On Christmas at my homeless outreach job I was thinking about freedom. Some Presidents think that it doesn’t come from the state but is a gift from God, and they seem to believe God tells them that cities should be destroyed in order to free them. I was plugging in the blinking Xmas lights when people started streaming in and out, like a holiday dream. Joseph sits down by the fake tree for another day of mandatory waiting for his promised apartment. “Even rats have nests,” he says, and asks me whether I think his smooth superheroes, Spiderman and the Hobbits, ever wandered city streets looking for an open shelter bed. Carla tells me she gives her worries over to God while waiting for her Section 8 to arrive. “What does God do with your worries?” I ask. She’s going to worry about that and let me know. But with Carla’s inventive ideas, we find extra shelter spaces for Xmas. Marty says the cops framed him, planted coke in his pocket. He got 5 years for that first bust. Now, with a record, he can’t find a job nor room to rent. He’s angry at Guiliani and the whole shelter system, and has only been able to eat oatmeal the last two weeks. Under Bush, he thinks people are losing their rights. “Look at Guantanamo,” he says “fucking torture and the FBI using the Patriot Act to look up what you’re reading in the library.” Some people tell him because he was framed he’s become paranoid.“Do you think you’re being paranoid?” I ask him. He grabs a piece of Scotch tape, puts it on my hand and says, “You’re being taped.”