Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation by Aisha Tyler

Author:Aisha Tyler [Tyler, Aisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062223791
Published: 2013-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

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The Time I Killed a Hobo

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“This is definitely gonna leave a mark.”—AISHA TYLER

Calm down. I didn’t actually kill a hobo. My big pile of middle-class guilt just made me feel as if I did.

And as any recovering Catholic or cookie-stealing preschooler will tell you, guilt is a dastardly bitch.

When I graduated from college, I returned immediately to the welcoming, familiar bosom of my hometown. San Francisco, besides being perfect in every way, is a city renowned for several things: hilly terrain, a killer food scene, and a kickass rotating army of fierce gay fabulosity.1 What people may not know about SF (or what we self-obsessed natives call “The City”2) is that it is also the number one choice of residence for our nation’s unmoored or, as demographists like to call them, the homeless.

Or as I often refer to them, hobos.

Wait for it.

I prefer the term hobo because it sounds jaunty and upbeat. A homeless guy smells like pee and is struggling with mental illness or addiction. A hobo rides the rails and roasts his baked beans and hot dogs on an open flame, harmonica ’tween his lips and a song in his heart. This is, of course, a concept that dismisses entirely the fact that most people on the street are struggling with mental illness and do need help with addiction. But it helps (me at least), put the hobo-pedestrian relationship back on even footing, and gives the homeless person some transactional parity. Instead of feeling pity or looking down on them as less fortunate, I choose to see them as equals, with hopes and dreams of their own and a colorful, vagabondian history. Plus, hobos get to carry that little stick with the gingham kerchief on the end. See? Jaunty!

I am not making light of homelessness. I grew up with very little, and there was a portion of my time in high school when my father and I lost the lease on our apartment and were without a place to live. Luckily I was able to stay with a friend’s family and continue to go to school, study, and live life, for the most part, uninterrupted. I was incredibly fortunate. That said, we had a working-class existence, living paycheck to paycheck; there were moments when my father was in the grocery store with his last twenty-dollar bill, wondering what to do next. So while I would never have claimed to be in legitimate crisis, there were times in my youth when we struggled, and where the line between us and the street seemed razor-thin.

So no, I am not making fun of homeless people or homelessness. It is no fucking joke. The fact is, I grew up around homelessness, and spent a good part of my life seeing, talking, and interacting with homeless people on a daily basis, in a way that emboldens me to speak of them in brazen fashion, but definitely does not make me in any way uniquely qualified to speak about them or on their behalf.

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