Bums, Tramps, Hobos, Transients, Layabouts

I live downtown and work only a few blocks away, so I walk to work. Because I walk to work, and because I live in this area, I encounter more than my fair share of homeless people on the street. It's really no big deal, other than I have to be careful not to step on them sometimes (seriously), but the encounters can often be fairly entertaining. For example, here is one recent exchange:

Homeless guy: Hey.
Me: Hey?
Homeless guy: What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
Me: I don't know.
Homeless guy: The taste!

For some reason, I feel like he knew that from experience.

Another guy, awhile back, simply sat on a bench all day yelling at everyone who went by. I went by him twice and both times he was yelling, "Mutants! You're all damn mutants!"

Another lady would periodically sit on a bench outside my office window and yell at a pine tree for hours. I don't know what that tree ever did to her, but she was not happy about it. To the tree's credit, it didn't fight back. It just sat there and took the abuse. She spent a good few days yelling at the tree off and on, and then disappeared. Maybe the tree finally said it was sorry.

Just the other day, I passed two seemingly homeless people and one of them was asking the other one, "What's the difference between a tramp and a transient?" I don't think he was setting up a punchline for a joke, and if he was I didn't hear it. But if he really was asking because he wanted to know the answer, and if he is reading this, I would like to offer my theory:

A transient is someone who moves from place to place, with no permanent residence. A transient may be homeless from time to time, but is not necessarily so. A tramp is not necessarily a transient, nor is a tramp necessarily homeless. But a tramp will always accept money for sexual favors and if you go to prom with one you will never live it down. Used in a sentence: "Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are having a contest to see who can be the biggest tramp." Further, a bum is not necessarily a tramp nor a transient, but always smells like steel reserve and urine. A hobo is always a transient, not necessarily homeless, may be a tramp, and is always a bum. I hope this helps.

My favorite homeless people, by far, are Crabapple Guy and J.W. Crabapple Guy first appeared some time last year as a black cowboy, wearing a leather jacket (with fringe), cowboy hat, boots, and carrying a portable stereo. He would sit outside my window (which looks out over a courthouse lawn), not far from where the lady would argue with the tree, and blast his radio while singing (more like shouting) along. He never really stayed on the same station for more than a couple minutes at a time, and rarely shouted the lyrics accurately. Sometimes he would turn the radio off and have running conversations and/or shouting matches with himself. At one point he lost the radio, but that did not phase Crabapple Guy. Instead of singing to the radio, he stood underneath the American Flag and shouted the National Anthem as loud as he could. He saluted the whole time.

At this point you may be wondering why I call him Crabapple Guy. There is a crabapple tree in the courthouse lawn, and at one point last fall, after it had dropped all its crabapples, Crabapple Guy showed up with grocery bags and methodically harvested every single crabapple from the lawn. He gathered them a few hours a day for a couple weeks until they were all picked up. He didn't even keep the crabapples. He just left the grocery bags full of crabapples on the lawn. Done and done. And when the crabapples were gone, he would spend his time arranging pine cones into elaborate formations all over the lawn. If you live on a farm and you've ever had "crop circles" appear in your fields, you might want to find out if Crabapple Guy was in the area before you jump to any conclusions. He is extremely disciplined and devoted to whatever imaginary entity is telling him to complete these tasks.

J.W. is a tall, gangly fellow with a scraggly beard and worn out cowboy hat who was around a lot last summer. Most of the time I saw him he would be staggering around in the streets yelling at things that weren't there while making wild gestures and just generally being disruptive. But one time a friend and I were having a couple of beers on the patio of a downtown bar and we noticed him shuffle up to one of the tables on the outskirts of the seating area. Oddly for J.W., he just sat there quietly. We soon noticed he was sitting quietly most likely because he was fading in and out of consciousness. At some points, he would put his head down on the table and appear to pass out, but then he would suddenly come to and sit back up. We joked with the waitress that we were buying a shot for "the guy over there," pointing to J.W. She laughed and said, "If you actually do shots with him I'll buy." Opportunities like that do not knock twice.

She brought the shots over and we took them to J.W.'s table. I think they were Washington Apples.

Us: Hey, what's your name?
J.W.: J.W. And that's Bruce [gesturing to the seat next to his]. But Bruce left. [It should be noted that at no time prior to that did we ever see anyone sitting with him].
Us: Well, fuck him.
J.W.: [emphatically] Yeah, fuck him!
Us: Hey, we got shots. You want one?
J.W.: [laughing maniacally] Sure!
Us: To Bruce!
J.W. Bruce! [laughter, mumbling]

From then on, whenever we saw J.W. we would yell "J.W.!" and he would stop his staggering and gesturing, smile and yell something incomprehensible in our direction. I would like to think that we were J.W.'s best friend that summer. J.W., if you are reading this, come back this summer. Drinks are on us!