05 Nov A homeless tour guide

A homeless guy was yelling behind me while I was looking to the new ice skating space located in Union Square. He was sitting in a bench and speaking with his broken jaw that makes his words hard to hear. When I first turned back and looked at him, he realized he caught my attention and continued talking to me. In a distance where I feel safe, I was listening to him. Honestly, I couldn’t catch half of what he was saying. I am sure he said “Oakland”, “skiing”, “fun”, and “skating is easy”. At some point while I was standing there for nothing, he asked me to sit next to him in the bench.

I was wandering around the area that night. I was expecting nothing special to happen but hoping so. Like, I make friends instantly in an open public space because we feel like it. The place I showed up to was Union Square decorated with a huge Christmas tree and illuminations everywhere I look around. And a guy with his broken jaw talked to me. He happened to be the person I got to hang out with from 8:00 to over 10:00.

I sat in the same bench with the homeless guy. He told me about his stay in Vietnam, 4 gunshots wounds in his upper abdomen, how fun it was to ski in Oakland, and the fact that he is homeless and doing okay. Everybody he called out ignored him and passed by except for a kid walking with her dad. Her father didn’t look pleasant but the little girl asked him to restate what he said. But his broken jaw couldn’t clearly pronounce to her, “Are you going to skate?”

He asked about me. I told him that I came from Japan and study at a university here. “Take me there”, he said. I said “Where?” “Japan”, he said. “Take me there. I am serious.”

He asked me if I smoke, drink or do drugs. I told him that I drink beer. He put a canned beer out of his pocket and asked me how old I am. “I am 20. Back in Japan, I was able to drink but I cannot drink here in the US.”, I said.  Anyway, he gave me the beer concealed in the brown paper bag. He called me nigga. “Are you white?”, he asked. I said no. He smiled.

Some teenage girl suddenly handed over a Starbucks drink to him and left the place without a word. He gave that to me because he didn’t like sweet stuff.

A Russian old woman came to the bench and started smoking. She was on the phone all the time she was there speaking in Russian. After she left, the homeless man told me that San Francisco has people from all over the world. “There’s a China town over there. I’ll take you.”, he said. I told him that I should go home by 10:00. It was 9:10.

We took a bus after he took a piss in a bush. On the ride there, his attitude was becoming aggressive to other people. “Who are you looking at?” “What’s your problem?” “You wanna fight?”, he raged.

He walked me through China town while interlocking my arm with his. Every time he found somebody in the street, he glared at them to look scary. He said he was protecting me. There was a Chinese restaurant a vibrant singing voice was coming from. That was somebody’s party and they were having fun with karaoke. The homeless man tried to get inside but failed.

“It’s time I went home.”, I said. We hopped on a bus to Powell station. The homeless man didn’t want me to go straight back home. He didn’t let me go to Powell station. He took me to the black neighborhood. He bought two beers and one pack of cigarette at a liquor store. When he was told “25 more cents”, he dropped a coin like a tear. “You gotta commit when you want something”, the shop assistant said.

It was over 10:00. We were finally heading to the station. On the way, he seemed agitated and yelled at people. Around the corner of the ticket gates, he said “Come with me to Oakland”. I turned it down. He tried to punch me in the face and I flinched to grab that arm. But he didn’t intend to hit me in the first place anyway.

I returned the beer from the liquor store to him while two police men around were looking away. He said “Don’t come here again.”

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I was so exhausted while waiting for a train. “I took a hobo trip today” That slipped out of my mouth.