True Homeless Stories
The Story of William, 61
Published: November 16, 2009
It was late June in Philadelphia when I first met William in front of 30th Street Station. He was pacing thoughtfully in his military fatigues and khakis that draped his gaunt figure. His hair grew wildly out from underneath an olive green cap. The travelers filed by him, stuffing their luggage into taxis and SUVs.
I approach him and offer to buy him lunch if I can join him. He seems grateful for the company and, his mood somewhat enlivened, we head indoors. We serve ourselves from the Chinese food buffet and find a vacant table in the food court.
After we had settled in, I asked him if he’d grown up in Philly. “Yup,” he said. “Born and raised. I grew up in Little Italy in South Philly. I thought I was Italian until I was about nine,” he said matter-of-factly. We both laughed and settled into our chairs. He tells me that he’s been homeless for about two years now. I ask if he has a job. “No, I don’t have a job. I’m certified psychotic. People say, ‘What’s psychotic?’ I say it’s a little different than crazy - they’re about equal.” “How long have you been psychotic for?” “Since I come home from the Army.” “Where’d you fight?" “Nam.” He saw action, “more than I wanted to see. That’s what has me psychotic.” “A lot of people don’t understand that we’re not the same person we were when we left. And I fault the government for that. They don’t prepare you for what you’re gonna deal with. ... See, they teach you how to kill, but they don’t [teach you] how to take it out of you.” After he left the Army, he was so frightened that he locked himself in a hotel room for a month. “The first three or four years of my life [after the war], I blanked out. They were bad years ... I don’t wanna remember.” “I couldn’t let people walk behind me in the street. ... It took almost three years for me to allow people to walk behind me. I would always sit with my back to the wall. Or I would walk close to a wall, and you could not go around me. I would stand still until you got by.” “I’m aware of everything, even now.” I ask him if he’s been able to make any progress over the years with his condition. “No. I’ve learned how to control it. You don’t ‘get over’ it. You learn how to control yourself.”
I ask him what he’s learned over the years on the streets. “Patience is a virtue which I learned ... You must learn patience. And you learn that by asking God for help if you don’t have it.” I ask him what he thinks about God. “[W]henever I go that way,” he tells me, “I’m gonna punch him in the eye! Cause he could’ve made my life a little different. And people say, ‘You gotta lotta nerve!’ And I say, ‘No I don’t - he gotta lotta nerve. He didn’t know what he was doing for me when he did this ****. He could’a made my road a little god**** smoother. But then maybe I’m one of the ones that he needed down here that can handle what they call the ‘underclass’.’ So that’s how I look at it. I look at it like, well, if I would’ve been one of the upper class, I wouldn’t bother with the lower class.”
William turns out to be a voracious reader. “I’ve read some books two or three times, because the first time you read ’em, you can get stuck on a character, and you don’t really pay attention to the under-characters. And when I read ’em the second time, because I [am] so well-versed in the first character, I started seeing what parts the small people played. Then you really see how a book is put together.” I ask him which books really stand out in his mind. “Read any book by Jack L. Chalker,” he says. “That’s my favorite writer. He writes about church and science and everyday living. ... And he tells you to be careful what you wish for. You can be rich and miserable. ... You can be happy and poor. Be careful what you wish for.”
We talk for what seems like hours before he brings up the topic of religion again. I can’t help but ask him an old question in the philosophy of religion: Why is it that God gave us evil if he is perfectly good? “He gave us everything,” says William. “And he gave us the choice to use [our free will] or not. ... We have the only ability to reason out what we do. God didn’t give us anything evil. He gave us the ability to think. What becomes evil is when we take the good parts that someone’s tryin’ to do for us, and abuse it. That’s the ugliness, and the evilness.” “And that’s something that we create?,” I ask. A smile runs across his face and he begins to laugh. “We abuse the kindness of others, subconsciously. Some of us do it knowingly. But there is no such thing as evil...created [by God]. We just abuse the goodness that was being offered. And that’s ugly.”
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