Beneath Poverty: The Underbelly of Birmingham...

This is another article that some of my close friends have read. I felt like this is another one that needed to be shared. I wrote this one about 6 months ago. Far too often we ignore the blessings we have in favor of the desires we want...if you're in SOME FORM of shelter, have a LITTTLE bit of food in your stomach, and even a small bit of change in your pocket. BE THANKFUL. Tell me what you think.....

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“Hell, I been out here so long sometimes it don’t even seem like I lived nowhere else…”

Behind a building filled with luxury lofts, around the corner from the Alabama Theater, across the street from a nondescript building that holds a credit union and some accountant offices is a pile of rags. Nestled up against the cold concrete of a retail store turned prime apartment real estate and the cobblestone of an alley only frequented by stray cats and high end automobiles looking to enter their hidden parking garage is a dingy, dirty, pile of must rags and sheets.
Cuts and tears in the piss yellow sheets resemble those made in a Halloween costume of days gone by. A sheet fit for a forgotten, thrown away ghost. Willie Foster could very well be considered all three. Forgotten. Thrown Away. A ghost.

“I sleep with my face pushed right up into that corna’ right there. It keep the wind off my face,” says the pile of rags. Tucked away in a cobblestone alley is the ghost of a man forgotten by society. He lives at the mercy of others excess, a half eaten sandwich here and a thrown away flat coke there. A street professional, this ghost has lived on the streets of Birmingham and various other cities for more than 15 years.

“Shiiit man, I just want the same thangs that err’body else want. A roof, some clothes, and maybe a little something warm on me every once in a while.”

Clarence “Bud” Flowers lives in the shadows of skyscrapers. On cold nights, he walks constantly. He searches for a steam grate to warm his body with and a corner to curl up into. Only when the cold is unbearable does he attempt to find a shelter. Occasionally he gets a warm spot near a generator or a place with a little bit of covering to take some of the bite off the cold.

“Hell I used to have a family and everythang man! But shit sometime you know that thang don’t work out like you wan’ it to,” he says. Bud still carries memories of his family that he rambles unintelligibly about sometimes. “That gotdamn Shirley was the best damn woman…got a lil’ lovin way about her,” he says. His dark brown eyes gaze off into the distance as he waxes nostalgic about yesteryear. Days when work was normal. Nights when love was his shelter. “Ain’t like that no mo’. Hell, I’ll be good to get a few dollars from a few of dese young peoples out here.”

“Man, don’t let that shit get at you. I’m tryin’ to tell you it ain’t nothin’ to play wit’.”

The smell of cheap wine covers Bud like New England Fog. Burn marks both old and fresh sit menacingly on his fingers, glaring at passersby from behind his clenched fists. “I ended up out here ‘cause I let that that shit get in my arm and shit. Now I can’t get rid of it,” he said. Bud is an addict. Crack, Heroin, and Cheap Wine, pick your poison. Death is his own personal vulture, hovering unseen to all those that ignore him. Sickness follows him, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Bud lost his family to his addictions, lost his job to his passions, and his mind to the streets. He is a shell of a man searching for sustenance in back alleys and vitality in corners full of degradation and vice.

The wind nips at Bud’s neck and he instinctively pulls the sides of his jacket tighter around his sunken chest. Ashy bruised knuckles with thin, gangly fingers grip his only protection from the elements in an attempt to keep him warm. Bud eases back onto his heels and leans into a wall as he continues talking about his life on the street.

“Shit, I been stabbed, beat up and hit wit’ stuff. All kind of stuff happen to ya’ out here man. Hell, an ol’ nigga like me won’t be here too much longer.”

The small knick on the right side of Bud’s face contrasts with his skin color like an Oreo floating in milk, it almost gives him childish charm that is unseen unless studied carefully. His eyes are wide and dark. They dart back and forth alluding to either constant awareness or the throes of a prolonged high. “Hell, you got ta’ watch your back out here. You got crooked police and these lil’ young niggas tryin’ to take shit from ya’.” Street life is killing Bud and he knows it.

“Hell, I’m ready to go. Least I won’t have to worry no more…hell, may be the best thang anyway.”

Bud knows how his story ends. He’s seen it before. He knows street folks that have died from the cold, an overdose, a beating. He doesn’t expect to be the old homeless man that a family takes in and treats like grandpa. He doesn’t want to be the man cared for by some University as its charity case. “I ain’t goin’ to no damn school man. I’m too old for that shit,” he says. Bud lives at the edge of existence. Death stares at him from the abyss below beckoning him to jump into it’s frigid embrace.

“Shiiiit, I know I ain’t gonna be here too long. Hopefully the good Lord will welcome me in,” he says. Thrusting himself away from the wall, Bud waves his hand up in a gesture of finality. Obviously exasperated with talking about himself, he wobbles toward the dark alley and away from the glare of streetlights and passing headlamps.

Bud ambles lazily back into an envelope of darkness in a forgotten pocket of big city life and traffic possibly to never see the light of day again.