Those of you who read my column last week will know how I went from being a homeless couch surfer to a tenant of the state, and upon having that tenancy abruptly ended by the courts. I was about to experience my first day as a “rough sleeper”.
That is how those who studied social services like referring to someone who is hardly able to get any sleep for fear of one threat or another.
Early on in my tenure on the streets, I discovered why tik is the drug of choice for most of those seen as the chronically homeless: it keeps you awake! The other benefits are it suppresses hunger and gives you a ridiculous amount of energy.
“Tik”, as we on the streets call crystal methamphetamine, but which contains so little methamphetamine in its contents, that after spending a year awaiting trial because of the backlog at the lab (for a crime where the maximum sentence is three months), the case gets dismissed.
But back to my first day as a “rough sleeper”.
I had no idea where to go or what to do. I had some good clothes which I could probably sell, but to buy what?
Even if I could manage to pay for a night’s accommodation at a backpackers with the proceeds of my sale, what about tomorrow and the day after?
I have to tell you, the contradictory feelings one experiences on being released from Pollsmoor correctional centre are a revelation every time.
Irrespective of how many times you go through the process, as a person who knows that when he is released he is going back to the streets, you are in turmoil.
While inside, you pray almost hourly that you will be released at your next court appearance because it feels as if the place will drive you insane …
And no man (even the high-ranking gangsters who run the prison and make one hell of a financial profit while inside – you will hardly ever see a physical R100 note in Pollsmoor – except if you land up being trusted by one of the “bosses” and have to help him count his R250 000 weekly stash) ever feels that being in prison is what life is meant to be. All people ever talk about is their release date.
But on walking out of that courtroom a free man – albeit a homelessness one – you almost always have the urge to tell the SAPS member opening the big gates at the courthouse for you that they have made a mistake and you are meant to be going back up to Pollsmoor again with the last van.
Why? Because you know what awaits you living on the street … Although unpleasant, Pollsmoor becomes familiar and if you do your part (whatever unpleasantness that may entail), you know you at least get 2.5 meals (I’m being very generous here in using that word) a day, and it might be a blanket on a concrete floor (if you are not a number, and thus a “frans”), but it’s at least a place to lay your head at night.
Only those who take on the number (as they call it when you become a member of the 26s, 27s or 28s gangs or are already a number), have the privilege of sleeping on a bed.
In fact, the minute you are “released” to your section where you will await trial or serve your sentence at Pollsmoor, you are effectively handed over to the gangs.
The prison is kept functioning and is in effect run by the gangs.
Each section and cell is run by the highest-ranking gang member and his “team”.
But, I digress …
I have no street smarts as my fall from couch surfing to rough sleeper would already have shown you, and so my first day officially on the streets was as uneventful as it was numbing.
I did nothing but walk aimlessly around the Parade, hoping for a miracle – that someone would see my confusion and offer me some help or at least see how hungry I am and offer to buy me a koesister or samoosa, or something.
But, of course, nothing happens unless you actively do something about it.
My pride would never have allowed me to beg and I didn’t know where to start trying to sell my now heavy bag of clothes that was also attracting all the wrong attention, as others obviously also on the street kept making remarks about it and I could just see myself losing it too, before I even got to selling it.
And so I decided at about 7pm to start walking towards Sea Point.
I thought at least it’s an area I had lived in and knew intimately (or so I thought), and it was bound to be safer to try to get some sleep there.
To be continued.
* Carlos Mesquita.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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