So
I lost my job, awesome. And no internet. Fine, sure. I've been going
to the State Library a few times a week because they have free
unlimited WiFi and I can't afford an internet cafe, also because last
week it was HOT AS FUCK and the State Library has air con. For these
same two reasons the State Library is also home to... wait no, that's
mean... and the joke hasn't even been set up yet, so only I'm
laughing at this point... but when I make the joke now you'll know
what I was laughing at and you'll think I'm a piece of shit. Maybe I
am? Maybe it's funny anyway... I've gone on too long now. The State
Library is home to... there's a lot of homeless people in there.
No
they don't live there, but they go there to use the WiFi and cool
down. No I don't know how they have laptops. Yes you're right, maybe
they are just guys with beards who smell
bad.
Anyway.
On
Tuesday I went in with my laptop and sat down at a table with three
guys already sitting around it: a black guy, a hipster looking dude
with glasses, and a man with a dishevelled beard who smelled of stale
smoke. Smelled, a lot. The kind of smell that you don't even realize
it's there until it creeps over to where you're sitting and you
realize it's been a very real and present part of your life for the
last fifteen minutes. You felt something undefinable nibbling at your
conscience, was it that time you let down your housemate's tyres in
2010 because he stole your copy of Futurama Season 1 on DVD? No no!
It's just the man next to you, dreadfully in need of a shower and a
change of lifestyle.
I
exchanged furtive glances with the black guy who was sitting directly
to my right, and we both made “I-hate-this” eye movements at the
bearded source of smell sitting to my left, but nothing could be
done. This is a library.
He got up to have another cigarette – this was after about
forty-five minutes, thirty of which I spent with my shirt pulled up
covering my nose. I didn't even realize I was doing it until it
slipped back down and I was hit with another wave. As he rounded the
corner out of the main room of the library and headed outside and out
of sight, I calmly reached down into my bag, pulled out a can of
deodorant (Rexona Original for the sporty hobo) and liberally sprayed
Beardy's chair, much to the delight of my two table-buddies. Black
guy even took off his headphones to share an amused chuckle with me –
that was really interesting too actually, we weren't talking to each
other at all, or communicating by sound, but the simple act of him
taking out his headphones told me that he wanted to share in the joy
of this moment with me. The shared recognition that yes, indeed, that
guy smells like butts. (PUN!)
They
are a scary breed, the homeless. The smelly, rotten rejects of our
burgeoning metropolis, spat out by the system and left to sleep
amongst the filth – I, as a human, find them distasteful.
Is that too much? A little heavy on the ole “anti-poor people”
rhetoric there? A little mean? Distasteful itself? “OF COURSE IT IS
YOU PRIVILEGED BOURGEOIS FUCK!” I scream at myself, while ashamedly
feeling my body recoil from the reeking smells of poverty.
It's
easy – especially, I feel, for me – to forget that a person –
some guy – sitting at a table in the library getting angry at his
computer because, “I didn't WANT to watch the next video I WANTED
TO STAY ON THE LAST ONE FUCKKK!” is not so different from me. It
would do me well to remember that on any day I am only a handful of
bad decisions or unlucky rolls of the dice away from homelessness,
and then it'd be me sitting in that chair, wondering why the air
around me suddenly smells like aerosol deodorant. I only went outside
for a minute...?
The
next day at the library I was sitting at a similar table, similar
situation, only this time the bearded man (a different one) was
sitting to my left. He didn't smell, but he was
doing
a good job of freaking people out as he beat his index finger down
repeatedly on the mouse button on his laptop. He just kept hitting
it, and hitting it... the table was actually shaking, but he wouldn't
stop. I looked over at him with raised eyebrows as if to say, “really
dude?” and he stared back at me for a frozen second before
returning to his frenzied assault on technology. Giving his machine a
solid beat-down. Aggressive!
I
was re-writing my resume and applying for temping agencies because,
as I've been trying to forget the entire time I've been writing this,
I am unemployed. The library internet was working fine for me, and so
I was in a good mood – a good enough mood to find some humour in
the dishevelled plight of the man to my left. But what if my internet
wasn't working? And what if my situation were even one degree more
dire? Like if I wasn't able to borrow money from parents or friends
to make up the three weeks of limbo between my last paycheck and my
first Centrelink payment? What if I was behind on rent already? What
if I had gotten sick that week? Or had been unluckily mugged? Had a
big phone bill? What if my job was even slightly more important to
me? What if I had lost something I actually cared about as anything
other than a source of income?
Only
one bad decision away. Only one unlucky roll of the dice. I could so
easily be that guy, sitting at the desk with people around casting
surreptitious glances across the room at me, the crazy man, beating
at his computer with pointed fingers. The internet not working. The
resumes I want to send, trapped. No hope.
I
didn't stop laughing – to myself at least – because a guy getting
publicly angry is still funny, I don't care what anyone says. But my
laughter was tempered with cautious self-examination as I imagined a
scene where I too might crack under life's pressure while being
watched by tens of sniggering idiots. Because the others, looking on,
ignorant of the whole situation, are always idiots. And I, the
insane, furious, raging hero, am always, always right.
Do
I smell? I need to wash my clothes tomorrow.
Peace,
Taco.
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