I'm in the house watching the Nirvana night on BBC4, or to be honest I've only just turned it on. Right at the point where they're saying that Kurt Cobain used to be homeless. Something I never knew.
I've been homeless myself, but never for long, never more than a few weeks before I found somewhere to stay. If I had to spend a few nights under a bridge or in a park or even in a casualty waiting room (like Cobain did) I always managed to get myself a sofa in someone's house, or crash out in a cupboard at a party.
The first time I spent a night out was during some shitty rioting that happens in Northern Ireland from time to time. I was coming home from a party at a friends house (I was only a teenager at the time by the way) when I heard more noise than I should have heard at that time of night in that area. I turned a corner where I could see a lot better a crowd of angry bastards charging up the street in my direction. That was my cue to turn and run like a mutherfucker, not in the opposite direction, back the way I came (at a right angle to the rioters route). I managed to get to a bridge that I had to cross on my way to school. It was in a remote part of town, and not lit, so I tucked myself under it to sleep. It was stupid for a lot of reasons. It's a bad idea to put yourself in an obscure area far the fuck away from anyone, but since the town was getting fucked up it was the best of nothing but bad options.
It wasn't the last time I slept under a bridge, or that bridge, but I hope that part of my life is over with, unless the economy sends everything to shit again, and in that case there's always cat burgling and crack.
