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Earlier when I talked about myself and Pockets running from the cops he told me later that he considered letting the dog loose. Apparently police are notorious for killing pets and dogs that belong to homeless people. There is, in actuality, no real penalty incurred upon them for doing this. Since it's not a human being they reason that it has no rights. I have seen dogs shot by cops. It is an old pastime of police officers to burn down or shoot up squats. I remember seeing one dog that had been shot by a police officer. There was an entry wound in the chest and an exit wound on the side. It had never seen anything so tragic, so terrible. Fortunately, there was a veterinarian in New Orleans who took care of the animals of homeless people free of charge mostly. His name was Dr. Mike, he set up shop on North Rampart. How is it that the poorest of the poor can obtain and sustain animals? Mostly, these dogs are better fed than their masters. I remember Pockets describing the two dogs that he had owned. "It's gonna be 20 degrees man, but I'll have one dog on my chest and one dog on my legs, and we'll keep each other warm," he told me. Pockets was a Humanitarian. Both of his dogs he had found running loose in the ghetto, without a collar or a leash. He had taken them to the vet and registered them. He had paid for shots and vaccinations-- all with money that he had obtained through spanging, or asking people for spare change. I remember a middle class man threatening us to get out of the dog park, because he didn't like homeless people. He threatened to tell the police that Pockets knowingly had a dog on Rabies and that the dog had to be killed. Of course, Pockets carried the vaccination proof on him at all times. Though he seemed to lose everything else, he never lost that. The cop would have no problem with shooting the dogs. I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the job description: "Must aid in the liquidation of all animals, human and non-human." My friend Humble had a kitten, who was adoringly named "squat," who he had found homeless in a junk yard, much like another friend had obtained a gerbil, still in its cage, in the dumpster.
Many gutter punks and homeless people, including the home bums, are all politically minded. I had heard one of them talking to another, "Yeah, I was arrested with my girlfriend for sleeping in the park," -- "Yeah, that's because it's tourist season, and you look bad for the industry," -- "And the f****** part is that I f****** live here. They throw me in jail so that someone from two thousand miles away can spend their money." They may have lacked the language that had been used by every poet and writer of the past centuries, but what they had was what no philosopher or statesmen could possibly have discovered. Everywhere I went, I saw the words, "FIGHT WAR NOT WARS" and "DESTROY POWER NOT PEOPLE." These were slogans inscribed by peace punks. The last thing I remember writing on a wall with a sharpie in New Orleans was, "They drop fire on people but they won't let them write 'fuck' on their airplanes, because it is obscene!" A classic quote from "Apocalypse Now," and rather fitting. I remember seeing a newspaper machine, and in thick sharpie was written the word, "PROPAGANDA!!!" I remember seeing a poster that said, "It's a bigger problem than you think," and at the bottom reading, "Premature birth." But that had been scratched out, and the word "GOVERNMENT" had been placed there. Pockets was particularly fond of poetry that dealt with meaning and purpose, and was an avid reader of Kahlil Gabrahm. My friend Beast went to the free poetry slams and read his material. He had a backpack and the only thing he kept in it was notebooks of poetry. I remember leaving a homeless hang out and reading on the wall, "I made a god, out of blood, not superiority, I killed the king, of deceit, raise me up, in anarchy." And they were but lyrics to the song "Anarchy," by KMFDM.
Those were my days among the "wretched refuse" that we may be called. I wish we didn't have to face the dangers that we did but I'm glad that at least we had each other. So, maybe we did find something that was worth eternity, even though we're the poorest class. I tried to explain it to a friend of mine. I told her... Because we had to face the danger of street life together, our bonds were stronger. We did not develop a unity by some imaginary foe, the way a government may use propaganda in a war. We created a family through working together with the constraints that we have under the present regime. We could survive through anything together because we were as one. Take the greatest draught, the worst famine, the most horrific plague and you will find a squatter shivering, skin tightly wrapped around bone and lack of nourishment and a diseased body but you will find him surviving because if there is one thing we can do, that is it. But maybe that's not entirely true, it wasn't so much that we could survive but with what we had found with each other it didn't matter if we did or not... because we had something that made each day an eternity. We refused to bargain with society. We made no compromises. Even if it kills us, we will be free, so it has killed some of us. They are not the martyrs of freedom so much as they are the casualties in the battle for liberty.
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Writer Profile
Andy Carloff
Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has traveled all across the United States and has experienced American life in the urban centers, as a homeless squatter and as a blue-collar, working-class laborer. Since high school and early development, he has composed a variety of ideas on education, politics, and economy. His positions are ultra-leftist: politically an Anarchist, economically a Socialist, and culturally a Syndicalist. His writings are available through his website: http://www.punkerslut.com
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