This World Is Absurd

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So last night at about 9pm, I went to the main San Diego police station with the intention of turning myself in to avoid sleeping on the street. It was closed. Perhaps there was a door open somewhere, but all the lights were out. It looked like a corporate office building at midnight. 

What is tragic comedy?  A Black man walking the streets almost in tears because he went to the police station to try to get arrested...and it was closed. I am in utter disbelief. I’m almost crying and then I’m laughing. As I walk away, I see a police car and I think about flagging it down, but its gone up the block before I can do anything. 

I decide to go to Starbucks to charge my phone and have a cup of coffee while I try to figure out what to do. I think of Starbucks stores like safe-houses. Cops love coffee but they don’t go there. And it isn’t because they can’t afford it. They make great money these days. I think it is because the majority of cops are right-wing fascists, or leaning in that direction, so they probably hate the liberal hipster culture of Starbucks. I imagine a significant portion of Starbucks customers would give cops the stink-eye if they came in. 

I walk past the Hall of Justice—closed, and the Federal Courthouse—closed, of course. I get to the nearest Starbucks, and I find that it is closed too.

I walk to another Starbucks in the busy nightlife area Little Italy. I’ve been there late before. Closed. It is only about 10pm and every Starbucks in downtown San Diego is closed. It becomes one of those times that I feel like I’m living in an absurd movie. 

I don’t know what to do next. I’m flabbergasted. On my way back from my fruitless two-mile trek to the closed Little Italy Starbucks, I get to a crosswalk and a cop steps up beside me. I think, this is my chance, maybe I should turn myself in to him. But he looks so relaxed, he’s got food in his hand, and I see two other cops eating standing waiting for him outside a 7-11. They’re on their break. I decide to leave them be. He gives me a smile and a nod and jaywalks across the intersection. I walk on. Less than half a block ahead, I see a police SUV pulled over to the curb on my side of the street. Before I reach it, they drive away. They circle the block because the streets are one-way and I see them again when I reach the next intersection. They are paying me no mind. A few minutes later, I see probably the same SUV speeding the other direction with its lights and siren on. If I had delayed them, perhaps someone would have gotten hurt before they made it to that call. 

I think next that I’ll go to the sheriff’s station and turn myself in there. This is better anyway because the Sheriffs run the jails, so if you are arrested by the police, they have to take you and turn you over to the Sheriffs. But despite my having spent so much time there in the past seven years, in my state of mind, I can’t remember exactly where the Sheriff’s station is. 

I’m tired and hungry. I’ve been walking all day, up and down the Pacific Beach/Mission Beach boardwalk where a homeless man, filthy, unshorn and shoeless, confronted me from his position on the ground that I was being too loud as I walked past him. I politely apologize and he responds with an escalating comment that tells me he’s spent time in jail or prison, and then he threatens to rob me for my duffel bag. I said nothing and walked away. 

I take a ride downtown with a slightly creepy, old-fashioned misogynist Uber driver who runs down for me the letter of the law as to exact manner in which it is legal to beat your kids. He then asserts that the reason young girls are getting molested is that they are dressing too provocatively. 

I walk to withdraw my last $60 from the bank before I go to the police station so that I will have cash in my wallet when I am arrested, which will go on my jail account so I can order commissary. And then I find the closed police station and go on a fruitless quest for Starbucks. 

After all this, I’m hungry and unsure what to do. It’s now near 11pm and all I’ve had to eat all day is a brisket sandwich and some french fries. I get a protein shake from the grocery store and I’m finally able to remember where the Sheriff’s station is. I walk by and it is open. But I don’t see any officers, only civilian staff behind thick glass windows. I just can’t go in. As I pass, there are two cops in an SUV waiting to enter the gate that goes to the prisoner loading area. I stop a good distance back on the sidewalk so they don’t feel crowded. The one in the passenger seat, facing me, is young and relaxed. He smiles and waves me to go ahead. A few blocks later, another cop car whizzes by. 

You can put a positive spin on anything and the cops could use the positive spin, “See, we’re not focused on chasing low-level parole violators that we know are not a public danger. We have our priorities straight.”. But I would counter that by saying, why then won’t you let me leave the state or the country?  And why have such vast resources then been wasted on my prosecution, incarceration and parole?  If I’m not dangerous enough to chase, why not let me go?

I decide to walk to Lestat’s, a 24 hour restaurant and coffee shop that Maps says is two miles away,  but I feel like it is probably about three. I’ve already walked about ten miles, in boots that are NOT made for walkin’, and my feet are sore and blistering.  But being a wanted man, and all these cops I see are paying me no mind, I just can’t turn myself in now. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess like Sam Jackson in The Negotiator, I’m not going to jail today. 

