Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

Phillip

I’ve asked a lot of tough questions in my career as a journalist, but the question I posed today to Phillip, a homeless man, had to be the toughest. It took weeks for me to get up the nerve to ask it, and when I did I fumbled for words until I just blurted it out, as I slipped him $2: “Where do homeless people have sex?”

I wasn’t prepared for the answer—especially the variety of places—that Phillip rattled off. I’m sorry if there are missing details because I was too speechless to pry, except for a few delicate inquiries about how do you get in, the buildings, I mean. I held back on my follow-up question: “What about in the winter?” I think I could figure it out.

But before I let Phillip explain, you should know that I asked this question out of fear that I might someday become homeless because I never know how I’m going to pay the mortgage and the rest of the bills each month.

Phillip’s turn. The first place that came to his mind: “Outside.” Okay.

“Where outside?”

“Behind Best Buy,” he said, pointing toward the store at the intersection of Wisconsin and Albemarle Streets Northwest. I’ve been to that Best Buy, and there’s an alley and cemetery in the back and a loading dock that is open and partially sheltered.

“Where else?” I said.

Phillip got going. “Inside that building over there,” he said, glancing up the street to an office building a few blocks north on Wisconsin.

“How do you get inside?”

“It’s always open,” he said.

“Oh.”

“See those white cages,” he said. I nodded. “In there.” The white cages encircle big CVS dumpsters. I drive by them all the time.

The conversation then turned serious when he interjected that homeless people have needs, too. Of course, Phillip, I understand. We all do, I thought. He said that bathrooms in Whole Foods and Starbucks are other places that homeless people bang. “The female goes in first,” he said. Another place was Wilson High School, after school lets out. “The basement door is always open.”

But the kicker was after church. My eyes cratered. “Church?” I said. Not in the confessional, I thought. But yes! That was the answer. After church, Phillip said the pastor greets and enjoys refreshments with parishioners in the back, while the confessionals are free for the taking. All rise, and Amen.