And The Plot Thickens...

I knew I'd be late. My class was going to start downtown in 15 minutes, and I was still stuck in South Beach. I adjusted my pencil skirt and scuttled over to stand near a harmless-looking elderly lady at the bus stop. She looked aloof, eating a Nutty Bar, which I loved when I was a child but wouldn't touch now.

"Excuse me, can you tell me which bus that is?" I pointed at the approaching bus that was about a block to our left. "Would you like a peanut butter cookie?" The lady answered in a high, tiny voice and shakily pushed the half-eaten snack toward my face. "No, thank you." I hastened to the other side of the bus stop. Eventually, I got on the K bus.

There was a slim Asian girl wearing Abercrombie and Fitch who looked as though she should have been modeling the clothes in a studio instead of wearing them on a bus. There was a girl in designer sunglasses talking loudly on the cell phone and a group of plump 20-something German tourists in bathing suits and cover-ups. Everyone else on the bus was homeless, or at least they looked homeless. I was in Miami for five days for a workshop on plot with Lynne Barrett.

During the workshop, I learned how the life of a character arcs in a story, how to keep it from being flat, and how a story that starts out very high ends very low. During my daily bus ride, I saw more homeless people than I've ever seen in my life. It was then that I started to wonder how high a person's story would have to have started for their ending to be so low.

"Amy, a lot of these people don't want help," said my friend Courtney, an ER Nurse in Fort Lauderdale. Courtney explains most people don't want to be in the system. Some of them are veterans. Others have psychological disorders, and their medication turns them into zombies but without it, they're "nuts," and people at least prefer to feel. Courtney says as an ER nurse she has homeless people come in all of the time, and the hospital can't turn them away.

They say they're suicidal or something, so the doctors have to treat them. What they're really looking for is a bed and some food. Shelters won't let people who are on drugs or drunk through the doors, so they come to the hospital. Courtney says it costs several thousands of taxpayer dollars when homeless people do this. Courtney and I walked next to one another down the sidewalk. It's sad. I think about it. I've never seen a homeless person look happy unless they're just plain insane.

Most of them look like the weight of life is a palpable defeat on their backs. As we walk, Courtney points out a homeless woman she recognizes from the ER in her town. With bus fare being relatively inexpensive, homeless people can migrate when they wear out their welcome at local hospitals. Courtney says they can tell when their welcome is worn because, "We'll give them a bed, but it might be a bed in the hall," Courtney says.

I find the situation for homeless people sad and pitiful. I can't imagine the plight of being homeless nor wanting to be homeless. I also find the situation frustrating. Why is so much tax money going for a homeless man's one-nighter in the ER? The feds don't pay my hospital bills. Also, why has medical science not advanced medication for people with mental illnesses to prevent this? Why ... and so the plot thickens.