This is a single recording of two payphone calls made from Grand Central Terminal last week. In fact I made three calls but the first one, for whatever reason, did not make it to the voicemail box, as seems to be an increasingly common problem with magicJack.
I think about homelessness these days more than others for a number of reasons. Among them is the engagement I see between the homeless and the street theater in which I’ve been engaged. Those folks are the ones paying attention to what happens out there, as they would, since it is a space some of them at least inhabit more territorially than the rest of us.
I also think of homelessness more since hearing a podcast last week about a woman who became complacent in her life, thinking that work would come in eventually. It sounds like it never did. For the most part I compared her station in life to mine and found virtually no differences, save for the fact that it is supposed to be technically impossible for me to get thrown out my apartment like she got kicked out of hers. That assumption, based on rent stabilization rules, could be a vast and infinite lie under which I’ve lived all these years, and if it is not true then I could be kicked out with extremely limited options in the short term.
Should I make a Go Bag in case unexpected things happen to take away this roof over my head? What would I take with me? I don’t think my answers to that question in this phone call are especially worthy.
