Homme Libre

The trucks pull up to break apart the homeless encampment on the side of the train tracks that has been a home to between eight and fifteen people for the last year. Each year they are forced to move and each year they find another pocket of infrastructure to nest in. The ritual is the city’s annual gesture of bending to the will of the online community forums that demand action, demand property values be considered. The homeless man knows that today the sanitation truck and a police car will show up in the morning and he’s awake and watching them come down the hill. He and the others received notice yesterday when an employee from the city came by, a young latino man, who told them that they would be asked to leave and then physically escorted if they didn’t comply and that anything they don’t take with them will go in the garbage truck. The homeless man is used to moving camp, in that he knows how to do it, not that it is comfortable. He has built a nice situation for himself here, a lean-to against the cement retaining wall of the train, which is covered in graffiti. His blue tarp roof is tied to a few pieces of broken furniture and covers the 4 pallets that keep his tent off the ground. The tarp is already packed, along with the tent, stove and cookware,, LED lights, cell phone and charger, books, clothes, shoes, and document folder. He is leaving behind the fishing pole and other sports equipment, the framed picture of Elvis, and a the mattress with ziplock bags of Yves St Laurent duck taped to it. The police officer says “hello everybody, time to get up and get moving” in a much too jolly voice that feels like equal parts cowboy impersonation and dancing with the stars judge. The homeless man hears the hollow authority in the affect. Many of the other residents are already up and packed and moving. The two sanitation workers, who were told not to spend more than 4 hours on this site because, quoting their dispatcher, “we’re already short staffed by this fuck wit Mayor asshole and we gotta deal with the stadium shit today too and I don’t give a shit if some people without homes wanna live wherever they can fit in.” The sanitation workers are overwhelmed by the amount of material. Furniture and mattresses can’t go in the truck compactor, because we, as a society, don’t bury these things whole. Not because we won’t bury them, but because the foam and springs and framing take up too much space in our landfills. Instead, we put the couches and mattresses and fridges and desks through a giant shredder that breaks everything down into little bits, atomizes it so that it will squish better under the tons of garbage with pile on top of it. So the sanitation workers decide they need to start making a separate pile of the things to pick up for the shredder. The homeless man’s lean-to is at the far back of the camp. By the time he is ready to go, the garbage men have begun to take away some of the things in his camp. They pick up the mattress with ziplock bags of Yves Saint Laurent last and start carrying it up hill to the stack of mattresses near the road. The homeless man follows them, deciding it’s time to get a move on. At the top of the hill the police officer is leaning against his squad car scrolling through pictures of Christian women he would like to go on dates with on the Christian dating app. The officer is 27 and wants to start a family, to have a few sons. He is looking at pictures of these women imagining what their children would look like. He is saying yes to almost every picture except the ones he thinks are overweight and hiding this fact from their photos. It is sunny out and he is wearing sunglasses and his screen’s brightness is turned all the way up, but it is still hard to see the screen. A few feet away is the stack of mattresses. The officer thinks of his role as a passive authority at this point in the clean up process, he has made his presence known and now the sanitation workers can do their job. The two sanitation workers are at the top of the hill with the homeless man’s mattress. He is walking behind them and as they reach the stack of 6 mattresses, they heave-ho and throw the homeless man’s mattress on top of the stack. It lands with a wobble and they turn to go back downhill and start on the furniture. The homeless man walks past the stack of mattresses, stopping for a second and smiling a small smile, and walks past the police officer lost in his phone nodding. The police officer says “stay out of trouble” as the man walks past and he returns to scrolling. He swipes yes to Lenora and something upwind catches his nose and he walks over to the stack of mattresses. Top notes of basil and violet leaf enhanced by sharp spicy notes of nutmeg and pink pepper create a burst of freshness while deep woody vetiver and patchouli notes enriched with warm tones of leather create a trail of masculine sensuality. Break free with Homme Libre.