His pasty skin sags on his long cheekbones. Deep wrinkles stream pell-mell in his pink-burnt forehead, brown-splotched cheeks—cradling the tendons jutting out his neck and running down his palms. They surround his small eyes, skittery and jet-black. He twists his face into exaggerated signs of huh? while we speak (he can’t hear very well), revealing yellowed teeth slapped haphazardly across soft gums. Old, crinkle-damp lips. White-blonde hair curls tightly off his legs, arms, and scalp.
Loco was always of restless mind.
He was born in Beaumont, Texas, a small city about ninety miles east of Houston. After graduating high school, he moved into Houston: home of the Bealls department store chain’s headquarters.
“I’m a shipping and receiver clerk. You know, working in a warehouse. Driving a forklift, doing all that.”
He worked for Bealls unsteadily for about twelve years before seeking a respite in the armed forces.
“[My friend] spent 25 years in the navy, he said, ‘Loco, you wanna see the world? Go Navy.’ I enlisted in the Navy at 30 years old, and a chief officer—which is my age—he go, ‘Ain’t you comin’ in a little late?’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, but I think I can handle it.’ I was the oldest man in the company.”
He enjoyed the challenge and travel of the job at first, he said.
“I been halfway around the world. And it was good when we had port, I mean, liberty called and you go overseas you had money in your pocket, whamming, you know, the whole big deal.”
Then his mind began to wander again.
“I was two years in there, I gave ‘em the finger and said ‘Fuck you man, I’m outta here.’ They didn’t like it, I’m like ‘Fuck you man.’ I got an honorable discharge, but it wasn’t bad conduct or dishonorable: for ‘Other than’. I went UA three times; unauthorized absence. Just ‘fuck you’ man, I’m outta here. I was Phillipines UA, Japan UA, Hong Kong.”
He continued: “I got fucked up and they treated me like a dog, and I’m like man, fuck you man, I’m outta here. They say well, that’s what you want? Fuck you man, I’m outta here. And I don’t mean to be disrespectful to you, but I just say fuck you man I’m outta here. And they say okay man, you’re out! So I’m outta here. Two years. Man, I can’t handle this shit.”
It was back to Houston for him. He saw the city with world-hardened eyes and a bitter air. First, he said, he moved in with his sister. Their relationship tensed, and eventually:
“I just said I’m outta here.”
He moved into an apartment with an old friend. He wasn’t a fan of the other inhabitants of the building, and the environment they created, he said.
“It was a good apartment complex. But they’re all homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts. Crazy.”
He tolerated it, though, until a certain evening:
“In the apartment I was drinking, and me and him got into an argument, and I told him, ‘Come on outside, man”: he said it was crap. But I put it nicely, and I said, let’s go outside. And I got thrown out. They said man, you shouldn’t have done that. I said what the hell! Him and me got into it, and you let him stay, and you kickin’ me out? I don’t understand it. Stick it up your ass, I’m gone. They said you got thirty days, I said I’ll be outta here in less than thirty days. I was so glad to get outta there. I cussed them out. When I left I cussed them out, you know what, stick it up your. They asked me to leave. I didn’t volunteer to leave, they asked me to leave, I said this mine. I mean, I’m outta this place.”
So began his homelessness. On the streets, he saw fully revealed yet another, ugly side of the city.
“Man, Houston’s so wild. It’s wild. I got some shit, crap. I was laying on a bench, homeless one day, and this guy started beatin’ the hell outa me and I’m just layin’ on a bench! In the street! Man he just started hittin’ me and goin’ through my pockets and my wallet back here, well I had it in my sock, and I’m like hey man, what the fuck are you doin’ man? He’s like ‘Give me yo money or I kick your ass!’ And man, I started fightin’. I had a knife and I pulled it out, I went, chiu! chiu! and I think I missed him. He see that knife and he started runnin’. Come back here you mother fucker, man, come back here. Not kidding, bro. Like, damn, what’s wrong with you shit.”
This kind of encounter was frequent, he said.
He lived precariously homeless in Houston for about twenty years before making the trek to Austin on a whim. Why?
“Party town. You know that. Austin’s a party town.”
WHEN YOU HAVE MONEY, YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT.
Loco has been homeless in Austin for about a year. For now, he lives in a whiskey-fueled internal conflict about his life situation.
He attends Church Under the Bridge weekly for the food, and watches the volunteers with something between envy, appreciation, and resignation. “They’re Christian and havin’ a good time, and they give you stuff, and whatever. They got a job, they got… I used to have that. I don’t have no more, and that’s it. It’s over. It’s over with. I get a check. I don’t want to pull myself out.”
He said he’s far from bitter: “They’re doin’ better than I am. They would ask me, why don’t you pull yourself out? For what? Why? I have a choice. My choice is what I want. This is my lifestyle, and this is the way I live.”
This is the way he lives:
“See them holding that sign up over there? I don’t do that. I get money. I get a check. Social Security. I’m 64 years old. I get money. It ain’t gonna last me, but I get money.” Meanwhile? “I gotta find somethin’ else to do. I don’t know. I’ll figure that out when it comes to that. Probably starting tomorrow or the next day. I run out of money, that’s it. It’s hard to say because when you have money, you can do what you want, but when you run out…”
He said: “I walk right down here and catch the number 10 by Breckenridge, and take it back and go back to my camp.”
His daily activities are centered there. “I stay at the camp. I got nothin’ else to do. It’s right over there by that – – Recreation Center. I can go in there and take a shower, I can go in there and charge my phone, whatever.”
As much as he finds refuge in his camp, he said that he’d happily consider moving into stable housing, provided the environment was non hostile.
“I gotta talk to those people [at Caritas]. See if they can’t get me back into an apartment. If I like [the environment], I’d do it.”
He said:
“I’m very happy. I can’t complain and I ain’t gonna say anything else.”
Later:
“I think life sucks. I’m not going through my downhill, I’m not hittin’ a bottom thing, but it’s getting close. I don’t care anymore.”
In any case, seeking help from family is not an appealing option.
“My sister, I dunno. She might be dead, I dunno. I’ve got cousins, family, both of ‘em. I don’t associate with them anymore. Cause they look at me like an outlaw, and I’m goin’, I’m an outlaw, so what? I’m outta here!”
He lives day-by-tumultuous-day, he said.
“That’s all you can do. I mean, I’m not promised tomorrow, just like you. I’m not promised tomorrow.”