Simon

• Name has been changed for the story

“Be careful, he can be really aggressive, it’s the ice ya know, gets em real angry, so just be careful, sometimes he growls, its the ice, makes em angry.”

These are the words first told to me, by a volunteer, when I was stationed at the local church for my temporary work. I had asked previously, if there was anyone who was rough sleeping that they knew of. I was told of a man who slept out the back.

“I don’t know why they don’t let them just sleep in the carpark”, The volunteer said, “but it’s closed at night, they got the shower out back to the during the day, but nowhere for them to sleep, it must be really cold in the winter.”

I sat there for a while, thinking, do I go over to this guy? Risk management would tell me, it could be a risk, I mean, what if he gets angry at me? Could I deal with it? I was feeling anxious, but I eventually decided, it was really important to at least try.

So I walked into this small room, where Simon was sitting. There were couches around. When I walked in, I wasn’t even sure he realized I was there as he didn’t look up. Simon looked tired and was nodding off a bit. My mind wandered as to why that might be, but I tried not to fill in the gaps, which is too easy to do sometimes.

I sat down on the couch across from him, and put my clipboard and pen on the couch. I introduced myself.

“Hi I’m Rachel, I’m doing some work here over the next week. I am just wondering if I can just ask you a few questions? They are non intrusive and you don’t have to give me any details you don’t feel comfortable with.”

Simon sat up a bit more, trying to focus on me. I could tell he was really tired.

“I will try not to take up much of your time.” I said, having been warned that did not talk to many people.

Simon laughed, “I have lots of time, love, but I also don’t have lots of time, so shoot.”

I replied, “Yeah, sorry, I kind of realised what I said afterwards, what do you do to fill in your days?”

Simon smiled at me, he knew I had no agenda and meant no harm in what I said. He looked at me square in the eyes and said, “I come here and sleep most of the time, I don’t have anything left to do, I just smoke ice and when I don’t do that, I’m sleeping. These people here are really lovely though, they don’t judge, I can get a feed, they let me sleep on the couch in here and it’s safe.”

I didn’t say anything for a couple minutes. I didn’t want to push too much as I didn’t know how much he wanted to talk, so I tried to get back onto the form. I didn’t want to pry, so I asked it casually.

“So…where do you sleep at night? Is it around here?”, I asked.

“Nowhere”, Simon replied.

I was puzzled, how could it be nowhere?

“Um, what do you mean nowhere? You must sleep somewhere, is it around the church?”, I didn’t want to push too much. I knew if he didn’t answer it this time I would just have to leave it blank.

Simon took a second to get his energy back, “I don’t know, its different every night, its dangerous ya know, I wake up covered in shit every morning.” He sighed.

I sat for a little bit, contemplating what to say next, how do I speak to someone about something I had never been through, how can I be sympathetic when I have never been homeless? I figured, I will just be truthful.

“That must be really horrible, I’m so sorry to hear that, I empathised with Simon, “I can’t imagine how cold it is out there, I haven’t ever had to sleep on the streets.”

Simon looked at me, “Yeah it’s really shit, I won’t lie, but it’s safer here than those rooming houses or crisis accommodation. Ya know, my wife used to kick me out every couple weeks and I had places to stay, but not anymore, she has been telling her family and everyone bad shit about me. I have stayed in one of those rooming houses, just had a really small area to sleep, it was expensive too, only stayed a few days, the energy was real bad, creepy vibe. I stayed in a place with a swipe card, ya know, really good security supposedly, but somehow these assholes got into my room and stole my shit, the managements bad. My wife and I were in one of them boarding houses and this asshole was big and angry and I had to threaten him with a meat cleaver to get him to piss off, that was really fucked that night. But I had to protect my wife. Just bullshit. It’s safer on the streets.”

I had to pause after that. How do I answer that? I had never been in that kind of situation. I think I’ll just be honest.

I looked at him, as I took a deep breath. “Wow, that’s really intense. How horrible for you. I have lived with a few crazies as well. I once needed a place to live and ended up living at a friend from works sons old house, not realising the room was free because he was in jail. The housemate was okay but heaps of drugs going around. One day he asked my friend and I, if we wanted to stay home from work as he was trying to extract opium out of poppies. We were like, nah we will keep our jobs thanks! I look back at that now and I think, wow that was a weird situation.”

Simon laughed, “Yeah I’ve got myself into some real shit situations, after my sister gassed herself…”. Simon started to well up…”Sorry mate its just really hard for me. I still haven’t been able to deal with it, my wife said thats my problem, I can’t get over my sister dying, was real horrible, then my wife attempted to do the same thing with my son and her in the car, how can I forgive her for that shit? Then she told everyone it was my fault, how the fuck is that my fault? Her choice to do that, but everyone believed her, I was a big alcoholic for ages, but shit just got too hard, I’ve been through shit you can’t begin to imagine happening to anyone, and then to be told I couldn’t grieve for my sister…..fuck”

“Wow that’s not okay! You know that’s not your fault right?” I was concerned that Simon had blamed himself.

