A Broken Man

There’s something that lurks outside my shelter.

I don’t know what it is, but I hear it.

I catch glimpses of it sometimes.

I see movement in my tent.

Or hear breathing shadows.

It’s sometimes at the far end of the street or around the corner.

It tells me not to whisper.

I think most houses in Calabasas have selfish-monsters living in them.

It’s raining. I need better shelter for tonight.

I break a store window. Alarms blare. I run outside. Nuts.

I try hitching to a shelter. Nobody picks up a scary looking guy like me.

I go to a gate protecting a community from intruders, the sign said. I knew the guard wouldn’t let me in, so I hid in the bushes until a car drove past.

The gate opened. I walked along side the slow moving car until I was inside the gate.

I walked around the neighborhood. I was looking for someone to ask if I could spend the night inside their house and outside the rain. That was dumb, considering nobody else but a hobo like me would be out in this weather.

I knocked on a few doors. Almost nobody answered.

One person answered using a ring camera and threatened to call the police if I didn't vacate the neighborhood.

God forbid anybody be homeless and schizophrenic on this planet and they’re treated like a criminal. My only crime was not having money.

The most messed up part was, it’s not that I didn’t want a job or didn’t apply, people just didn’t want to hire me.

Bad social skills, they said.

Weird face, ugly man, bad for customers to see, they said.

Freak and loser, they said.

Yet, it’s not only my fault I’m homeless, but I’m evil for it.

I’ve had enough. I would break into one of these houses. At the very least, I could take something valuable and sell it.

Then I could feed myself in the morning.

I went to a house that had its lights out.

I found a rock and threw it through a window.

The window shattered, the alarms blared.

A kid looked down the stairs at me.

He screamed, “dad, get the shot gun.” I ran upstairs and grabbed the kid before he could escape.

The father ran up to me yelling something unintelligible and I moved his kid in the way of the shotgun.

“Don’t hurt my son,” he said.

“Drop the gun,” I shouted. He did. I heard his wife sneaking up behind me. I turned around quickly and knocked her out with one punch.

I walked over to the gun and picked it up. I threw the kid down the stairs then shot the father in the neck.

I used to be a taxidermist. I quickly skinned the father, put it over me like a coat, then carved the rest of him to look like me. When the kid came upstairs and the wife woke, I said, “Don’t worry. The intruder’s dead.”