Funny Stories About My Life - Hobo For a Day
My roommate Alec had already graduated with a psychology degree but was reticent to enter the work world. He had recently inherited 50k, enabling him to live a life of leisure without the inconvenience of having to hold a job. Alec became a good friend and one of my three roommates in a dumpy little 1940s bungalow on Barber Street in Athens, Georgia.
The place was a serious shithole. You could see right into the crawlspace through the 3” hole in the floor right next to the toilet in the only bathroom in the house. This made for easy access for the rats, so we set traps all over the house. The toilet would rock back and forth when you’d sit on it. We all wondered which unlucky soul would fall through the floor in the middle of a bowel movement. (Fortunately, this never happened)
There were BB holes all over the plaster walls in the home from an ill-advised period of time when we somehow thought it was acceptable to shoot a BB gun at one another inside of the house. The total rent was $400/month, $100 for each of us.
Although the home was a dump, it sat up on a hill overlooking the road with a large front porch where we spent most of our time listening to music, smoking weed, and getting hammered on $2 Mickey’s 40oz.
It was May, and I had just finished my final exams. I was to leave one week later to take a bus to Wyoming to work as a food server in Yellowstone National Park for the summer. Life was good, and I had a few days to kill.
Out of the blue, Alec’s brother called and asked that Alec help him move to an apartment in Fort Worth, Texas, a sixteen-hour drive from Athens. Alec asked if I wanted to come and check out the Dallas nightlife and hit New Orleans on the way home. I thought that sounded like a splendid adventure, so I packed my bags, and we left.
We drove all night that Friday night, following Alec’s brother in a large U-Haul truck, and we arrived at a nondescript apartment complex in Fort Worth, Texas, at 11 a.m. Saturday morning. We immediately went to sleep on the floor of the vacant apartment and woke up late afternoon, and moved all the furniture into the apartment. I took notice that the complex had a pool and a hot tub. Our work was over, so now it was time to have some fun.
Alec and I headed into Dallas to hit the bars in a bar district called Deep Ellum. We had lots of liquor drinks in a slew of bars over several hours, and we somehow made it back to Fort Worth in one piece at 1:30 a.m.
We smoked some weed, and then I had the foggy notion that there would be some available women sitting in the hot tub. My friend told me to shut the fuck up. I should have listened to him, but I was drunk and stubborn and decided to head down there to check it out for myself.
Of course, there was nobody in the hot tub at 2 a.m. I felt the hot water, turned on the jets, stripped down naked, and slipped into the tub.
The next thing that I recall is being handcuffed by two policemen. I was buck naked. Apparently, I was hot and got out of the hot tub and passed out on my back with my junk splayed out and my feet dangling in the hot tub. To make matters worse, whoever called the cops on me also thought it was cute to take all my stuff — my clothes, my wallet inside my jeans which contained my ID and money, and two hits of acid I planned to eat with Alec.
Most importantly, they took the only pair of shoes I owned, which were my cherished military-issued combat boots that I bought at the Navy surplus store on Prince Avenue in Athens.
One of the police officers found a tiny pair of green shorts lying around the pool, and I put them on, although they were short shorts that barely fit me. They put me in the squad car's back seat, wearing nothing but that pair of green shorts.
Fortunately, at the last minute, Alec walked down to the pool area to look for me, and they explained to him what had happened. They told him that he could pick me up the next morning in the Fort Worth jail, and he said he’d see me in the morning and retreated back to his brother’s apartment.
I was smashed but respectful and compliant with the police, which is my standard modus operandi when it comes to dealing with cops. I then overheard the two officers talking about what to do with me. They didn’t feel like going to all the trouble of booking me and writing up a report for as innocuous a crime as public intoxication and nudity.
They instead decided to take me to a drunk tank in Dallas. They drove me thirty minutes to the drunk tank and brought me into this building at about 4 a.m. The place was packed with approximately fifty miscreants and drunks sleeping on the floor on little mats without even a sheet for cover.
They gave me a cream-colored western shirt with two plaid pockets, which was medium size, and I wore XL. I couldn’t button it comfortably, so I just wore it unbuttoned but was glad to have it since it seemed like having more clothes on would decrease my chances of getting raped.
I went to sleep on the floor between two sweaty drunks and was abruptly awoken at sunrise by the warden yelling at high volume, “Wake up! Get out of here!” I was hungover and confused after just two hours of sleep. They ushered all of us men out of the door and into the street. I tried to inquire where I was picked up, and they just told me to get out. I protested to no avail.
This is 1993, so there were no cell phones, and I had no idea where I was nor the address or name of Alec’s brother’s apartment complex. I just hoped that Alec would come and get me.
I sat on the ground against the brick wall of the municipal building in my green shorts and unbuttoned western shirt for hours. We were in some sort of industrial area next to the train tracks with no residential homes or retail businesses.
There was a clothesline with sheets hung over it precariously, which homeless people used for a makeshift shelter. It started getting extremely hot, which is par for Texas in May. I was getting worried since there was no sign of Alec, and the people running the drunk tank refused to speak to me.
One homeless guy kept walking by me and calling me a “dumb cracker motherfucker” out of the side of his mouth, trying to antagonize me. I wasn’t looking for a fight and ignored him. I thought about walking until I found someone to help me, but what can I tell them? I didn’t know where I needed to go other than to an apartment complex in the large metropolitan area of Fort Worth, Texas. Being barefoot also made this an unappealing solution.
I met a friendly homeless guy who explained to me how I could jump a train that would take me to Fort Worth. Where would I go when I arrived in Fort Worth though? This didn’t seem like a viable solution either and jumping a train while shoeless seemed like a dicey proposition even had I known where I was going.
More hours ticked by, and my mind was racing about what I needed to do, assuming Alec wasn’t coming. So, I decided to do what I often do when I’m really in a pickle and down on my luck. I figured I’d masturbate so I’d at least have a few seconds of happiness in this miserable situation.
There was a port-o-let that the homeless people used right by the train tracks. I sauntered into there barefoot, and man, it wasn’t pretty. It clearly had not been serviced in a very long time, and the shit was almost to the rim of the toilet. I jerked off anyway. Fuck it.
The heat was getting intense. It was 2 p.m. and I was hungry and thirsty. I was so grateful when the church people showed up and handed out bottled water and sandwiches. Peanut butter and jelly never tasted so good. I pleaded for them to help me find my way to Fort Worth, but they said they had other shelters to visit and didn’t know how to help me anyway since I didn’t know where exactly I needed to go.
The nasty bastard that ran the drunk tank that refused to help me finally left and was replaced by an older lady. I pleaded with her to help, and thankfully, she acquiesced. They didn’t have a record of the specific location I was picked up.
She made a couple of phone calls, and there was no record of me anywhere in their computer system. The officers that brought me in were off-duty, but she knew their precinct, circled the area on a map, and gave it to me. This was an invaluable clue to me finding my way home.
At 4:30 p.m., after 12 long hours, I found a kind man with the compassion and patience to help get me home. He drove me around in his car, searching for the complex. It took some time, but we finally found it. Alec welcomed me back and said there wasn’t any record of me anywhere, and he was just hoping I would find my way back.
We went to the shoe store, hit the road for the Big Easy, and went on to the next adventure.
