pants down in the same room as a homeless man whose pants are also down, you better remain as quiet as a mouse and pray your clenching reflex doesn’t crap out on you.

This was the first thing that showed up when I Googled “clenching.”

The situation was stacked against me from the start. It was 6am and I was downtown to score tickets for a concert by cleverly being first in line. In fact, the line would not form for another three hours. Unable to wait in a line of just myself for an extended period of time without a restroom break, I wandered to a nearby deserted mall and took up residence in a spacious, relaxing handicapped stall. And as I sat and produced my early morning sin I was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and a faucet turning on. Looking through the crack in my stall door, I was greeted by the site of a sketchy looking fellow stripping away layer after layer of well worn plaid shirts and assorted other hobo accessories which he lumped into a pile one sink over. The situation became more alarming when the pants followed suit. If you’ve never been sitting on a toilet, feeling your own genitals retract as you bear witness to a homeless man in his underpants, I don’t recommend it. The closest feeling I can liken it to is that moment, after eating bad Chinese the night before, when you find yourself stuck in traffic and you realize your stomach is not taking prisoners and you have absolutely no way to end this well.

Pictured: Bad Chinese.

So I sat perfectly still as this hobo began the long, curiously detailed task of bathing himself in a sink. My feet and legs went numb and still I made not a sound as I fought with my own inner demons over whether or not I should keep watching through the crack in the door knowing full well that if I kept watching it was likely I was going to have to endure seeing him plumb the depths of his own personal Hades but if I turned away the moment I looked up again his squirrely hobo eye would be pressed to the crack in the door staring at me as mysterious banjo music filled the entire room. Long after my legs felt as though they’d atrophied to meaty slabs of uselessness, the hobo finally finished his business and, blessedly, took the high road by deciding today was not the day to wash his ass or crotch. He proceeded to dress himself again and shamble out of the restroom without a word. After massaging the blood back into my limbs and lamenting the toilet seat shaped tattoo that would surely be marring my ass for the next several days, I waited a few minutes and then left as well. Looking back on it all I feel I've come out wiser as a person, but the cost to my own innocence was high.  So very high.