Snake

Christopher Michael Ingraham, 48, aka Topher, aka Snake, sits on the pavement in the shade behind an old Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel in the Gaslamp, pouring alcohol on a pile of paper. Next to him, Otis, 84, is sipping a beer talking about Whitney Houston. Topher offers to make Otis an omelet, but the older gentleman would rather have another beer. So when Topher is finished with his omelet, he takes Otis’ money and goes across the street to the Ralph’s grocery story to buy him a few more beers. The SRO security guards took photos of Topher and his “air fryer,” threatening to call the police. No one came, and when the cooking was done, there was no mess from the fire.

He doesn’t have many kind words for the Golden West management, all of whom are enmeshed in some addiction or another, he said, and seem to take sport in denying services to tenants, or worse, taking advantage of them. “They refuse to fix the elevator,” Topher said. “There’s a guy who sleeps in his van across the street even though he has a room because he’s in a wheelchair, and the elevator is broken and he can’t get up to his room, even to use the bathroom.” When a resident dies in their room, Topoher added, he has seen management go into their rooms and take what they want from the deceased’s belongings before the coroner arrives.

Topher has been on the street for almost two years. Within the first three months he was attacked by someone who hit him in the head six times with a wrench. Topher fought him off. The next morning the assailant was back and hit Topher another 20 times. This second time Topher wrestled the attacker to the ground, took the wrench, chased the man off, and repaired the gashes in his head with epoxy. He wears the wrench on a chain around his neck. He believes the attacker was bipolar; that he was under the impression Topher said something he didn’t say, and so attacked him when he was asleep and vulnerable.

Topher is anything but vulnerable. When someone ransacked his belongings recently on one of the rare occasions he left his cart with friends, they took his machete. Topher knew who it was. When that person returned the next day asking Topher for a favor, they were not aware he’d gotten his machete back. He brought it out and asked them “Are you really sure you want to ask me for a favor right now?”

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., his mother moved them to San Diego when he was in second grade. But he retains a touch of a New York accent still. He grew up in Golden Hill, attending Roosevelt Middle School and Garfield High. He got married in 2000 to a woman he’d only known for two months - they were that sure, he said. The marriage lasted ten years and they had a son, now 23, who lives in Arizona. Topher is proud of the son’s accomplishments in school: honor roll, football player, good citizen. But the last time he heard from his son the young man was addicted to oxycodone. It still makes Topher sad to think about it.

Topher is friendly with the police who occasionally post themselves near the Civic Center where he sleeps. And he is quick to run a favor for a friend or connect people who he thinks might be able to help each other. Ultimately he would like to live indoors again, but whether inside or on the streets, Topher wants to see homeless individuals treated with respect, starting with the need for more hygiene stations and showers in the downtown area.