by Jack
It was a slow Sunday evening. By 8 p.m. there was hardly any traffic, even along the business district on Mangrove Avenue. The night air was cool, with clean smell thanks to a light spring rain earlier. All I needed to do was pick up my pizza from Pappa Murphy’s and head home, it would be my last errand on this blissfully calm Sunday.
As I exited the pizza place, I simultaneously heard and saw a highly agitated homeless character standing in the middle of the turn lane about 100 feet away. He was looking in my direction and yelling, “Get him! He’s on probation from the Jesus Center! Get him, his name is Corey!”
A younger man was casually trotting across the empty intersection, away from the yelling man.
The homeless guy was standing there in the street, alone and next to an overturned shopping cart with its contents of cardboard strewn across one lane of traffic.
Obviously some kind of encounter had just happened between the two, but exactly what, well, that part I missed.
So, I’m standing there watching this screaming guy with some curiosity. But, when he started picking up the cardboard and up-righting his (stolen) shopping cart, it was time to leave.
I had a fleeting thought of a car hitting him while he packed the cart, but fortunately there was no traffic. (The guy on the upper left isn’t the man I encountered, he only resembles about 80% of the characters we see in Chico living on the street)
The drama was apparently over as I walked back to my car with pizza in hand, but as I did, the homeless guy started walking in my direction. Now he’s yelling at me at the top of his lungs, “Hey, you can’t leave, you’re a witness. You saw what he did!” Actually I didn’t, so I continued to walk to my car and was about to pull away when I guess I felt some twinge of sympathy and obligation to at least tell him I’m not a witness to anything. I rolled down my window and said to the approaching man, “Sorry, all I saw was you yelling and your overturned shopping cart in the street.”
Still highly agitated, he says in a rage, “F- – k you, you f- – king liar! You’re not leaving!!! #@#$%”
Now I’m agitated, and I respond, “Back away from my car (expletive deleted).” And he immediately drew back a dirty clenched fist and by the wild expression on his face, he was about to clock me thru my open window.
In less time than it took for his recoil I was already estimating how his right-hand punch was about to come at me and how I would lean deflecting, grabbing his filthy arm, turning the punch into a wrist lock and then perhaps violently breaking his forearm across the top of my window sill. I silently smiled at this opportunity to exact some street justice, but it was just an instinctive reaction, a carry over from the bad old days when I was a street cop. I knew I really wouldn’t be breaking his arm tonight, knowing I could was enough.
The punch didn’t happen. He froze, obviously having second thoughts, and I used this brief opportunity to simply pull away, hoping he didn’t kick my car, which would have caused the situation to escalate. Instead of the kick I got more F- you’s…something barely tolerable, but enough so that I felt I didn’t have to finish what that other younger guy had started back in the intersection.
These kind of “citizen v crazy homeless” is not at all uncommon and the more bums that come here the more problems like this that we have. It’s near epidemic and the “progressive answer is build more shelters.” I’m convinced this is not the answer.
The police can’t seem to find a legal way to send them packing. They’ve more or less accepted them as our new neighbors who sleep in the park, steal from the stores, occasionally mug a citizen or swipe a bike. Mostly its just petty crime to which the cops and judges will shrug their shoulders and say, what good would it do to lock them up? And the crime victims, well, they know that drill too, and they shrug their shoulders and say, what good would it do to call the cops? And the bums know there’s no consequences to most of their actions…they’ve been counselled ad nauseum. And thus, a major homeless problem is stuck on an endless loop.
Hey, here’s a thought, maybe you will be featured in the next homeless encounter?
This is a problem that seems to have no real solutions.
So many of these people are either mentally deficient/ill or have fried their brains and their opportunities by drug and alcohol abuse and decisions in early life that have left them in a state of self induced dysfunction. It does not help to enable the rebellious among the homeless with handouts or shelters. They usually refuse shelter help preferring to press guilt buttons and pan handle, dumpster dive, or rob from citizens and businesses alike.
In an economy like ours has been for ten years, even the non-rebellious down o his luck homeless person, seriously in need of help, will find it difficult to get a job following shelter help.
Once big contributing factor, in my estimation, is the drug use culture that entices the unsuspecting young and becomes a plague as they mature. Some never recover their senses and fall into a state of permanent homeless and joblessness and uselessness.
Changing the situation requires higher expectations in families and the education system and of individuals themselves. That would require a major shift in social values…something the left seems to resist. Much of the baby boom generation skipped the maturing process and has continued adolescence long into their adult years. Bill Clinton is an example of such a creature of the sixties and seventies. Although he presents the face of an adult, going through the motions and playing in the adult world, his personal life and behavior tells another story. He still wants and needs to be popular, young, and hip. Now and then he manages, usually because he’s trapped himself, he speaks powerful truth. (See Jack’s story today) But overall his, and a great many others in that generation, have been pathetically irresponsible and immature as they navigate through life mindlessly acting as (BAD) examples to their children and grandchildren.
The choices we make have powerful consequences, many of which we cannot see as we make them. Like the ripples in a pool after we toss in a pebble the damage flows outward and into the future. It’s true, becoming an adult requires giving up some of the “fun” in being an adolescent. But maturity, a state of high standards and expectations, is required if we want a civil society in which most become contributing citizens and the few who need help or support due to mental illness or incapacity are a manageable few.
Unfortunately when a population has failed socially, as ours has, conditions that naturally follow are unmanageable, difficult, uncomfortable, messy, and quite often dangerous to law abiding productive citizens.
This problem is like rot that has gotten deeply into the wood. Excellent post Jack; thanks for sharing this story from th citizens perspective.
Thank you Tina, I just wish this wasn’t Chico’s problem. Also, wish that the police and the community were not so far apart on the solutions. Cops want to run these bums in, but the system is weak and worthless.
(The guy on the upper left isn’t the man I encountered, he only resembles about 80% of the characters we see in Chico living on the street) –
I thought it was Sean Penn. Wait, maybe it is.
I thought it was Dewey or Chris.
Jack,
Get to the good part: what kind of pizza did you get?
You ought to try the chicken artichoke bacon on thin crust if you haven’t already.
Bob, it was a thin crust artichoke, heart healthy vegan pizza with almost no calories.
What the ..LL!, A vegi Pizza, heck Jack you had a weapon all along, The guy is lucky you didn’t force him to eat it.
However that might be a capital offense if ya did!
Close…maybe it’s an aged Spicoli after a few months in a Mexican bar….or…
Or…is it Woody Harrelson?
I know one thing for sure…he’s stylin Nick Nolte, post Prince of Tides.
I dunno, Soaps…I can’t decide. 😀
I hate it when I can smell them before I can see them. The odors coming from the downtown plaza park and now our city hall fountain where they wash their slimy socks are pretty gross.