Siana Bangura: Week 2

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be so terrified you sober up from your tippled state sharpish.

I was not so kindly reminded the other night on my way back from visiting a friend in her new pad. Since first year, I’ve seen the same homeless guy walking up and down Little St. Mary’s Lane regularly. I suspect he spends some nights in the grave yard (yes, I live next to a graveyard).

Now this is all very sad and troubling, but what troubles me the most is that I know he recognises me.  As I walked home, on this particular night, I turned the corner and lo and behold, it was my awkward acquaintance.  He looked worse than usual and smelt like a brewery (more so than usual).

He stopped me and insisted we chat. At this point there wasn’t anybody around and I was feeling terribly uncomfortable, but I thought it best to give him a few minutes of my time (plus, in horror movies when you turn your back on someone in the dark bad things usually happen). He often asks me for fifty pence and I often say I don’t have fifty pence.

On this occasion he asked to come back to mine and sleep on my floor. After my initial thoughts of ‘absolutely not’ and ‘what the absolute fuck’, I managed to squeeze out a polite ‘sorry, that’s not possible’. I then made my excuses. He got a little irked and proceeded to yell at the top of his lungs, ‘I love you! If any man lays his hands on you I will kill them!’ I suddenly found myself in the middle of a potential nightmare… or worse, a scene from Eastenders. I thanked him for his ‘concern’, and told him that someone was waiting for me at the end of the road (a lie).

Yes, that situation could have gone either way. I’m not sure what I mean by ‘either way’ but it could have gone either way.  I like to look for the best in people and give everyone a chance. Although common sense told me to make a move (a good idea), I felt bad for assuming that he might have harmed me. Perhaps he was just lonely.

As inappropriate as this encounter was, the homeless people I see around Cambridge remind me that it could happen to anyone. I know a girl who came from a very comfortable family, but found herself on the streets after her mum went nuts and gave all their money to a rogue Nigerian church. After becoming friends with one of the Big Issue men in my second year, I realised the complexity of a life on the streets. Sometimes things just spiral out of control and you get dealt a shit hand. Walking past the woman who sits outside Sainsbury’s everyday with her dog and her flute also chips away at my faith in humanity.  At the end of last term I bought her a box of chocolates and she cried. I don’t know when  someone last did anything nice for her.

When I finally reached my house, went up to my room, and sat at my desk preparing to bemoan my next truckload of reading, I stopped for a moment and reminded myself to be grateful for everything I have. It’s not something I do enough.

Despite being dragged to my least favourite place – Cindies – against my will; being forced to sway along to ‘My heart will go on’ (painful); moshing to a dubstep mash-up of ‘Hey Jude’ (excruciating); receiving a bitter message on my blog about being ‘embarrassingly waffly and arrogant’  (diiiiirrrrt off my shoulders, bitch); and feeling under the weather for far too long (snotty nose, teary eyes, dripping mascara, the works) all in the same week, I just can’t complain.

In the grand scheme of life, feeling misunderstood by the masses; using too many parentheses; wishing there were more than twenty-four hours in the day to get everything done, and missing my favourite show because it’s not on i-player are minor issues. The fact is I’m not the drunken homeless guy who sleeps in the graveyard sometimes or the woman outside Sainsbury’s who cries because of a box of chocolates and only has her dog for company.