Places I've been shoed from since last post:
Shudehill. Twice. once just told to wake up, once told to move on)
Outside central library, if you count the time I woke up at market street beerless, homeless, will to go onless, that'd make 3 times. They let me in...
... I'm not longer in Starbucks, I've re woke after 13 hours sleep in my friends' back garden, on a bed made up of, firstly, a cardboard guitar box, opened out to about a 1x1.5m rectangular shape on the floor! Secondly, a pink bed sheet, spread over the cardboard for more confort. My legs are engulfed in a mermaid tail blanket which paired with the two blankets and the cushion to lay my head makes up the comfiest bed I've slept in since the night before i left. I woke up with a new eye shape however, wish I wish I knew why but I simply do not! So what I have to do now is fill you in from the last post two now, not particularly sure where one day ended and the other begins so what I shall do, is name the post day 4/5 and do it in part 1 and 2. I'd by lying if I split them equally down the middle and pretended each day was different cause if they're only split by 3 different 15 minute kips. They're not particularly different days.
So there I was, wringing the last blog post MMU university with Kayla and Nicole (the two girls who are creating a documentary for uni about my journey!) because I'd been taking so long to write it and complete it (day 3) they'd left me to go and get food at which point I ensured them I'd be done within 20 minutes, which uncharacteristically I was. What we was going to do was capture the first footage for the documentary! What I had intended was to get filmed brushing my teeth in a park and just an interview then maybe so footage walking around town. So I left the uni and met the girls who were walking towards me, we went straight to the park to capture me brushing my teeth. When we arrived, unexpectedly, their was a food station just outside the front of the park! I'd never known or seen this particular soup kitchen before, so obviously (although I wasn't hungry) it made sense to get footage (for the documentary) of me eating the food and to also ask the owners questions! They'd said they'd been there for 6 years doing it I assume once weekly!
After I'd ate we just got more footage including the footage of me brushing my teeth using a bottle of water I filled up in the uni and me doing other tasks! We headed off into the city centre to try and capture more footage on the way. Not much point detailing every detail of this as it is actually capture. The other reason being it was so long ago and I didn't note it I can't actually remember. If this post was only to capture the last 12 hours I would've probably went into detail about each step I'd taken but it'd just be unnecessary considering more important things have happened since. Anyway so me, Kayla and Nicole are walking through town discovering another homeless feeding station and more nice people which we interviewed, after this we walked to an area near Selfridges to see the soup kitchen I'd be the day previously with Jason but it wasn't there! At which point we decided to part ways as we were meeting again on Saturday where they'd be with me from about 8pm-1am filming what street life is like. So anyway we ended up going the same way and at the hotel where they both worked! When we got there I was told I could leave my heavy as fuck bags in a cloakroom at which point I received a little ticket with a number on to give in when I returned in order to redeem my bags back. If never been on the homeless journey, without that bag so as you can imagine the first few steps felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. literally. Baring in mind the time here is about 20 to 10pm on Wednesday! Okay so we're no longer together. I'd begin doing what I do best which was simply just travelling around aimlessly. The thing is because you've been wandering around the same area for such a long time you begin to realise, for example:
If you've been to Nothern Quarter tonight, and you're housed, you can clearly and vividly remember the last time you'd been here, regardless how intoxicated or how long ago. So whether it be, last December for the works do, last week for drinks before a concert, last weekend to buy some trainers from Note or Oi Polloi or even everyday in the past week for work or otherwise. You'd know when. Whereas homeless, you simply don't know? It'd be like asking how many times in the past 4 days have you walked past your toaster? If you know, you're either very calculated and probably got a mental disorder or you don't have a toaster so the answer is zero. Having been aimlessly wondering around both solo and grouped, through the same areas, all day and night, for for four days and nights, you tend only to remember faces rather than places! You may even be able to place where you lastant seen that face. Which would only have been 1 time you'd seen that face. In that place. Not taking into consideration how many faces you've seen, and how many places you've been recently and the fact that you're also not particularly arsed about seeing places or people. However more just creating a to do list of tasks to pass time. So at 1am you could be walking down Deansgate, having been in spinning fields smoking a cigarette, towards Market Street. However, now at 4am you're walking down Deansgate towards the locks to look for a comfy place to rest. Baring in mind you've probably been somewhere on Deansgate at least twice the day before overall, its hard to keep track. It's not only Deansgate either, its Piccadilly Gardens, Oxford Road, Market street, Everywhere!
