Days and nights ran together. I rarely slept for more than four hours at a time. At night, I would typically pass out sometime after midnight and awaken between two and four a.m. If it had been a good night, I had my own stash of liquor in my backpack and could take a couple of swigs to put myself back out. More often than not, though, I had nothing. Sometimes I was with a buddy, Gabrial, Rom, Chaz, or someone else, who was holding the bottle under his head in his own backpack. Backpacks were our pillows. This helped prevent theft from strangers and from friends.
During different periods of my life on the street I hung out with different overlapping groups of people. The composition of the groups constantly changed depending on who was around, who was in jail or treatment or the hospital, who'd left the island and who had recently arrived. Shifting alliances and occasional feuds resulted in some folks being ostracized from the larger group. Disputes over liquor, who controlled the supply, who provided the most though panhandling and theft, who was a mooch and who was stingy, these were the typical reasons for discord amongst our loose association of bums. Sometimes a pair, (often Gabe and I) would split off on their own because they had a supply of booze that they didn't want to share. I preferred to be in a smaller group of two or three. It's never safe to sleep outside alone in an urban area, but with a large group there is too much attention drawn. Fights break out; people act obnoxious and police show up. Two or three guys could usually watch out for each other without attracting the police who tended to confiscate bottles, write tickets, check each of us for warrants, sometimes take us to jail, and generally harass us.
Each of us had our preferred spots to camp for the night and there was usually some discussion as to where we should go each night. I liked the safety of leaving Waikiki altogether. Not real far; Waikiki's small. Our merry band tended to hang out on the eastern edge of Waikiki during the day and into the evening, near Kapahulu Avenue just west of the zoo, Kapiolani park and Diamond Head. The northern border of Waikiki was just a few blocks up Kapahulu. There were a half dozen good spots to sleep, without cops or thugs bothering us, within four blocks of our stomping grounds.
I often found myself outvoted by those who wanted to stay close to "home". Some had good reasons. Staph infections ran rampant among the homeless in Waikiki; most of my comrades had only rubber slippers (flip-flops) for their feet. Walking could be agony for those with sores on their feet, so we often chose a closer, but more exposed place to bed down.
I always tried to carry a beach mat or have one stashed somewhere safe. I had a towel in my backpack to use as a blanket, with the mat as my bed. I discarded and replaced my mats often. When I needed a new one I could just head to the beach in the late afternoon or early evening as the sunbathers and surfers were calling it a day. I could easily find discarded mats. Better yet, sometimes tourists, not wanting to pack them on their return trip home, would leave behind inflatable rafts. These were much more comfortable to sleep on at night. When one of us would find a raft we'd call it our "pink palace" or "green palace" or whatever the color "palace".
Wide awake during the coldest, darkest time of night, I'd light a cigarette. If I didn't have one, I'd get up to look for one. There are always people up in Waikiki and I usually had no trouble finding smokers leaving the bars between two and four. Later in the morning, finding a cigarette became more difficult. Early morning people tended to fall into two groups; the very healthy, fitness types who were out jogging, swimming and definitely not smoking, and older people who, while many of them smoked, were less likely to give a bum a cigarette. My back-up plan was always to check the series of ashtrays on the street and in hotel lobbies across Waikiki. These I had cataloged in my mind and anywhere I found myself in Waikiki I could locate a smoke within minutes.
It was just as well if I did have to search for a smoke, because the nicotine tended to activate the juices in my digestive tract. After a few drags I would realize that I needed to find a bathroom - FAST. As with the Waikiki ashtrays, I had a mental map of all the decent restrooms available to me. The public restrooms were nasty and and at night were often occupied by people smoking meth or even using them as a place to sleep. I only used these to pee during the day.
I preferred the nice clean hotel lobby restrooms. I avoided the ones where I had to walk past the front desk to gain access. Others were locked and required guest keys. This limited me to a handful of restrooms that, in my homeless alcoholic condition, I could comfortably use without drawing the attention of the hotel staff. Unfortunately, these were always several blocks from wherever I happened to be when the urge hit me. Squeezing my cheeks I would hurry down the block, into the hotel, then into the stall, praying that I could get my shorts down and sit before the liquid shit exploded from my ass. While I didn't always make it to the hotel, I did always manage to get my pants down.
Back at "the spot" most would be asleep. If they were, and if I had a bottle of my own, I would take another swig before trying to get a couple more hours of rest. If there was someone awake who might have their own alcohol, I'd hit them up for a shot. Most times I'd lay down, smoke another cigarette and wait for the inevitable DTs.
When I had nothing to drink, the hours between four and six a.m. were by far the coldest, darkest and longest of the day. Nausea, cold sweats, shakes, crawling skin, and me, full of self pity, alone in my own head. I couldn't lay down for long and I would need to get up again and walk. After walking a block or two I would feel tired and want to lay back down. Up and down, up and down. Maybe another trip to another hotel bathroom - not as urgent this time.
If I didn't have liquor now, I probably didn't have any money; I rarely did. Some ABC stores opened at six, but without money I had little prospect of getting anything. Shoplifting a bottle was an option later in the day when the stores were busy. But as a familiar bum walking into the store when they've just opened and have few customers I had the full attention of the store manager. In some of the ABC store I might be able to get out with a little airline bottle of decent liquor (Smirnoff, Jose Cuervo, or Jim Beam), but it's too much risk for too little payoff. Besides, shoplifting seemed a thousand times more daunting when I was detoxing than when I was straight or when I had a good buzz going. Best just to wait it out.
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