BWS
There’s a notorious shelter in New York City, known by its acronym BWS. Out of respect for the women there I won’t give the name, but all you Johns who line up outside looking for a date and all you familiar with the system know what I’m talking about. The rest of you, look it up. BWS, the city’s answer for safe, humane housing for the downtrodden is one of the most dangerous places in the city. Hollowed faces of the career homeless, immigrant women, junkies and schizos greets you as you approach the massive building. The so-called shelter looks more like a former prison or psych hospital. Its windows are busted and old tires, trash and debris are thrown in the streets. Step inside and you are greeted by two armed NY police officers as you go through the metal detectors and gates. No ordinary place, this is Dante’s inferno. Inside you know Purgatory awaits you as you look at the large metal doors before you. In the post 9-11 world, security checks at buildings have become the norm. But upon entering BWS, you are made to turn around (prison style) and spread eagle as they run the wand up and down your body. Then there’s the bag check. I wondered as these trained police office fumbled through my nail polish and other things, is this what kids have in mind when they say mommy “ I want to grow up to be a police officer.” After several minutes of fruitless search for contraband, they finally decided my nail polish was illegal and promptly threw it in the trash. Guess that shade of pink was out of season. Happy with their efforts, I was finally allowed entrance to the halls of hell.
Walking through this institution, the saying “there’s no place like home” takes on new meaning. I watched hookers at their lockers getting ready for the evening, saw women more butch than most men marines cruise for dates and watched the mentally ill wander aimlessly through the halls as if in a perpetual trance. An obese cop, too fat for real police work sits at the intake office door, carefully guarding the phone. Most of the bitches in the joint could have took him on, hell, the elderly bag lady sitting next to me could have pin him in three moves. But somehow I felt comforted knowing those pesky telemarketers weren’t going to get me tonight, oh no. Lock-down (I mean bed-check) was at 8pm, but you weren’t guaranteed a bed. Women too sick or stoned to walk, were laying across ironing boards at the end of the hall. In order to stay you have to submit to mugshots and fingerprints, excuse me but what was my crime again? Oh Yeah, I’m Fashionably Homeless, lest I forget. I was told I would have to submit to a OB/GYN exam and a TB test. Excuse me, but when did being homeless mean I had to subject myself to a medical exam by a stranger at someone else’s command? Then if everything checked out, I will get a case worker. I figured that’s when I would be assigned my permanent place in hell. After all this was only purgatory, the real shit was yet to come.
As I sat in the hall waiting for my intake, healthy women (translation obese), some just out the joint, wandered the corridors, looking for dates as others try to work the system, getting free food, smokes, jewelry or the shoes off your feet (if you’re not careful). Proud as mother hens these big bitches parade in their brightly colored matching designer streetwear which they will gladly tell you they paid $300 hundred for, never mind you didn’t asked. While trying to get you to sit in between their legs, like they’re some dude and you some little girl on the playground. The shit almost made me want to throw up. Take a shower in this place I thought, forget it, I’d rather be stinky. I’m not getting in the shower with these bitches. One stood up in the lunchroom and proudly asked everyone to take off their clothes so she could watch. Show no weakness, I thought, so I got my game face on. And this was for a shelter.
Lunch, dinner, who cares, was some mush, rats eat better out of garbage cans. And I’d like to kick the jerk who invented barbequed beef in the first place. Worse slop in God’s kingdom and every church, every prison, every shelter serves it likes it filet mignon for the poor. As I ate, I wondered what kind of place, needs armed police officers in the cafeteria, just how hectic does this joint get if they don’t serve the right slop? A woman sat across from me looking like all the antidepressants in the world couldn’t help her as another sat two rows over with large red concentric circles on the face, like tears of a clown. Well if she’s laughing the joke’s on me. The only thing I could think is whatever happened to her, happened early and it fucked her up. A word to all you perverts, jack-offs and child molesters out there, in the end yours will come, because when you scar a child young, you scar a child for life.
I ate as much of the mush as I could tolerate, thanked god for the bread and butter and dutifully went for pictures and fingerprints. As I walked out that building that day, all kinds of Johns, black men and white, Russians and Hispanics were lined up in their cars, looking for dates. And the sick women inside eagerly approached their cars. As I walked away for this modern day version of Dante’s hell, I wondered, what little respect does the city have for these women that they openly allow prostitution to flourish outside their doors, while the cops sat inside, turning a blind eye? BWS they call it a safe haven for women. Just think, if I had actually spent the night, I’d have enough material for a cable movie of the week.
Peace be with you,
Fashionably Homeless