-new location finally at a computer so i can bang these out-
so as you can tell, im just aimlessly travelling with each step adding to the fatigue my legs are having to endure. i decided then to just sit and people watch on a quiet canal, with not much footfall. basically i was from the outset and throughout looking for somewhere to nap but not admitting it to myself. i think i managed to maybe doze off for 20 minutes but soon after i was back on my travels. this particular journey led me to wifi... although most places in town have free wifi, it still sometimes feels like trying to draw ketchup from a poodle when most ask you for a mobile number, that they'll then text, with a code to join the wifi. fuck off no sim. my mood at this point deteriorating, im feeling extremely anti social, and i feel like if i hear the word 'homeless' again ill spontaneously combust. using the wifi i found, i had a snapchat off riley saying he was en route home from work and was coming into town to travel home. 4 messages later we were meeting, which we did and it involved me walking beside him to broughton and then turning around alone and travelling back into town. when i arrived back in to town my mission was to find any one id met previously during the last 4 or so days. so i went to the carpark where id been on my first night back to floor 7, expecting to see them. they werent there so i just began to descend however this tie using the stairs. this is where i met a man, who didnt tell me name or age, cause he knew about the blog after i told him and he was excited to be featured however wished to remain as anonymous as possible. sweet. bullet point bob is back, this is how he described himself before homelessness whilst smoking both crack and heroin:
- he was a "functioning crackhead"
- he could still sell heroin whilst addicted to crack
- his gilfriend once she discovered that he sold heroin used to pester him let her try and and to share his supplies
- she didnt always know he took drugs but once she did it caused a downward spiral in the relationship because he could spend more money on it, blatantly some it in and around home, in front of and with her as apposed to "sneaking off to moke it in the bathroom"
- by this point theyre both "functioning crackheads"
- when they'd been together 3 and a half years he bagan working in sales and was made redundant 8 years into the relationship.
- being made redundant meant his already rocky relationship began to become worse as his girlfriend didnt work and he was the breadwinner
- he claimed he got evicted 4 months after this as he didnt read no reply to a letter saying his rent was due, he claims the letter fell between the fridge and the cooker.
- when the, whoever came to evict him came, he said he had a grand in his pocket but it was too late which meant he had to move
- he started selling drugs again and he was doing nothing but sitting in and selling drugs
- at this point he was introduced to then legal highs, mkat and "monkey dust"
- he said he declined from being strong headed because "monkey dust makes everyone go crazy!"
- even when he ran out of mkat, monkey dust or crack he said he'd NEVER resort to heroin
- he first took heroin aged 30 and hes been addicted ever since
- he began smoking it in spliffs, which naturally progressed to "tooting" although he remained adamant hed "NEVER INJECT DRUGS" as it came with diseases and complications.
- he described heroin by referring back to Ray Charles and Jimi Hendrix saying similarly to weed it makes you creative and he sometimes felt his brain was at its sharpest whilst on the drug
- he "has a soft spot" for heroin and he said he thought the first time he tried it he would be able to dabble with it once and not become addicted!
- his family first began to realise he was addicted to some king of drugs because they would find the foil tracks about. which in turn made him start "lying, being sly and using his brain"
- when he broke up with his girlfriend of 9 years and he began to miss her he turn to doing more and more heroin.
