Tag Archives: mental illness in public places

Mental Illness in the Streets & Superpowers

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A Seattle urban vignette in seconds

Heavy traffic along the Seattle/Shoreline border. Construction, motor vehicles, regular pedestrians, and, sadly, fellow humans who appeared homeless and mentally ill. Early this Saturday afternoon as I pulled out from Walgreens onto Aurora Avenue heading north, to my right noticed a strange looking human being sitting on the bench at the bus stop there. She was an enormous White woman, simply gargantuan. All she had on was a teeny tiny black swimsuit, and it was all stretched out around her torso as she reclined upon that bench while she took slow, calm drags on a cigarette. Had been hot. Today’s temperatures were in the mid-70s outside. Her pasty white flesh overflowed out of that super tight, stretched out everwhichaway black swimsuit. Right next to her, on her right side, crouched a teeny tiny old Black man with bad hair all mashed up and pulled out jaggedly in all directions. He squatted next to her upon the bench like a scrawny little bear cub doggie boo. He wore dirty gray and blue clothes, and jabbed a cigarette in and out of his mouth every other second as he puffed jerkily with high, agitated anxiety. As traffic opened up, I darted out into the lane and rocketed north.

A whole month later, on the morning of Monday the 30th of September, I witnessed in seconds as I drove along Aurora Avenue again more people endangering themselves and others. At the same bus stop as before, a youngish Black man bounced around hunched over and swinging his arms wildly. He seemed to be screaming and singing at the same time. Couldn’t tell what the hell he was doing. Except he never stood up and at times he raced and skittered quickly about like a giant spider. There were three piles of clothes and bags and random possessions around the bus stop, and he tore thru each one in turn. As he did so he snatched and flung items up in the air and out into the street. He’d zip out into the street, stop and shout, all while hunched over, then spider back to the bus stop. Two women tried to stand there to wait for the bus, but they couldn’t take any more of his blammy nuttery and in less than a minute ran away. Maybe he was hunched over due to Fentanyl, but he moved as if cranked on speed and meth. Three other guys stood nearby ignoring him as they stood over a mound of clothes and luggage debris.  Continue reading →

Troubled People on the Interurban Trail

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Broken minds are everywhere, invisible

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Would have been an extremely different and horrifying world if Nazi Germany and its Axis Empires had won the Second World War – and they very nearly did. Thoughts of our history with changing attitudes toward duty and sacrificed blazed around inside my mind. Went to hike the Shoreline section of the regional Interurban Trail system. Brisk walk with a daypack up to Trader Joe’s and back home to my apartment complex. Part of regaining my health so I could backpack in the mountains once again, thruhiking the Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood in Oregon at the end of July weighs on my mind, so first had to walk swiftly on the flats without passing out. Off I go. Soon passed a homeless White man in pink clothes wearing white, puffy booties as he sat in the sun enjoying the late spring weather. He focused on using his hands to crank or turn parts on what looked like a small wood and leather puzzle box about the size of a softball. 

Later passed a well-dressed, young Black man, looked like a college student with a beige V-necked sweater on, as he stomped from the Shoreline Trader Joe’s over to the trail while hollering about God. His daypack burst with clothes and books. The man’s voice is really loud, his arms and legs jerk with agitation, and he lets the whole world know he is “angry!” When he looked over and saw me trotting along with my one trekking pole, he shouted, “By the Almighty God, by His Holy name, I’m gonna kill you for having that stick!” Continue reading →

Fone Guy & Eye Patch Man

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Stories from the Streets and Buses of Seattle

First noticed Fone Guy at a bus stop sitting inside the shelter on a wet, wintry day speaking passionately into his old-style flip fone while I waited for the bus. His voice was as crisp and clear as a lawyer arguing in court and as fiery as a street activist bellowing into a bullhorn. Most of the time, however, he could’ve been one of those YouTubers pontificating like Joe Rogan on the state of everything from wars to boxing matches. We were up in the north end of the City of Seattle where the neighborhoods of Greenwood, Bitter Lake, Carkeek Park/Broadview, and Crown Hill come together in one of Seattle’s somewhat chaotic, funky, octopus intersections. There I stamped around waiting for the southbound # 5 to head south down thru Greenwood and up along Phinney Ridge. Fone Guy was dressed like a laborer but without any particular jobsite uniform. His heavy coats hung open around his burly, middle-aged frame. Dawned on me he was probably homeless and the bus stop shelter was his office. In those moments, however, he was King of the Shelter and Emperor of the Flip-Fone. Continue reading →

