- [Cigarette Man] I've been homeless all my life.
Never had nowhere to live or nothing like that.
Most people with families come up in a home.
Christmas, birthdays and all that.
I didn't have a family, you see?
So my mother and my father,
whoever he was, never even knew,
was gone very young.
Most people have brothers that they grew up in the house.
If they parents die or they can only call their mom
and go back home, call their brother
and help me out for a few weeks to call their sister.
He say there's nobody for this guy to call.
(ambulance sirens)
I was born on,
on Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
My mother's church stressed that and wrote it down.
She said, you was born on a day of champions.
Skid row will, will fuck your mind up.
You see the Cigarette Man, been here off and on since 1964.
The most important thing you need to know about skid row,
is how to survive in skid row.
We got Pizza Hut,
Pizza Hut with the garlic bread on it right here.
And then down here we got the oatmeal raisin cookies,
right here that I hustle out.
Now this is my hustle right here, people.
I go out to stores and the things they cannot sell,
'cause they a day old or two days old
they give it to me, and I bring it to Skid Row.
I been homeless probably about 30, 40 years.
It brings out who you really are, and then you come
and find out that your character was shaped by other people.
Let me give you an example.
One time I was in a prison in Oklahoma,
and I saw this tattoos on these big old white boys.
When he got out, one of my homeboys saw him,
and said, look at that cracker with all them tattoos on him,
and I looked at the channel and thought, you know,
them tattoos are very old, man, you know.
So what happened, by me knowing him,
I went over and I said, Hey Cornbread, remember me?
Big white boy, right?
He said, yeah, little D we, we did that time together.
And so I say, man,
I say, you really feel like that about us?
He say, what you talking about man?
I said, then why us nigga's still here then.
And he sat me down.
He said, look here brother, I won't lie to you.
He said, my family taught me things, right?
He said, once I went into the world on my own, right,
he said, I saw my parents told me a lot
of different things that really wasn't true, right?
He said, they put those tattoos
on me and I can't get rid of them.
(melancholic piano music)
If I feel, that you are telling me the truth,
I will get emotional like this.
Not my tears of sadness.
But I hurt for him,
because the way he looked at me that day,
he said, I'm sorry,
I can't get rid of no tattoos.
And he had the same water in his eyes
that I had my eyes, and he make stop me like what?
But big Cornbread, they called him Cornbread.
He said, I can't get rid of tattoos, they're a nightmare.
He said, I did not know too well, early on.
And I told him, this is my word to him.
You don't have to get rid of tattoos.
Your heart will tell us everything.
And I love you.
So I said, you keep your tattoos, they won't do a thing.
Not as long as you've got that good heart.
And I walked away with that one,
and we went on to be good friends
for the next three or four years while I was in Oklahoma.
And when I left, he was doing good.
And my buddy was happy.
And if you want to talk to me personally,
'cause you think I'm wrong about a lot of things
or some of the things you heard,
then you can find me in skid row, right here.
(sad piano music)
There's no dreams here.
Only nightmares.
You can get along, but this ain't the place you dream about.
But all in all, we still find the way,
all the misery and bad things and we still find a way
to smile and be happy 'cause we are still people.
And remember, skid row is still part of the world
that God made.
Even though we made it a vicious battleground,
is still has not been taken from God.
(distant sirens blaring)
Our daily routine is just trying to make it through the day,
you know? So, it's never enough, but we do the best we can.
Ain't nothing guaranteed to nobody on the planet.
Survival starts within yourself.
You know, it don't start at skid row.
Survival starts in you.
You know? It don't start at skid row.
Your survival starts in you, by the way you think,
and the things you allow yourself to get caught up in.
That's it.
Listen to your heart, in your own mind.