Simon caught my gaze, “Yeah, I know that now, she is crazy, my wife, shes not a good person, I bit the poison apple, ya know? I bit into that apple, it was poisoned and this is what I get, these are my consequences. It’s all fucked, but I made choices. Now I smoke ice, it gets me spiritually to a place I’ve never been before, I get to be with God, I’m not religious, religion has fucked the world, but the only thing that gets me through now is being with god in my heart. I shouldn’t be here, ya know, I went through some shit the other night and I shouldn’t even be here, but for some reason God kept me here.”

“Yeah we can make some shit choices for ourselves, I’ve made plenty over the years, my grandpa died and it set me off the rails, and then when I had my daughter, it just changed me, for the better, I am so grateful for her.” I said honestly.

Simon smiled, “Yeah kids do that, they are beautiful kids, they are just so pure and they are developing so much, it’s like, why do we treat them bad? they are just little, why do we not see how pure they are, we treat them like they are dumb, kids aren’t dumb, they are smarter than us, they are better than us, they aren’t shit like adults are, adults with all their baggage putting it onto the kids.”

I could tell Simon was feeling overwhelmed so I gave him a few minutes and we just sat in silence for a bit.

I took a few moments to work out what I was going to say, but once again, I had to reply with the truth. “Yeah I get upset with my daughter sometimes and I can really feel guilty, I’ve had to realise lately, I can’t get upset at her for things she can’t control, like wetting herself and having accidents, I have to be nicer to her when she has accidents.”

“You know, she ain’t doin too bad, it’s when a kids wetting the bed every night until they are 15, that was me, I was shit scared, this old guy, he did some stuff to me no kid should ever go through, and my mum and dad, they used to pull me out of my bed at night, i was so shit scared, so i pissed the bed til I was 15, can you believe it? Thats crazy yeah? Thats what being frightened is. This guy, hes gonna rot in hell and he doesn’t know yet what hell is, but its not a nice place, he can’t even imagine what it’s like, he needs a special place in hell for what happened to me there and others, he was the devil, and he probably did it to more kids too, just sick. Lucky my foster parents were good, they were good christian people and understood how to help me cope, gave me some strategies, cus I was so angry.” Simon suddenly looked really down, like he knew those times were just so tough, being so angry at the world.

I tried not to pry, but I wanted to know more, talk to him about what had happened in his life that was good, not just the trauma.

“What did they do to help you? I’m glad you had a good foster family, thats so important.”

“Yeah they were good, they were good christian folk, taught me to trust in god, they disciplined me in a good way and they came to my wedding and all, and my foster sister, they were good to me, but I was not a good kid, I used to do dark things, I was so angry.” Simon replied, I could tell his heart was heavy and he really felt bad for some things he had done.

“Oh yeah? What was your wedding like?”, I smiled, thinking back to my wedding and how it can be such a beautiful day.

Simon had a big grin on his face, “My wedding was great, it was at the church, um, its called destiny church now, I was stoked, I was married to my wife in front of some drums, thats my dream come true.”

“Oh you drum? Thats really cool, professionally or?”, I asked.

“Nah never professional, I have the music and beats still in my heart, certain patterns just make my heart explode, “ Simon started to well up again, “ Sorry mate music just gets me going, you know I’m a really soft guy, really empathetic and I feel like I’ve had that beaten out of me all my life, I guess that’s why I just didn’t let music take me where it needed to, I couldn’t open up, it’s really hard, and ya know, people always told me how good I was, and I would always downplay it, I wish I just accepted the compliment, you know the most beautiful thing is humility and being able to accept when someone says something good about you, maybe I wouldn’t be here if I had understood that.” Simon looked like he felt shattered, I didn’t want to exhaust him, but I felt the conversation would find it’s ending when it was meant to.

“I know what you mean! I never used to be able to accept compliments, but now I’m just like, you know what? I’m good at what I do and I’m going to allow someone to say that, it comes with hard work for me, organisation and really putting myself out there to impress, that’s what Ive had to do, it is exhausting though, but you’re right humility is beautiful.” I agreed with Simon 100%.

As Simon laughed, his eyes crinkled, “Good on you girl, you keep doing that, you are such a non judgemental person, I can’t believe we are even having this conversation today, I haven’t spoken to anyone for so long, I usually just wanna be alone, ignore them.”

I smiled at Simon, “Oh really? Well I’m really thankful for chatting with you, you have really told me a few things, that not just make me really grateful for everything in my life, but helped me reflect, I’m always willing to learn, I feel like I haven’t spoken to anyone about reality for so long, so thankyou for just telling me how it is, I think that’s really important in life.”

“Life is weird like that isn’t it? I really hate humans, after everything I have been through, they walk with me everyday, those who traumatised me, it has never ending, they are always walking behind me, all I ever hear is what they told me to break me, sometimes I want to meet my maker, I know the day is going to come soon, I’m 43, and it may seem early for some, but I only know a life of pain, from so young I experienced things no-one else could even imagine, I’ve never been able to just be me, thats not a suicidal threat, I just know that I’m ready to go home, now I’m gonna go have a smoke if that’s okay?” Simon grabbed his rubbish from his lunch to put it in the bin.

I smiled, because even though Simon had been through some of the most trauma I have ever heard, I felt like this was his journey and I hoped that just from talking to him, it made him feel, even just the tiniest bit of care.

I replied, “Yeah no worries, thanks for the chat, I’ll see you around.”