shite, literally
We live in the downtown area of a medium-sized semi-major city. There is no news in stating that there are home/houseless folks all around any downtown area, and if you’ve lived in Seattle long enough, you know specific neighborhoods where they tend to hang out. There’s one church-run women’s shelter about 5 blocks away from us, but really our neighborhood is just a transit area. Between major neighborhoods, but not really in one itself. We’re barely Belltown, sitting 2 blocks from the Space Needle. Some call it Uptown, or even group us in with Lower Queen Anne. I think the best way to describe it is to say we live behind The 5 Point, a local dive bar-slash-greasy spoon-slash-laundromat with a sign up front that reads: “We cheat tourists and drunks.” I love that place.
Anyway, my point is, we don’t often have the same people hanging out in this area for long, most are just moving through from one shelter to the next, maybe stopping in a park along the way. Or, hey? Instead of a park, how about that courtyard at night? It’s not that nice, but it’s got giant flower beds in the middle for trees and plants and it’s completely surrounded with benches. I do not blame someone for seeing this little bit of greenery with enough space to lie down and thinking, “Hey, that might be a nice place to chill out.” Because it is. What I do blame them for is waking me up on too many nights, and last night deciding our wall would make a nice bathroom.
Every now and again we hear shuffling in the courtyard that is obviously not someone coming or going, or even stopping for a cigarette. There’s a certain hushed sound that comes with someone trying to remain inconspicuous. Normally, I don’t care. Go ahead, sleep on the bench. Just don’t cause any problems.
A few weeks back, when I thought the guy outside our bedroom window was just warming up by standing near our fan, that was fine. But when he started making all kindsa loud, grunty monster noises — I couldn’t tell if he was trying to poop, getting himself off, or just incoherently fighting loudly with voices in his head — I was no longer ok with it. And I was a little scared (another paranoid thought in that moment: what if all the grunting was him trying to open a window?). I woke up Luc and made him knock on the window and tell the guy to move along.
Then this morning, I walked out to see a brown smear down the brick wall near one of our windows. It was unpleasant to say the least. My eyes followed the fecal trail from the wall across part of the courtyard before I put together what had happened. I didn’t hear anything last night, thank the lawd, but I could picture it. Someone needing a place to sleep laid on one of the benches, then started to have some serious gastro issues, and lost control while trying to get to the wall. Not sure why the wall is any better, but I’ll tell you that having two blast zones connected by a thin trail of shit is worse.
This is the kinda thing that makes me feel negative about people. I don’t trust civility. Or social responsibility. I feel kinda bad blaming the unfortunate unknown who had some serious bowel troubles while sleeping in the courtyard of an apartment building downtown. I know on some level it’s an institutional problem, that we need a better system to help the homeless and houseless. But don’t be surprised if I kick out the next person I see loitering outside my building.
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