Street Scenes from the Neighborhood

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Three Vignettes from Shoreline, a small satellite city on the NW border of Seattle

There’s a mentally unstable young bearded White fella dancing, leaping, and spinning around in the intersection of N. 155th and Aurora 99 near our apartment complex in the south-central Shoreline neighborhood of Westminster. He’s acting like a dumb ass goofball. The man dramatically waves around a cardboard sign as he squats and jumps as he begs for money. He acts silly because maybe he thinks his showing off out in the streets looks cute, but all he’s really doing is pissing off every driver around as he frolics right out there in the middle of the road as if he’s up on stage. At least he got some pants on, a pair of blue tropical-print board shorts. And they’re pulled up, too. Some folks out on the streets don’t even have their britches up.

Had noticed him earlier as I drove uphill to the pharmacy at Walgreens. Passed him crouching at the corner of McDonalds munching fiercely on whatever food he got a hold of. He chewed in a hurry as he peered all around with feral intensity. Reminded me of a wild beast backed into a corner and about to pounce up into your face. 

Drove into the parking lot at Walgreens and stopped. Parked. Garbage was strewn around the store on the Shoreline side of the Seattle boundary. Most of it was the kind usually associated with the trash left behind by homeless people and too many lazy ass bus riders who don’t give a shit about much of anything anymore. Not just metro riders either. Saw plenty of people pull up in cars, park, open their doors, and toss handfuls of garbage out across the pavement. A primal urge rose up, a desire to slam my car into theirs and dart over and smash them in their stupid fucking heads with … something … a caste-iron granny skillet, and, of course, the feelings pass and I shrug and let it all go like my parents, my teachers, my therapists, and the authorities have showed us over the decades. Yes? Pick your battles. Not worth going to prison over. No right to play god. We aren’t in their shoes. Practice acceptance, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and agape. Yeah, I get it. Still wanna kick their careless, apathetic, dumb, stupid asses, tho.

There was a young White lady in Walgreens with longish blonde hair, dressed like a hooker in a tight pink stretchy outfit. She’s dirty and bruised. Maybe she’d been evicted from those two sleazy motels the cops shut down the other day on North Aurora for human trafficking, sex slavery, drug dealing, rapes, illegal prostitution, violence, shootings, and even a murder. Minors barely into their teens were being forced into prostitution. There pimps operated them out of the Seattle Inn and the Emerald Motel. Some pimps were teenagers themselves. All those hookers, however, had and have to go somewhere. Saw this woman moments earlier while waiting for the traffic lights to turn green on Aurora. She’d lugged an enormous tote bag full of her belongings across the street. Ah, gosh, I feel sad, curious, frustrated, and resigned. Wouldn’t it be so much better to legalize, regulate, and tax prostitution? Seems having licensed, adult professional sex workers would be a good idea, yes? What would the consequences, however, for all the illegal ones and their criminal pimps, especially the minors?

Here she was again, the woman in stretchy pink who crossed the street with all her belongings, now in Walgreens, bent over the check-out counter speaking agitatedly. She desperately tried to get the cashier to convert a wad of bills into … smaller bills? Didn’t make any … sense. I couldn’t hear them well. Difficult to understand. Hard of hearing anyway, I am. But the cashier, of an East Asian ethnicity, a woman who struggled to speak English clearly, could not understand the young White woman either. She quickly got frustrated, saw a line of other customers forming behind the dirty, bruised lady, and tried to wave the assumed-hooker away out the door. The hooker lady grew more desperate and tearful. All this transpired in seconds as I walked slowly down the aisle past the counter. Walked slowly because my low back and knees hurt like hell from chronic injuries. OMG what are we to do? What are we to do? I texted my wife about this. My wife and I are both messed up as it is, lol but not LOL, as we have our own problems piling up, but at least we aren’t like those fellow humans. Our fellow humans.

Makes our squabbles over messes in the closets seem utterly frivolous by comparison. Continue reading →