Looking for Andrew (Journal 3)

We pack up our picnic things and I ask Andrew if he wants the sturdy bag I've been sitting on. 

"No, thanks," he laughs, "I'm alright for bags."

Andrew uses the public toilets at the park and while I wait I get a phone call from Nina. She is so worked up, that I would describe it as a rant. A rant about Andrew. Nina is the outreach worker for the local homeless charity and I have recently called them requesting help.  It has taken three attempts to get a response from her.

“I don’t know what he’s told you, but it won’t be true,” she shouts down the phone

Nina says that Andrew has been evicted because of his alcohol and drug problems, resulting in criminal behaviour. She says she’s bound by confidentiality, but in her excitement, she makes the situation quite clear. Andrew has been a naughty boy and therefore doesn’t deserve a home.

"Are you trying to tell me that my safety is compromised?" I ask her very slowly, as I have read that this is how you calm hysterical people down.

"No, he's not like that," she says.

He’s got Type 1 Diabetes, that’s a serious illness, he's been hospitalised twice in the time I've known him, I say to her. Surely, he deserves another chance?

“Chances?! He’s had plenty of chances, but he won’t help himself. Who took him to the Doctor’s? You did. He just won’t do anything for himself.  You can try the council, but they will tell you they have no duty towards him because of his previous behaviour."

Later, I wonder if she feels I’ve stepped on her toes. Perhaps it’s professional jealousy? – she thinks I’m trying to do her job for her. But then again, it sounds as though she’s washed her hands of him.

Andrew leans against the fence next to me, listening to the end of the conversation, his shoulders becoming increasingly stooped. In that three minute diatribe she’s managed to rob him of all hope. 

It’s a case of deserving and undeserving poor, I say to Andrew, as we walk to the charity shop. He is desperately trying to defend his behaviour, but part of me really doesn’t care. Do ex-offenders deserve to live in a home? Do addicts? I think they do. I think everyone deserves a home.

I take Andrew into the charity shop and buy him a baseball cap for £3.50. “Is it expensive?” he asks. No, it’s fine.

I’ve already drummed it into him that I’m not going to help him financially. “There are lots of ways I can help you, Andrew,” I told him, “but money definitely isn’t one of them”.

That being said, I’ve already bought him three lunches, a train ticket and now a sun hat. Andrew is quids in, but it was worth it just to listen to his plot outline of last night’s Eastenders that he watched at his friend's house. 

Andrew isn’t in any of his usual places today and I need to ask him a question about his sick note. He doesn’t have a phone, so I said I would ring the Doctor for him. I also have a bag of clothes that my work colleague’s husband has sorted out. They will be better than the filthy tracksuit bottoms he has been seen in recently. I give up, but I’m not despondent, it’s just how homeless people are. They are unreliable and tend to move around a lot.  The agencies use the word "chaotic".

However, I have been a little troubled by the conflict between Andrew’s version of his life and what Nina has told me. I look back over our time together and haven’t seen any evidence of drug-taking or drunkenness. Surely he wouldn’t be able to save his miniature bottle of plonk for a whole day, if he were an alcoholic?

I bump into an ex-homeless man on my way home. He’s an outgoing sort, so I’ve seen him chatting to various homeless people around town in the past. I used to buy him bottles of water when he was on the streets. I ask him if he knows Diabetic Andrew.

“Does he beg outside the supermarket? I don’t think he’s a diabetic, I think he’s a Spice addict,” Kurt says.

He elaborates on the horrors of Spice in gory and graphic detail. Kurt knows of someone who went psychotic on the drug and eviscerated himself. “He died. You can’t survive without your intestines.” 

We’re neither of us sure if Andrew is on drugs or not and Kurt isn’t even sure that he’s homeless.
Well, he’s definitely sofa surfing, I say. Which is still homeless. Kurt nods in agreement.  "I was homeless myself," he says.  He loses his confident eye-contact for the first time and looks down at the ground.

If he is on Spice, then he’s an idiot, I say. “It’s the times we’re in,” Kurt says. “It’s pushing people to the edge.” 

I ask Kurt how things are with him now. It turns out that we are both minimum wage slaves and neither of us are very keen on it.

I can’t bear to think of Andrew on Spice – it’s a vile drug.

I thank Kurt for his time and Kurt thanks me for stopping to chat to him.

I walk away, wondering what state Andrew will be in next time I see him.