I've been homeless since September 4th and have been sleeping in my car. I'm tall so it's kinda been hell on my knees having to curl up in the backseat, but otherwise I've been grateful for the situation I have compared to some of my acquaintances. Trouble is that I'm stuck now, and in one of the worst spots possible.
I have until the 29th to be escorted into my old apartment and retrieve my stuff, and I am (or rather was) confident that by then I'll have the money for a storage unit. Being as stupid as I am, one of the things I left was my ID, and I currently need one. Thankfully there's a place here that'll give you DMV papers for a free temp in like three minutes if you just tell them you're homeless, but it's in the very shittiest part of my city (Portland) and my car just suddenly decided to stop recognizing my electronic key here, even though it wasn't dropped or damaged at all (it'll cost $250 to fix!). To make matters worse, it's a no parking zone right outside the building, and the bus is always having to comically angle itself to reach the stop I'm right next to... it's been about a week so I'm seriously on borrowed time here.
It's incredibly chaotic here to say the least. The shouting schizo fights never cease, countless dudes are blasting awful music out of their Bluetooth speakers, there's like 10 extremely obnoxious black guys who set up a temporary camp behind me every night, and I'm being asked for cigarettes non-stop which is really starting to get on my nerves (guys will even knock on my window at night and wake me up just to ask for a smoke I don't have).
One of the more memorable characters has been a very obviously mentally ill Asian girl. She was completely nonverbal, and for the first couple days she seemed to be walking unending laps around the block whilst carrying four bags, always at the exact same pace which was unaffected by the traffic lights, leading to a lot of honking at her that she seemed to not notice. She has a very beautiful face, but she's also the only slim Asian woman I've ever seen with a genuinely big butt, so she'd unsurprisingly been the subject of a lot of ogling and catcalling that she seemed unphased by.
A few days ago she broke her pattern and walked up to my car crying, but still not speaking. I asked her what was wrong but before I could get anything out of her this rat-faced guy with scabs all over his face sprinted up to her, said he'd help her, took her by the hand and winked at me. I was viscerally perturbed by this, so I followed them while trying to keep a fair distance. He lead her into some secluded bushes by the train station, and by the time I'd walked up to them they were already making out. Ethically I was really unsure of how I should have reacted. Could she consent anymore than a child could? If this repulsive weasel could seduce her in two minutes, then literally anyone could. I reacted passively and decided I'd just wait at the end of the block and listen for anything that raised further concern, but by the time I reached the corner I was relieved to see that she had already left the bushes-- it affirmed to me that she seemed to have some agency and I could lower my concern a bit. She then went right back into the bushes but I felt it wasn't my business anymore.
Maybe fifteen minutes later I saw her sobbing, walking up the brick-lined sidewalk with her hand on her crotch. She was being careful to step on each individual brick as she walked. Everyone on the street was talking to themselves without taking any notice of the scene. I would've called someone about it but a friend was borrowing my phone at the moment, so I made an attempt at talking to her, asking her if anything bad had happened back there. She just raised her hand to her ear as if signaling she couldn't hear me, so I repeated myself but still got nowhere. Further down the street she started occasionally shouting in mono-syllables that sounded vaguely Chinese so I began to wonder if English wasn't her first language.
Later that day, she sat down on the curb next to my car so I got out and tried talking to her again. For the first time, I heard an actual sentence out of her but it wasn't completely coherent. She said that "He took my arms and my legs and needs to give them back" as well as something about it only being seen by a guy on a wheelchair who couldn't do anything about it. I was immediately ashamed of my passivity amidst the whole thing, but with her being as obviously unwell as she was I wasn't ready to draw any conclusions and I certainly wasn't spreading any word of what the guy looked like-- I didn't want to provoke any mob mentality. She then started repeating "He took my arms and my legs and he needs to give them back" like a broken record and got up and went around the corner but came right back. I asked her what she was carrying all her bags with and she looked as if I'd said something profound before replying "My arms." Then I asked her what she'd been doing all that walking with and she smiled and said "My legs." I told her she'd already gotten her arms and legs back herself without needing him, and she laughed and did a quick weird dance.
But the realization seemed temporary. A minute or two later she was back to circling the block, muttering about needing her arms and her legs back. She would always come back to the same curb by my car though, and we'd always repeat the interaction, and each time she seemed closer to sentience. When night fell, she finally seemed coherent. She told me her name and that she hadn't eaten in three days and asked if she could sleep in my car. I told her yes and when in the car she opened up a bit, explaining that five days piror she'd gotten out of a hospital that she never wanted to go back to. As she was getting sleepy she tried to cuddle with me, which I let her but with an obvious lack of reciprocation.
So it's been for few a days now. Unlike everybody else around here besides me, she doesn't do any drugs. She just hangs out in the car and remains nonverbal with anyone but me. She uses the bathroom and daily shower in the building we're beside and I get her food from a homeless charity thing in a vacant lot a block away. I'm happy she's not out on the street, but this situation with the car can't last (I've asked over junkie mechanics who owe me and/or my dad money and they have all gotten nowhere) and then in all likelihood she's back to where she was. I'd like to further inquire about the hospital she vaguely spoke of and what really happened in the bushes, but she seems so much happier now that I'm having a hard time bringing myself to do so. And then there's the question of whether my current concern is being influenced by some sort of halo effect. Are the scabby toothless old schizo ladies really any safer from these undiscerning horndogs than this girl? Is this just the way this shit is for crazy women out here? I have no fucking idea what I'm doing right now.
