As some of you may or may not know there are very few things in this world that scare me, but the one that freaks me out the most, second only to maybe, oh, the apocalypse are hobos/homeless people. More specifically the train riding stowaways.
Yes.
You heard me.
Stop laughing.
I'm not completely sure why hobos scare me so much, but here are several times that I remember being particularly terrified for my life:
As a child, on the way to church downtown, we would pass under the interstate and there would be tents set up under there and creepy homeless people in them that would stare at us as we drove by. The Jeanie always made the conscious effort to lock the doors which may have actually only seated the fear even more deeply into my psyche.
On the day of my confirmation, a toothless, strung out homeless woman was hustling people for money outside my church. My father was one of those people, and she followed us all the way to the car. He gave her money because he's Catholic I guess, but it was really disconcerting.
The Jeanie would also ALWAYS make it a point to tell my brother and I to stay as far away from ALL homeless people as possible. For example, if we were in the path to intersecting a homeless person on the sidewalk we were to cross the street and walk down the other sidewalk until the coast was clear.
When I was younger, I would occasionally spend the night with my aunt in Atlanta. She lived in a very nice condominium complex in Vinings that happened to back up to the train tracks. I would hear the trains go by the complex all night long and watch the eerie orange glow from the street lamps. There were no horns or anything, just the clacking of the train on the tracks and the scraping of chains from the sidecars. I would consistently have nightmares of hobos jumping off the train, scaling the wall into the complex (that were 12 feet tall, smooth concrete with barbed wire on top), breaking into my aunt's condo (which was one of literally about 250 and relatively difficult to find), kidnapping me and killing me. Also, I have a vivid imagination and dream in color.
More recently, The Girfriend and I were accosted by one of Tuscaloosa's local flower ladies in the parking lot outside of Panera. She's well known around the area so were weren't as concerned, but she would not leave us alone until we bought one of her ridiculous paper angels from her. The Girlfriend gave her about seventeen cents for it so I didn't feel bad. I pretended like she wasn't there.
In a more horrifying incident, I was crossing under the train bridge on MacFarland only to see a hobo standing in the doorway of a freight car as I passed. I had my sunroof open. Things that ran through my mind:
1. Oh My God. He's going to jump into my car through the sunroof, kill me, take my money and my Volvo.
2. He's peeing off the sidecar and it's going to come in through my sunroof.
3. He, in an effort to achieve # 1, will miss and land in front of my car and I'm going to run over him and go to jail for killing a hobo. One count of Vehicular Manslaughter, check.
And then something happened today, and though it may seem mild to you, I literally almost went into cardiac arrest on the spot. The condominium complex I work for backs up to possibly the busiest train tracks in Tuscaloosa. It is not uncommon for trains to stop behind the complex and leave multiple cars on the tracks for another train to pick up later. Today was one such day where there were about three sidecars parked on the tracks behind the complex. I was in the back parking lot adjusting our new, magnetic high-tech lock/gate system for our pedestrian gate (and by adjusting I mean trying to figure out how the hell it worked).
I had been working on it for about five minutes when I finally got it to latch. I was pretty proud of myself, and also incredibly bored, so I was just standing in the yard enjoying the first sunny day in about two weeks. I was looking at the brand new rear fence (which is the chain-link kind and only about 5 feet tall) thinking to myself, "Dang, I hope this brush fills in quickly because this fence is really low and any hobo (seriously. I really do think like this) could climb this sucker."
And then it happened. I saw a man of about 45 with a scruffy beard and wild hair carrying a broken down suitcase walking down the railroad tracks. His eyes and cheeks were swollen from years of alcohol abuse. His skin was incredibly aged from overexposure to the sun. He made eye contact with me and I froze like a freakin' deer in headlights. He stopped walking and looked at me like he wanted to say something. I thought, "Oh my God. This is it. My worst fear realized. He's gunna pull out a bowie knife and come at me like Gary Busey on a coke bender." Before he could do, or say, anything I jumped in my golf cart and literally peeled out and off to the safety of my office at the front of the property.
Now, you may be thinking, "Good Lord, you're a terrible, terrible person." And yes, you would probably be correct, but that doesn't make me fear homeless people any less. I don't know what it is, but now I'll more than likely be even more scared in the future when I see a homeless person. I mean I'm already that guy that freaks out when the homeless people try to wash my windshield with newspaper and vinegar water (if you don't know what I'm talking about, drive around Atlanta for about 20 minutes and you'll figure it out).
