Mark's Pages

September 8, 2008:

I was homeless for a different reason.

I had the rent money, but, in my anguish and confusion, I refused to enter the building, as though the act of avoiding contact with the corrupt landlord family of my best friend's wife would somehow make the world less dirty, or me less vulnerable.

I slept in the Park, in deep thickets where regular cities of homeless had grown, with cardboard ceilings, thrift store chairs, and blankets distributed by volunteers.

Usually we were left alone. But sometimes Police would come, the camps would be destroyed, the people would scatter, to re-form their little towns in other Parks, for the time being.

I wrote a song that said, In this land of God, freedom means living out in the rain.

I moved back into the apartment, tried to organize a benefit concert, got sick, stopped playing or listening to music, moved to another city, built a career.

I don't know what the other people did.