Part II Day 31: March 12, 2010 (hands of the homeless, looking for dates in line, and dreaming of the road)

Position: Volunteer

Days Officially Unemployed: 56

Hours Worked Today: 2.33

I arrive at the San Diego facility a little after 10 a.m. and head directly to the kitchen on the other side of the street, where they feed the public lunch along with the residents. After signing in and putting on the required hair-net, plastic apron, and plastic gloves, I'm told I'll be manning the juice station out in the dining room. I walk over to the juice machine and I'm greeted by a jolly black man, I'll call George, who's a little shorter than I am and much rounder. "You helping me with the juice today?" he asks. I say yes. "Cool. Ring some of those towels out and place them by the trays for wiping up spills and whatnot." He asks me if it's my first day, and I tell him I worked over on the other side last week.

"How many people you get over there?" I tell him not many, maybe 50-100, that it's mostly resident families. A younger white guy, I'll call him Jacob, comes over to join us. He asks me what volunteer group I'm from. George asks me the same thing later, and they seem surprised when I tell them I'm not volunteering with a group, that I'm here on my own. I'm actually surprised to find out they're both residents. They are normal, healthy guys with good senses of humor.

Each one of us stands at the long table in front of the juice machine with a silver tray and three juice choices in pitchers: orange, grape, and George's mix of cranberry and apple. Many of the homeless people will ask what the red stuff is, or just say, "Give me the red stuff," but George lets them know it's his special cranapple mix. Before the homeless are let in, George tells me to prepare to pour about two thousand drinks. "We get about 1,500 people coming through the line, plus residents. I'm gonna get you a new girlfriend today," he says. I laugh. "I'm gonna get you the raunchiest one coming through the line," George says and laughs. He looks at Jacob. "You too. I'm gonna get you both new girlfriends . . . I have this old woman, probably seventy-one, coming through here and rubbing my belly," George says as he rubs his belly. "She says she wants to f**k me." I laugh. "I'm serious. You'll see some crazy shit in here. There's always drama. Some woman tried to beat a man up yesterday. Drama, man. Always drama."

When the homeless people start coming through, the first thing I notice is their hands: various hues; long, yellowed fingernails; short, dirty fingernails; crusted over fingernails; sketchy, faded tattoos between thumbs and forefingers; scabs; blood stained palms; and severely dry skin. Someone should pass out lotion and nail clippers.

When I pour the juice, several people say thank you like they mean it. And not just thank you for the Styrofoam cup of juice, but thank you for volunteering, for helping. And that makes me feel good. Sure, some people push in or point their cup toward a pitcher without saying a word, but that's counterbalanced by the people saying "God bless you" or "have a wonderful day" to me. That kind of thanks and acknowledgment didn't come from feeding the rich. In general, I felt more like a servant or a piece of tolerated furniture, though there were several exceptions, of course.

George hits on several of the females, mostly residents. He keeps saying things to me, like, "Did you see that Latina girl, man? Damn," or, "You see that one, how she's built? Damn." He also has an older black woman, with tattoos on her neck, hollering out her phone number at him. "Write it down, girl," he says. While I've pointed out in past posts the disproportionate number of beautiful (and tall) rich people, I can say the homeless, in general, are not a good looking lot (though some are tall). The pretty Latina girl George commented on, and a fairly handsome younger white guy, both residents, did come through the line, but I also saw the ugliest white woman in my life. No one's winning beauty contests around here, but that's not the point.

Many people come back for seconds or thirds or more on the juice. I see several people reenter the line for a second tray of food. This may be the only meal they get today, so they stock up. A couple people have me fill their water bottles with orange juice, which I didn't realize I'm not supposed to do. They could use it for mixing with vodka when they're outside. I see a few familiar faces from last week when I was in line, including the human cigarette machine.

As other people come through the line, I think, This could be me. While I've admittedly never been close to homelessness, I've thought about the possibility ever since I was a young skateboarder. Some friends and I used to even call ourselves Team Vagrant. Life was about traveling and skateboarding and seeing new places and meeting new people, with no thought of the future. Some of the homeless guys look like people I used to skate with; one dude even wears a skateboard logo sweatshirt. And every time I read a vagabond story, whether it's On the Road or Into the Wild or Travels with Lizbeth, I feel the pull of the road.

I've been feeling it again lately. But now farther places are calling for different reasons: Afghanistan for volunteer work; South Dakota for teaching Native children; Japan for teaching English; India for pure travel experience. Even if I decide to hit the road again soon, I don't think I'll ever end up homeless, though it doesn't seem as bad as being successful and dying in your house alone, like this week's sad story about South Carolina's first black female lawmaker, Juanita Goggins. Stories like that make me want to live as much as I can now.

After a couple hours of serving juice, I tell George I'm going to eat. "Go on ahead, man," he says. I enter the line, which now only contains about five homeless people, and wait my turn at the counter. They hand you a recently washed and not completely dried plastic tray with the food already on it: a spoonful of spaghetti with a chicken friend steak and marinara sauce on top. I turn around and am handed two end pieces of white bread. The vegetables they were serving earlier, a mix of peas, carrots, and corn, are gone.

I sit down at a cafeteria table near a tall black man. After I'm seated, a young, bearded white guy sits next to me and says hello to the black man, who replies, "God is good." The white guy says amen to that, and then the black man says, "We've got to stop sabotaging our blessings." And that hangs in the air while we eat. It seems I've spent much of my life doing just that, sabotaging my blessings. But no more. I'm going to get living, to experience new things and places.