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For a couple that's been together such a long time, Paul Aiu and Sharon Hemingway seem unusually affectionate. They finish each other's sentences, sleep in each other's arms every night, and even eat from the same plate. After almost twenty-five years together, they spend hardly a minute apart.
Lately, the two can be found on Glendale Boulevard, the former center of Los Angeles's silent-film industry, a block from where Charlie Chaplin invented the Tramp. Hints of Chaplin's character — a vagrant whose sunny demeanor rose above his impoverishment — can be seen nearly a century later in Paul and Sharon, who have been homeless since November. Each night, they crawl into their sleeping bags behind the Hi-Ho Drive 'n Market, which Paul sweeps out every morning in exchange for a space behind the owner's Dumpster where he and Sharon can stash their belongings.
"The owner usually offers me a soda, but I never take it," Paul tells me, clutching a cardboard sign asking for work. Adds Sharon, a tiny white-haired woman who clings to his arm and beams an endearing smile, "We don't want to owe anything to anybody."
Self-sufficiency may seem a quixotic goal when you spend your days panhandling, but "we get by," says Paul, fifty-seven, who's just split a cheeseburger with Sharon, sixty-five. "We're never hungry. Actually, our stomachs have gotten smaller."
Still, every time I see them, I ask if they need anything, and they always politely refuse. They're not starving, but they are looking forward to finding a way off the streets — particularly Sharon. "Paul is so trusting, everybody wants to take advantage of him," she explains. The other day, she says Paul gave money to a homeless woman who was digging through the garbage.
"Nobody should have to do that," says Paul.
"It was probably an act," chastises Sharon, explaining that she's "the suspicious one."
At this, Paul laughs. "She keeps me out of trouble," he says. "That's how we survive."
The more I hang out with them, the clearer it is that he's right. Homeless couples like Paul and Sharon can offer each other support and protection from the city's myriad perils. Life on the streets is more dangerous than ever, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, which has been tracking a continuous upward trend in attacks on homeless people since 1999. As a couple, neither Paul nor Sharon need to be on guard all the time, they tell me. And they make a good team: Sharon feels physically safe with Paul, and Paul says Sharon has better instincts for dangerous situations. A few weeks ago, for instance, Paul was accused of shoplifting a pack of gum from a Vons grocery store.
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Sharon feels physically safe with Paul, and Paul says Sharon has better instincts when it comes to dangerous situations than he does.
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"I can become a bulldog," she says. "I asked the manager, 'Do you really think homeless people would steal gum? Then why don't you call the cops and have them search his bag?'" The Vons manager let Paul go.
"It's always been like that between us," Paul tells me. He was thirty-three when they met, a draft-dodger from Hawaii who'd moved to Idaho to study computer science. Instead, he dropped out to work as a landscaper and musician. "Primordial Soup," he grins, recalling the name of his band. At a show he met Sharon, an alcoholic with an estranged daughter in her twenties. Recently widowed, and with a two-year-old daughter of his own, Paul immediately fell in love. But their relationship progressed slowly. Sharon spent six months trying to dry out on his couch before anything physical happened.
"When I met Paul, I felt like I'd finally met someone normal," she says. "All my friends did was drink." Paul ended up nailing the doors and windows shut to stop Sharon's friends from dropping off bottles of booze. "They called it gifts from the Easter Bunny," he says.
Eventually, he decided he had to get Sharon out of Boise; some musician friends hooked them up with a job selling concessions for the Grateful Dead. At some point during their long, strange trip, Sharon was born again in Marin County, and finally quit drinking for good. The two ended up in the hippie enclave of Pahoa, Hawaii, where Paul resumed his studies at the University of Hilo and worked as a janitor at night. But Sharon felt lonely on the Big Island, so much so that she was tempted to start drinking again. Two semesters short of Paul's graduation, she begged him to quit so they could move to Honolulu.
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Commentarium (9 Comments)
i think that i drive by this couple all the time on alvarado near glendale commuting home. i have always been intrigued by them, because they seem so close. this was in interesting and unexpected look into their lives!
"Transient Love"? Sorry, I have no patience or tolerance for these drug addled, alcohol soaked bums. I know what many of them did to a pretty downtown park until the city closed it, fenced it and spent years remaking the lawns and shrubbery. The street dogs washed up on the fountain, hassled elderly people (some using walkers) who lived in a high rise senior apartment complex, threatened normal people who sat on park benches, etc. We are sick of filthy, smelly bums who steal market carts and roam all over with their pathetic cardboard signs at off ramps. There are at least six "C"s to homeless bumdum: Cobra (as in 40 oz beer), Crank (meth), Crack (cocaine), cigarettes (endless search for butts), Cops (all policemen are pigs)and do not forget the vulgar C word for women. How often does one see a filthy Mexican man or women (unless they just got off a job doing some hard labor) on the street? But we sure as hell see many "able-bodied" (?) white jerks looking for a drink, a butt or a fix! Call me heartless and FED UP!
MBD, the oversimplified world of black and white in which you live must be a very small and convenient place. Your racism and hate don't make your convictions seem any stronger, you just come off as an incoherent asshole. And if you were to fall through the cracks you'd be one more rude and incoherent bum ranting on the corner about how the n*ggers and sp*cs ruined your country. Shame on you.
seems like the previous comments miss what i thought was the theme: is one plus one greater than or less than 2? my limited experience has shown that when partners are doing more than leeching off each other, they will prosper. and to paraphrase a quote: i would rather be happily riding my bicycle than crying in a limousine.
I wrote the comment as a Democrat and one who volunteered two Sundays a month in a church in which I never heard one 'Thank you' for serving a complete hot meal to homeless bums. If you had seen the condition of the downtown park after the bums were cleaned out, you would be outraged too. Now it is fenced and patrolled with signs listing what is not allowed.
MBD, I don't think anything you wrote was racist or close-minded, and I say this as a very liberal woman of color. Don't have much to add, just wanted to give you some support!
Actually MBD I kind of lost your track when you started off with filthy Mexicans and I became confused. Do not get me wrong, I hate bums. But I think it's important to differentiate between men and women who are on the streets. Lots of women end up homeless because of domestic violence. I always wonder how exactly people come to be at the very bottom like that. I guess gradually at first and then all at once. What's to be done? It is emotionally exhausting to try to relate in a human way to people who have failed at everything so obviously and completely.
I've almost been in the couple's shoes for a time though a short one. If one can't stand being alone it's because they don't know how to make friends or don't know what they can do while out on the streets. There's no dysfunction it's more of manipulation from politics and it can be seen in those on the streets cause of the greed and hatred for those with nothing cause at one point the politicians had nothing if at all in their lives. Why should the people on the streets change if the government don't change? We are controlled by the government even our jobs. Think about it and research on it and you'll see for yourself wether it's disfunctional or deprivation inflicted on one self or on two beings. Jobs aren't easy to get if your homeless and even if they got into a place it may be a place that should've been fixed right or destroyed take your pick.But still you've got to live it in order to understand where they are and how they think and feel.
its totally bullshit, everything. i met a wonderful girl on the streets, neither of us do any drugs and i quit smoking pot for her because she doesnt smoke, she has a minor drinking problem and i am doing a good job at making her slow down. we both have jobs but only part time and its too damn expensive to get into a place in near hollywood, and i understand what MBD means to an extent i really do, most homeless people give us bad names, by not picking trash up after themselves, scaring tourists etc etc. i just wish there was help out there for us because were strong enough to handle the streets but im inexperienced and better than that, i can make a difference for the world, and dont hate the bums ever, its a pretty hard lifestyle in reality. and guess what, its nearly impossible to fix.
Now you say something