I can’t call an Uber or book a hotel because I emptied my bank account.  I press on toward Lestats. My feet are killing me now. My shoulders are hurting so much from the weight of my duffel bag, I think for a moment about just leaving it behind. 

As I’m walking past the ritzy condo buildings that line Fifth Avenue, Aston Martins and Mercedes-Benzes zipping past in the night, I feel something breaking in me. These past several years, I’ve been telling people that if my case was overturned and I had my life back, I would consider all of this a valuable learning experience that I was grateful for. But I’ve also been saying I know that at some point, there will be a day where that isn’t true anymore. This feels like that day now.   I think to myself that if Scarlett Johansson pulled up in a limousine right now and said, “Ok, let’s go”, I would tell her “It’s too late”. I think to myself that all I want now is to fall into the arms of someone who cares and cry for days, weeks, months, possibly years.  But there isn’t anyone who cares. 

I start to think, maybe I should have used corrupt influence to extract myself from this situation, if my humility and forbearance were going to count for nothing. Perhaps I should have arranged, as I very easily could have done, to have my accuser left dead in a ditch somewhere. She’s a nobody to the kind of people I know.  But no-one is a nobody to me. 

What do you think it means when I’m marched down the hallway where the judges’ offices are, and there is a “Go Stanford” sign on one of the office doors? And a few days later, I’m visited by two friends from Stanford, one of whom works for a billionaire and the other of whom is BFFs with someone who has worked in the White House. But I didn’t mention that judge to them, which would have been asking them to do what it was being offered to me to do. It’s not only because I believe in doing what’s right. If I had used that out, then they would have owned me. I shake off these dark thoughts and trudge on past homeless people laying in doorways and sitting on the street resigned to their fate. An old Black man asks me for a dollar, and I tell him, “I’m homeless just like you.”

Every police car I see, I hope they will stop and arrest me. I already know that I would tell them, “I’m glad you guys are here!”.  It’s strange when jail is an emotionally inviting place, the Sheriffs deputies and inmates now people I’ve known for more than seven years. There are blankets and food and a bunk to sleep on. I had wanted to turn myself in to the three officers who work at the sex offender registration window because I know them and they were always nice to me. As much as I hate jail, it is better than wandering the streets in the night with nowhere to go. 

Lestats, the one I’m headed to, is in Hillcrest, San Diego’s gay neighborhood. To my surprise, the bars and nightclubs are ACTIVE on a Wednesday night past midnight. So Lestats is packed and with a richer, trendier looking crowd than it used to have. I’m not in the mood and can’t afford it since it no longer looks like a place you can just sit and have a only a cup of coffee and they won’t mind. 

I now have a desperate need to urinate. I had passed up the opportunity to do so hours ago at the grocery store downtown. Hillcrest like all of San Diego is filled with homeless people, and I’m now one. Every place has a sign that says, “Restrooms are for customers only”. Bathrooms are locked everywhere in San Diego now because there are so many homeless. There are only a few places where you can find open public restrooms—the park, the beach, Wal-Mart. It’s inhumane. You have to be rich to pee!

I decide to head for Balboa Park, another mile of walking added to the perhaps fifteen that this day has already seen. There are many bathrooms in Balboa Park but only one I remember that I don’t think is locked at night. 

As I approach the last little uphill block before entering Balboa Park, I feel a blister pop open on the bottom of my foot. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but it makes for this weird-feeling squishy sensation with each step I take.  I’m so thirsty my lips are chapped. There is a water fountain near the bathroom I’m headed for, but when I saw it last, it was covered in yellow caution tape. 

One little victory, the water fountain works. And another, the bathroom is open. It feels so good to pee that I stand there for a full minute after I’m done enjoying the afterglow of it. At times, a good piss can actually be a semi-orgasmic feeling. 

Balboa Park is beautiful at night. The buildings are bathed in blue light. It reminds me of when I used to walk Stanford’s campus in the middle of the night alone. There are homeless people scattered throughout the park. It is nearly 2am and I have no choice. I find a bench in a semi-hidden alcove between the Old Globe Theater and the California Tower. 

I sit down to rest. It’s cold so I put on the Polo sweater-jacket I bought on clearance at Macy’s for $50. It’s warm enough. I can always count on Ralph Lauren to provide nice clothes at a not-too-indecent price. I keep checking my phone and each time I think at least two hours must have passed, its only been 45 minutes. 

