HOTEL OLDSMOBILE

Hotel Oldsmobile. That’s what all of us kids called him. Yeah, kids are cruel. He was just a guy in a really bad spot in life. With our clean-cut all-American upbringings, we treated him the way we’d been taught. We treated him like garbage.

He was maybe in his 40s or 50s. White guy. Eyes like a husky. Dirty. Needed a haircut and a shave. He was a short guy - maybe 5'4 - and had the build of a man who had spent a lifetime doing hard labor - the sort a man does because it’s his only option.

None of us really knew him. We didn’t know what his story was. None of us were smart enough to even try to make one up. All that we really knew was he was dirty and lived in a rusted-out Oldsmobile.

These days, the media uses bullshit terms like “unhoused”. Fuck that, the man was homeless. Without that car, he’d have been sleeping on the streets. Our streets.

This was the early 1980s. The real boom of homelessness hadn’t kicked in yet - at least not in our little river town. He was our first real taste of it...and we didn’t like it.

Most days he’d ignore us when we yelled taunts at him. Most days. Once in a while his dignity would rear its head and he’d yell back at us. Sometimes he’d throw stuff at us. A rock, or maybe an old can. We thought this was hilarious.

We were little dickheads.

I’ve always believed in credit where it’s due. I’ll give ol’ Hotel Oldsmobile props for this:

I never once saw him beg.

We’ve all seen beggars. Maybe only on TV or in a movie. Some of us see them on a regular basis - standing on a corner, maybe carrying a piece of cardboard with the words ANYTHING WILL HELP scrawled across it. Here in the city, I never see kids harass these folks. Their parents obviously raised them a little better than my generation did.

I saw a skinhead stomp a beggar once, not too long ago. Was it because he was black or just because he was begging? I’ll never know. The thing I remember seeing, before I throat-punched the maggot stomping on him, was the sign. VIETNAM VET. So much for the social media “Support Our Troops” bullshit. Maybe that support ends the day they come home and take off the uniform. Maybe it’s reserved for a select group. Maybe, just maybe, it’s all a crock of shit being sold to gullible morons who have never taken a moment to think just how good they have it.

Think about it. How low does a person have to sink before they start to beg. What level of decline does someone have to go through? How much of a beating does a person’s self-esteem and dignity have to take?

I never once saw ol’ Hotel Oldsmobile beg. Never once.

How long can you go without eating? Seriously.

The longest I ever went was about 4-5 days. I was about 20 years old at the time. The two years between high school graduation and dropping out of college had been spent trying to do what I’d been told was right...but I’ve always trusted my instincts. If a situation felt wrong to me - I moved on. I dropped out of one college. I tried to go home, but found the door closed to me for the infraction of trying to do what was best for me. I briefly lived in my car (The Ford Hotel, I’d chuckle to myself), got an apartment, worked different jobs, and went back to school.

Dad claimed he was going to pay for school. I guess he never said when. After numerous trips to the bursar’s office, I had to sort out my own funding. I had a little bit of money saved up, so most of it went to the school. There wasn’t enough to cover a meal plan. I’d foolishly moved out of my dorm and into an apartment I was supposed to share with a friend. He never bothered to show up, leaving me with twice the bills. I was in a bad spot.

After the aforementioned 4-5 days, my stomach was screaming for something other than tap water. I knew about a small local charity, so I went there, essentially begging.

They were happy to help. They put together a big box of food for me. I summoned up my last scrap of dignity and asked what - if anything - I could help out with around the place. The staff tried their best to assure me it wasn’t necessary, but I wasn’t taking NO for an answer. I insisted. I fixed some stairs, painted a small office, and swept up. I wasn’t homeless but was close enough to know I didn’t like it. I was able-bodied and wouldn’t take a handout.

I was lucky, in my own way, that there was a little bit of work to be done.

As I carted the box of food home, I’ll tell you this for nothing: I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t feel like I’d gotten away with the big swindle. I hadn’t stuck it to the man, or any of the idiotic tropes the right-wing loonies love to ramble about.

When I got back to my empty apartment, I got out the one skillet I had and made a fried Spam sandwich. I actually prayed and thanked God for it.

My shriveled stomach didn’t know what to do with solid food. I puked it up all over the kitchen floor. I thought about ol’ Hotel Oldsmobile while I cleaned up the mess.

How many times had he puked up food because his body had forgotten what to do with it? How many odd jobs had he done just to get a sandwich?

Like I said, I never once saw him beg.

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