- he has "done the rattle nuff times"
- he said that addiction is an illness and i asked him if it was "like being on a diet but eating a cake a day" which he corrected into "being on a diet and pigging out everyday!"
- heroin is by far his favorite drug.
he continued to list the differences between crack and heroin but we were interuppted by a carpark official. he told him hed already shooed him once today and he needs to leave, he said i can go to although i was simply sat writing on the stairs making notes. but unlike the mcdonalds situation, i understand why i had to leave too. i immediately got in the lift but the men stayed and argued, i was stood in the lift waiting for him to join me but after 30 seconds and the man saying he was going to take pictures as hed seen him this morning, i just vacted.
when i left, i was walking from the shudehill carpark down towards birdcage, when i seen my friend from my last job, and her other friend, walking away from birdcage as if they were leaving. "jasmine is that you?" it was. she as soon as heard my voice and saw me began to cry, saying "boston, please come and stay at mine, i dont want you out here!" although she was drunk i knew she was genuine as on night 1 we was snap chatting me for half an hour about the same thing! she'd also told her mum about me, and she said her mum was worried, since ive never met her mum the fact they'd discussed me meant she was surely serious. i had to confirm i couldnt stay at her house, but i could potentially come to her area. she tried her up most to sway me to follow with her but after my persistence she agreed i was fine and we went to dixy, where nomatter how much i insisted id eaten she bought me a chicken burger meal and tried to get money out for me, i accepted the food, but the money too far so we parted ways before it happened, her getting in a taxi, me heading towards piccadilly gardens, eating. when i got to piccadilly gardens my food was gone, obviously, but i headed to gay village, where a woman told me i was beautiful as i walked past a bar, which resulted in her boosting my ego for 5 minutes, whilst i acted as though i wasnt loving every second. when i left her i walked past the take away's, looking in randomly i see no other than! DIAMOND. ONEISHA. GREEN! i wont even go into detail about that just know she was being typical diamond, but drunk diamond, drunk barefoot eating pizza diamond. i had to tell her "diamond, youre acting like a rhinestone" and she told me "sack yoa mom!"
after that, i sucked my mum with a mcdonalds straw and im still here now. joke i just continued to wander around gay village after she got in her taxi and this gay man started following me, i turned round flirting; in a you could never kinda way. clearly thinking i was fit because id just been ego boosted by a randomer. anyway he started stroking his dick and insinuating follow him. i told him i was homeless and had been for the past 4 days but he didnt care. i acted as though i didnt either to gain a cigarette then left him because anyone who would suck homeless dick would suck anything. and although that doesnt particularly bother me, youd have to be wearing NOT WHAT HE WAS. (V NECK, SCHOOL JUMPER BLUE NOT DENIM PANTS AND CANT EVEN REMEMBER THE REST, BUT YOUD NEED TO BE WEARING A TRACKSUIT AND LOOKING LIKE YOU SPIT BARS OR SELL MD OR IM NOT FEELING YA RIGHT NOW!) after this i had to just waste time till 9am and the library opened. and i had to film at 10am with Kayla and Nicole for the documentary so i just continued walking around. shock.
what happened after the library opened was i went in and began to write this, which i ended up scrapping, and restarting and going to a place where homless people can receive showers and food in the morning and sometimes evenings called barnabus! located in the gay village. i wont go into too much detail about that as it will be featured in the documentary however i showered, got footage with Kayla and Nicole and got some new gloves, socks and boxers (all brand new!)
post shower i felt amazing, almost as if i'd never been homeless, although i was wearing the same clothes, i felt so fresh, a spring in my step and new lease of life.
what happened next includes:
gaining £110
buying a gerbil and a cage and all the trimmings
smoking weed
meeting more friends
hallucinations
waking up somewhere different to where i fell asleep
and
a 13 hour sleep in Hope and Millie's backgarden
all of this will be in part 2! along with all pics for this post. unfortunately have to go somewhere else to upload the pics
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