The main effects of what I’m experiencing are psychological, the idea that I’ve been rejected by society to this degree that I’m trying to sleep on a bench in the park. Many times in my life, I would have sat outside in a place like this, staring up at the stars and contemplating everything. It’s so miserable now because I know WHY I’m in this position, and I’m thinking of all the people asleep in cozy beds in mansions that once called themselves my friends, and did nothing to stop it. 

Just past 3am, I need to pee again. I return to the bathroom to find that it is gated shut. There is no other choice. I find a secluded spot and like a dog, I pee on a tree. Humans have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. Hell, it was an ordinary thing to do when I was a kid, but now we’ve criminalized it. And because I’ve been convicted of indecent exposure, I’m scared while I’m doing it. 

I return to my alcove feeling demeaned and ashamed. The night grows colder as the hours wear on. The 4am hour is the coldest. I mostly can’t sleep. I wrap a sweater around my face to warm the frigid air. It’s really my legs that are freezing as I’m wearing thin summer Polo chinos. I finally nod off for a good little while until I am awakened by the shockingly loud sound of the flapping wings of a curious female mallard duck who lands on the ground about ten feet in front of me, stares for a while, and then waddles away. 

The night seems to last forever. Finally, I see the faintest traces of light in the sky. I hear traffic. A few people who work in the park walk into buildings. There is an all-night McDonalds about a mile walk away and I’m starving since I managed never to eat again after the brisket sandwich at lunch. 

I walk to McDonalds under a now blue sky. The sun isn’t up yet, though, so it is still cold. All I can think about is feeling the warmth of the sun, knocking off the chill of the night. But I made it. I survived. I wonder how those who have spent thousands of nights like this possibly do it. 

I return to the park and sit around waiting for the check cashing store to open so that I can try to get a payday loan. Every step is painful now. I’ve studied enough Buddhist meditation that I can usually make pain go away pretty easily, but it’s not working now. 

I can’t afford to make the Uber guy richer anymore, so I have to take the bus. But still there are a few agonizing blocks of walking I can’t avoid. I’m fearful to see the condition of my feet, but as has always been the case for me, my body recovers quickly. I walked fifteen miles at least the day before, and while my shoulders are a tad sore, I feel alright apart from my feet. 

I am able to get from a check-cashing place the loan that my bank wouldn’t give me. I deposit the cash and head back to Balboa Park with the intention of booking a hotel and killing the six hours I must pass until I can check in. 

But I’m uncertain about everything. I want to turn myself in, but I don’t. I want to book a hotel, but I feel like its a pointless waste. I’m seeing cops everywhere now. It seems like I’ve seen more cops in the past half-day than I saw in the entire month since my release from jail. And I realize what I want: I want the cops to show that this whole thing is important enough for them to come get me. Any detective could have located me in ten minutes over these past weeks.  My parole officer and the police have my phone number. If they had called and asked me to come turn myself in, I would have done it. If I’m not important enough or dangerous enough for them to put out an APB on me, then they should let me go. The cops probably would let me go. It’s the suits in the DA’s office and parole who want to hold me. 

I book a hotel. I don’t know what I’m doing. I suppose I’m just trying to kick the calendar forward another day hoping something will change. I had resigned myself to the awful reality of going back to jail...then arrived at the police station to find it closed. Then I’m passed by half a dozen police cars hoping one will stop to bother me like I’ve been bothered by the police when I wasn’t a wanted criminal in the past. I just can’t bear to turn myself in the day after that. 

I check into my hotel. From one night homeless on the street, when I finally stop moving, my body feels worse than after I crashed my Mercedes CLK going one hundred and whatever. I take off my shoes, my blistered feet reek with the familiar stench of homelessness. I’m shocked the smell is so strong after one night walking the streets. I throw the socks away. I want to stay in the shower forever. The smell is still faintly there after I get out. 

I sleep a while but I must wash some clothes so I’ll have something clean to wear tomorrow. My ability to book one more night depends upon the return of credit card authorizations still being held by hotels. I am not optimistic. 

In any case, I’m not falling for the same routine as yesterday.  I spent that one night in the streets in deference to the possibility that it was a rite of passage or ritual of some kind. But no more. I won’t stand for being forced to live that way. This is where I will draw the line, take my chances, and either go back to jail or flee. Tomorrow, if I have to, I’m turning myself in during business hours. I hope I don’t have to. I keep hoping, wishing, praying for some other answer. But that hope is so faint, as all hope is now.

I have about fourteen hours left to try to relax, get some sleep, hopefully let my feet recover enough that I can do the walking I need to do tomorrow. I live only for the moment when this all ends. 

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