Procrastination is a Cancer. Perfection is subjective. Get on the bus and go.

I hate the city of Van Nuys. It’s located in California. It’s not really known for anything, other than being the porn capital of America at one point. I don’t think that’s something you should want to be known for, but it is what it is. I live in Van Nuys because it’s affordable. I’ve been in my current apartment going on five years now. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but it has. Where does the time go? I could probably afford something a little better, but not that much better until my income becomes steady. Until I can do great, it’s not worth the strain of stretching myself thin for a little better.

 There’s a McDonald’s a block away from my apartment. That’s one of the main reasons why I hate Van Nuys. I hate McDonald’s. I don’t want anything to do with a community that’s okay with a corporation like McDonald's serving their version of food to people. The stuff they refer to as food is so bad for you that it should be illegal to refer to it as such. Healthy people don’t eat this food. I honestly can’t see The Rock pulling up to a McDonald’s drive-through and ordering anything off the menu. Now that I’ve said The Rock doesn’t eat there, the universe will prove me wrong. In a few weeks or months from now, I'm sure I’m going to see an ad where The Rock and McDonald’s have teamed up for a special value meal. If The Rock eats McDonald’s, I’m willing to bet he has access to a pill that removes all the unhealthiness before he digests it.

I also dislike the lack of culture in Van Nuys. I drive around the city and see so many homeless people that, if I didn’t know any better, I would think homelessness started in Van Nuys. Seeing homeless people is a trigger for me. I’ve been homeless twice since I’ve been in California, and it’s not fun. It hurts when I see people living in filth. We are supposed to be the richest country in the world, but last time they checked, there were over one hundred and fifty-seven thousand homeless people in California. And to be honest, that number seems low to me.

The first time I went homeless came from helping someone out who needed a place to stay. It was foolish of me to believe that a person who lost their home would make sure I didn’t go through the same thing. Well, I was wrong. Tell me how I ended up being homeless after helping someone who was homeless. Humans never cease to amaze me.

The second time I lost my apartment came about when I tried to be a revolutionary leader against the injustices in the apartment complex I lived in. A roach problem is what sparked the flame in me to become Maronzio X. A majority of the people who lived in this apartment complex were immigrants, people who had moved to this country for a better life. They didn’t think having roaches was a good enough reason to draw attention to themselves and risk being sent back to wherever they escaped from. I try to imagine what the lives of these people must have been like. I want to know where they came from that's so bad that wanting better for yourself is too much to ask for. I, on the other hand, found roaches to be a deal breaker. I decided to fight the system and lost. I lost because there aren’t a lot of laws that protect renters from property owners.

There are certain things in my current neighborhood that I have just come to accept. I’ve accepted the fact that there is a homeless man who sits at the bus stop in front of the McDonald’s I hate. Those are two things I dread looking at when I’m leaving or returning home. It saddens me when I see the homeless man, but I’m fascinated by him. This homeless man sits in the same exact spot every day, from sun up until the sun goes down. He’s just sitting there wearing a weathered leather hunting hat, a trench coat, some worn down black construction boots, what looks like every additional garment of clothing he owns, and some shades. He has a full beard. It’s taken over his face so much that you can’t see his mouth to find out if he’s talking to himself or breathing. The only evidence I have that he’s alive is the fact that I’ve seen times when he wasn’t at the bus stop.

I remember when I once dated this girl who I’ll refer to as The Gemini. She hated how I would treat homeless people as regular people. I remember we got into it one night on the way home when I stopped to check on this homeless man, who I had discovered living in the doorway of the post office across from Universal Studios, and give him some money and food.

 He was a Black man in his mid-forties. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t have any more fight in him. I was around twenty-eight at the time. But whatever that look in his eyes was, sparked something in me that made me want to be his friend and help him out. In some way I felt if I helped him, someone would do the same for me if this were ever to become my fate. I can see how not being treated as a human had damaged this man’s views on humanity. I would want someone to greet me with compassion and be able to see that I was a human being, despite my current situation. I didn’t think it was dangerous to befriend this man. He didn’t give off a vibe that made me think he would bring me any harm, but The Gemini despised me for cutting into her time to do anything for him. It turned me off that she had a problem with me caring. It also turned me off from helping homeless people. I ended up losing track of that homeless man after she and I broke up. I lost two people in one day. That’s a lot to deal with.

In regard to the homeless man outside of McDonald’s, I procrastinated with trying to make a connection with this man. Part of me felt that he may not be in a good place mentally, since there were days I would see him sitting in temperatures as high as 104° with all his clothes on and not moving a muscle. I also felt like if I wanted to make this man feel like he was a part of society, then I would treat him the way I would want to be treated, or at least how I treat myself. The closest place to get him food was at the McDonald’s on the corner, and since I refuse to feed myself McDonald’s, I didn’t want to offer it to him. Some people may say, “Maronzio, he would have been happy with anything.” However, my morals were getting in the way of my morals.

I struggled with whether or not I should feed him due to my personal issue about what his options were. Every time the decision was presented, I would become uncomfortable with the dilemma, so I would do nothing. I don’t know what I was waiting on. Maybe a part of me was hoping the neighborhood would improve, and we’d get a better selection to choose from. Improvement never came, and by doing nothing at all, I let time run out. A few weeks ago, this homeless man, who had become a living statue at that bus stop, died. I didn’t get a chance to do something for somebody who I had wanted to make feel human. 

I had so many questions for this homeless man. I wanted to know his story. I needed him to explain how he was able to survive such severe conditions. A part of me was dying to know the significance of coming to the same spot every day. Was he supposed to get on that bus to go somewhere and couldn't bring himself to do it? Was this old homeless man a metaphor that I need to stop waiting for the perfect conditions before I act, that I need to live before my time runs out? I would also like to point out that I now recognize that me procrastinating on feeding this homeless man also speaks volumes about my ever-evolving anxieties. I worry about everything I do being torn down and rejected to the point that I wanted to make sure everything was perfect before I fed a man who was homeless. I’m not happy with the way I am all the time, but I’m working on not beating myself up for not being what others expect me to be. At the same time, I’m working on not projecting on others how I think they view me. The times when I have actually shared the thoughts that I believed somebody had about me, that person generally hadn’t even given me any thought at all. 

I know I can’t go back in time to feed that man, nor can I go back in time to take a chance that I should have taken and didn’t. Moving forward, the next time I want to do something, I’m just going to do it. I can’t wait for perfect. I can only attempt to create perfection.

-EAT

 I write as a form of healing for myself and others. If you enjoyed what you read, “tip the writer” by donating to Venmo or zelle @maronziovance or Cashapp $Gift2MaronzioVance