In 2016 Lucas Werner found himself homeless in a strange city, Spokane, after a catfish lured him out of Olympia with treacherous promises of poonaner. After discovering that he wasn’t quite cut out for sleeping rough, he began to make a circuit of Spokane homeless shelters, and first became acquainted with Truth Ministries (“TM”).
Of all of Spokane’s homeless shelters, TM may be the “nicest,” with “nice” being a relative term.
@Nobleman , who is familiar with Spokane’s charity community, has described it as a place with “relatively pampered accommodations.” It is accordingly always busy and full. Should you find yourself homeless in Spokane, you could do much worse, and thanks to his decisions Lucas would eventually do much worse. But that’s a different story.
According to its website, TM:
Lucas was a perfect client for TM: troubled, mentally ill, and unable to function as an adult. He receives SSI, and has a payee, in recognition of his inability care for himself. TM specializes in men with problems like his. TM presented Lucas with access to many services that he could use to improve his life: job referrals, low income housing opportunities. If any place could help Lucas learn to function as an adult, it was TM.
But Lucas wasn’t there to learn. He was there to eat. And mate.
Lucas proved more interested in the basic necessities that TM provided, not avenues out of homelessness. On any given day, TM provides 50 “clients” with a place to sleep, warm showers, and hot food. Lucas slept under TM’s roof, ate seconds at their table. He seemed more or less content to eat and hang out. In short, TM was keeping Lucas alive, and giving him hope and help for a more settled future that he didn’t seem particularly interested in.
Beyond food, which was very important to him, Lucas also found something else at TM: community. It was the center of his very small world. The clients, volunteers and workers, became the sum of Lucas’s social life. He was not very well established in Spokane, having only recently been lured to the city. He had very little to do and few people to talk to. So he spent a lot of time at TM and did what he could to join their community. He became, in short order, a very well known figure around TM, if not particularly well liked. He is remembered as an awkward, quiet man, not really connected but always around. He was clearly lonely.
He is said to have smelled of onions and urine.
One service that TM offered from time to time was free haircuts, with the idea being that improved grooming could help their client’s prospects. A local cosmetology student, attempting to finish a requirement for a certain number of “clinical hours” as part of her beauty school certification, volunteered at TM by giving the clients free haircuts. We will call her “A.”
A was female, between the ages of 16-26, and Lucas found her to be attractive. The astute Wernologist is no doubt worried for A.
They met. A cut his hair once, but we don’t know how she handled his bald spot. She must’ve touched him, at least a little bit. Chatted causually. Lucas was smitten.
A desperately one sided relationship was formed. This was a meaningful event for Lucas. He became desperate to socialize with A on every day she volunteered. She was obviously an important figure in his life. He clearly saw her as a potential sex partner. It was time for courtship displays.
Lucas struggled to cultivate a relationship with A. He was, and is, socially inept and shy. He tried to talk about politics with her, specifically socialism, which he informed her he was all for. He told A that he was a poet, and offered to read her some of his poetry. I hope he did. He explained that he was familiar with Kurt Cobain, having some ill-defined connection to him, but A had no idea who that was. Lucas never explicitly asked her out, because in the words of one eye witness “He was too much of a pussy.” But his intentions were nonetheless clear. Everyone saw that Lucas was sweet on A.
He wanted to fuck her very badly. This was a source of amusement for people of TM. We can only shudder to think of the role she assumed in his inner life.
A for her part felt very bad for Lucas and recognized that he was intolerably lonely. She was a naturally friendly and decent young woman. But in time, after many clinging and cringey encounters, she grew to resent Lucas’s constant attention, and became very annoyed with him. On the days she volunteered, she dreaded crossing paths with Lucas. He would follow her around, staring at his feet, mumbling at her. But A did her best to remain polite and decent, however uncomfortable she was.
This was a mistake. Lucas does not understand social cues the way others do. A’s politeness encouraged him to continue following her around, trying to woo her. Lucas saw himself as a suitable mate for A, and failed to read the situation. It seems Lucas thought she was interested in him. He thought he “had a chance” with her because he’s “plenty good” and she’d been civil to him.
And she had a poonaner.
Dear reader, if you have a poonaner, and even if you don’t, beware of civility around Lucas Werner. It means something different to him.
Lucas was only one of many men in the homeless shelter that A interacted with, however. Another, we can call Flatbill Bill, crossed paths with A occasionally. He had no special connection to her, beyond hair to cut, like Lucas. He has been described as “trashy” and a “wigger.” He was the type of fellow that Lucas now calls a “flatbill” and accuses of cultural appropriation and bad taste in music. He was quite a bit younger that Lucas, closer to A’s age. Like Lucas, he stayed at TM, and had a penis.
Lucas came to see Flatbill Bill as a romantic rival. It does not seem that they interacted with each other much. They were not friendly, but nobody remembers them as openly antagonistic. It was enough that Flatbill Bill talked to A sometimes. In fact, Lucas potentially saw every client at TM as a rival for A’s poonnaner.
People began to notice how possessive he was of her, and to comment on it.
And then one day, when Lucas wanted to talk to A, he found Flatbill Bill talking to her over by the bunk area. The shelter was quite crowded at the time.
Their conversation has not been preserved for posterity, but it went on too long for Lucas’s liking. He tried to butt in and was ignored. This made Lucas angry. He wanted all of A's attention. And her poonaner.
And so Lucas snapped. It was a paroxysm of impotent rage: the howls of a weak, sexually anxious primate.
Lucas rushed the two and began shouting at the top of his lungs, effectively terminating their conversation. He called Flatbill Bill a “Cock blocking Republican” and "Republican cock blocker" over and over again. A crowd gathered, and people moved to separate the two. A was aghast. The shouting continued. At no point did Lucas become physically aggressive with Flatbill Bill. He just kept roaring at him, “Cock blocking Republican.” The crowd listened in confusion as Lucas launched some inarticulate tirade about how Flatbill Bill was a bitch for being a cock blocking republican.
Everyone was terribly confused at first, and then Lucas’s message became clear. A was his, and Flatbill Bill was to find some other woman to talk to.
The crowd realized that Lucas wasn’t just raving like a maniac, but accusing Flatbill Bill of cock blocking him by talking to A. This meant that Lucas wanted to court A, and had been trying to. Lucas perceived Flatbill Bill as a rival.
So Lucas howled and puffed his chest out, trying to get poonaner, impossibly agitated. He would drive away his rival, and then the poonaner would be his. A was, understandably, confused and embarrassed.
Flatbill Bill was enraged by Lucas’s shouting, and had to be restrained from attacking Lucas. He threatened to beat Lucas up, told Lucas he would "rock [his] shit," and everyone there believed he could. Lucas seemed less interested in a fist fight than Flatbill Bill, and more interested in bellowing.
Flatbill Bill was summarily ejected from TM for Lucas’s safety. One witness reports that had he not been removed, Lucas would probably have indeed had his "shit" "rocked."
After his explosion, having driven his rival away, Lucas tried to talk to A as if nothing unusual had happened. The prize was his; the rival had been removed and now the courtship could continue. Some true silver back shit!
But A refused to acknowledge Lucas, and fled immediately. She did not return to TM as a volunteer. Lucas had made such an impression on her that she would no longer volunteer there.
Moments later, Lucas was booted from TM, too, and he could not understand why. The ban would become a source of embarrassment for him. But only one of many.
