10/17/23 Day 17, Tuesday, Boston

People are always moving in a direction. Their life like a hamster wheel. I balance outside the cage a wild hamster in the infinity ♾️ field. 

5:30 I wake up at the church, LA and the woman are sleeping near me. As usual I pack all my stuff up I start charging one of my phones cuz there’s plugs there. I take my vitamin C and a caffeine pill for my ADHD. Caffeine is just strong enough to help me. I refuse to use narcotics even for medicine. Today is the day that LA will be heading out west on a bus. I sit on one of the stone benches and begin to work on the blog. At 6:00 a.m. LA wakes up and starts getting ready to head over to St Francis house for his breakfast, his last breakfast in Boston. LA leaves and I sat for a while longer uploading videos and writing the blog at the church. I haven’t seen Freitas or Midnight the transgender couple I interviewed in a few days now. some workers come by and it’s getting light out. It’s time to move on.

6:40 p.m. I really like the Suffolk Superior Court House area. It’s a sheltered area surrounded by large buildings. I decided to head over there and hang out. It’s a little windy out. I’m sitting on a table outside the courthouse, when nature calls. I start looking for a coffee shop or somewhere I can use the facilities. I leave my bike locked up and I head over to a Neros on Cambridge Street about a 3 minute walk away. I stand in line with a few customers waiting to use the bathroom and have some good conversation. When I leave Nero’s there’s a 7-Eleven right next door, I have a hankering for monster energy drinks. When I’m walking in the 7-Eleven I hear my name, I look over and it’s my good friend Rafael who I did time with in the federal prison system. He tells me that his girl and him had a fight and now he’s living on the streets. His phone is dead so I tell him to come with me. I met Raphael in prison, I saw him in detox when I was working there, and now I see him in the street. I don’t know what cosmic force leads us together in these types of conditions. I grabbed my bike from in front of Suffolk Court House and Rafael and I walked over to St Paul’s Church on Tremont Street for Manna Breakfast. 

9:20 a.m. there’s already a line at the door of St Paul’s. There’s a few guys out front with bikes, one of them is a blue bike, Rafael begins to speak Spanish with them. A lot of times people in the streets will get their hands on blue bikes and ride them until the wheels fall off. I have a lock for my bike, these men don’t have locks. I tell the man with the bikes to go ahead of me and see if they can leave the bikes in the basement of the church. I lock my bike up across from the church. They open the doors and we all funnel in. Rafael and I sit with LA, and Rafael begins charging his phone. It’s a writing workshop today at Manna breakfast. I don’t have time to write for the workshop. I have a lot of work to do. The woman that LA had been hanging out with over the weekend and who I spent some time with this week is in a wheelchair, she says she got clipped by a car last night. I asked if she’s going to sue, she said yes. Raphael is able to talk to a caseworker that is at the breakfast, who directs Raphael to Pine Street In for shelter and services. Most of my time is spent working on the blog and uploading videos and such. We end up leaving around 1:45 pm, and I get a quick video with my old friend and he goes on his way.

Writing from last week

2:00 p.m. I took a trip over to the federal public defender’s office at 51 sleeper Street. I scheduled a meeting with my two lawyers who helped me terminate my federal probation. When I got sentenced for selling drugs over 13 years ago, on top of 12 and 1/2 years I had to serve, I was given 8 years probation. Because of the good work I’ve done since being home and with the help of these public defenders I was able to get my probation terminated 5 years early. One of my lawyers was not able to stay long cuz they had court. But the lawyer who wrote the motion for my probation termination had some time and we talked at length about policy, law, my project, and the good work my lawyer is doing these days. 

3:30 p.m. I checked out the park next to the Federal Public Defender’s office. It seems like it would be a good place to sleep. Although it does say no trespassing after dark. My plan is to check out more churches as possible places to sleep outside in the future especially during the winter. I drank a monster energy drink, and hung out on the boardwalk next to the Charles River for a little bit. There’s no nearby bathrooms and I had to take a leak. I duck behind a bush, it’s the best option I got. I’m bored so I film a seagull eating trash.

5:00 p.m. I bike over to the Church of the Adventist on brimmer Street for dinner. I see some sites on the way. When I arrive everyone’s seated, LA doesn’t see me come in. We end up having macaroni and cheese, with green beans, and a bag of chips. At the end they bring out a big cookie. After dinner I noticed LA got up and he’s about to leave. I call out to him, and he sees me. He says I didn’t see you come in. I say yeah you’re not very observant. LA says he’s heading over the bus station to get ready to leave. I’m still eating so I tell him I’ll meet him over there. 

6:50 p.m. I rode my bike over to South Station. It’s about a 6 minute ride. Finding the bus station was a little tricky. I went through the train platforms, it’s off of platform 1. I take the elevator up to the bus terminals and start looking for LA. He spots me and calls out to me. His bus is arriving at terminal 5. We decided to go outside and have a going-away cigarette. There’s a young man in the street wearing a jacket but no shirt. He’s kind of ripped up and he has an upside down pentagram underneath his belly button half exposed the rest is concealed by his pants. He seems all hyped up and then he comes over to LA and I and asks for a cigarette. LA says he ain’t got no cigarettes. I can tell that this guy is looking for trouble so I tell him, “you can have the rest of this one,” the one I was smoking. This gentleman comes over and I give him the cigarette. He starts telling us about how he’s planning on kicking some guy’s ass across the street. He gets real close up into LA’s face and then goes to hand him the cigarette. LA declines. We decide to go back up to the bus terminal and get away from this unruly dude. I say my goodbyes to LA. We do some videos, he packs his stuff on the bus and he heads out back home.

8:00 p.m. I head back to the church where we can sleep. I take LA’s sleeping spot because there’s a plug there. At around 9:00 p.m. the woman shows up. I tell her LA left and she gets her stuff ready to go to sleep for the night. 

9:30 p.m. I pass out in my sleeping bag on my blow up mattress.