Hobo Matters

Just outside my building’s parking garage, there are a set of green dumpsters in which the building residents and local restaurants chuck their garbage and recyclables. About a week ago, an ugly green couch with a gratuitous vomit stain appeared next to the dumpsters, where it sat gathering snow and – as I found out yesterday morning – homeless people. I literally stopped dead in my tracks as I gazed down at a rumpled man sleeping on the couch, covered only by a tattered jacket and filthy piece of old carpet.

Homeless people are nothing new to me. I am from Detroit after all, possibly the only American city with more homeless people than pigeons and squirrels combined. I just didn’t know that they allowed hobos in Naperville, of all places. For those of you who’ve never been here, Naperville is the “hip n’ happenin’” place in the Chicago area. Downtown Naperville, which I call home, is basically an outdoor mall, complete with virtually every chain store imaginable, all the free parking anyone could ever want, and muzak which is pumped out of hidden speakers. This is a place that erects monuments to itself at every conceivable opportunity (two examples: a twenty-foot mural outside a night club, depicting the history of the town’s local paper, and a two acre, $1.4 million park, created to honour a recently deceased local restaurant owner. The park wouldn’t have been so bad if the city hadn’t decided the best way to honour him was to buy out and bulldoze his seventy-three-year-old restaurant and build the park in its place.)

Naperville businessmen are notorious for weeding out local, independently-owned businesses, such as dry cleaner’s and shoe repair stores – places that don’t exactly bring in a lot of money from casual shopping – and either buy them out or run them out of businesses. In the past three years alone, a pharmacy (dating from 1875), a butcher’s market (dating from 1903), a small bookstore, and a family-run pizza place were all shut. In their place, Naperville now boasts a swank steakhouse, an upscale salon with valet parking, and a Sunglass Hut.

Oh the price of progress.

In short, Naperville seems like the type of place that would pay to have homeless people shipped to places like Chicago and Detroit. This is why I was so flabbergasted to find one sleeping on a vomit-stained couch, about twenty feet from my back door. He must’ve felt me staring at him, because he stirred after a minute and raised his head to look at me with blood-shot eyes.

He introduced himself as Chuck, and said he was just taking a nap and didn’t want any trouble. “An’ I ain’t one of them homeless guys who offers hand jobs for money, so if that’s what you’re here for, you’re in for a disappointment, bud.” I decided I liked this guy. I gave him all the spare change I had, which was about $1.50 in quarters and proceeded on my way.

Tonight, the couch was still there, except there was a different person sleeping on it. Two hobos in two days! What are the odds? This was better than Christmas. I asked the new guy where Chuck had gone, and – I’m not making this up – he said that Chuck had offered the use of the sofa for the night, and was charging him rent for it.

I was too shocked to say anything, so I nodded and went inside. For a moment, I considered going looking for Chuck and demanding my half of the rent money, since the couch had come from my building and I was gracious enough to let him sleep there in the first place, rather than calling the Naperville cops on his ass.

Despite my thrilling encounter with real suburban Chicago hobos, life has continued to be slow and just a little blue. You would be bored and just a little blue as well if you were me. I discovered that my sweet tooth has gone on a vacation – possibly permanently – since some time last year, and I’m still working my way through the box of candy my parents sent me for Halloween.

Now that I’m only about a week away from heading home for Christmas, my “to do” list looks a little like this:

1. Continue what ever it is that I’m doing right
2. Pester Elida to post more often
3. Find a way to never say or do anything stupid ever again
4. Holiday shopping
5. Build teleporter

Seriously, what the hell am I doing and what should I do next? I wish I knew.