Another hole in the heart

When the police come to my door it is not because they need something good to read, though to give our local cops their due, back in the day when the last Harry Potter book was being released with a lot of drama, at midnight, and the local market was the only south county source, joining me in line were one 9 or 10 year old Harry look alike, a 12 year old princess, and 3 of the local cop squad. Turned out they were way into transformation and quidditch, who knew?

But the other day it wasn’t books. It was a name and a “do you know?” and my assent and my “so what’s up with him?”

And that kind, solemn air people get when the news they bear might have edges. And a quick, “he died this morning, in Lancaster.”

There would be a call from the coroner’s office in that other county in the afternoon, and in a few days a letter addressed to “Friends and Family of Richard Eugene Ellis”. But for now the officer told me he’d died with my contact info in his pocket; the only contact he carried.

I wished with all my heart I’d asked him more questions when he was around, when I was trying to help him fill out complicated forms or make sense of bureaucratic mail and bank statements. He’d talked of a very estranged exwife and two daughters he had’t seen since they were little. They had pretty names like Dawn or Misty or something. He recalled them as little blonde children, always laughing. He saw them once, in the yard, playing. He thought they were happy. They’d be grown up now, and maybe there was a grandkid.

Last year he asked me to speak with his daughter, the one he had heard worked at a local shop. He wanted her to know he was okay, but having heart trouble. He wanted her to know he had never stopped loving her, or her little sister. I went to the shop and asked for her.

No one knew her.

When he called, hoping his messages had made it through, he was quiet a while. And then he said oh well, maybe she’d moved, it was okay, not to worry.

The year before I had a call from the intensive care cardiac unit of UCLA’s medical department. Since my friend was not conscious, and was apparently carrying forms naming me as the one who got to make all decisions in such cases, the staff needed to know what long term care facility he should be sent to when he was ready to leave.  They gave me some choices. I researched them and made a choice of one in the high desert where I knew Richard had friends; it was a place with a relatively high rating and good scores on pain management, and an average age of patients that was lower than others I considered. I figured Richard wouldn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of old folks, even if they were younger than he was.

The day he was to be transferred he told the staff he wasn’t going. They had me talk to him, they told me he’d drop dead without care. I talked to him and he promised me he’d do what was needed and then…when someone’s back was turned…he walked out, back into the streets.

And made it back here. He was a stubborn guy. He said it would take more than a measly heart attack or two to kill him.

He left when winter set in. I forwarded his mail to a cheap hotel in Vegas. He was going to strike it rich. He had a system. He was going to be a millionaire and he was going to buy a huge building for the bookstore and by golly, I would never need to worry about bills or anything again in my life. I thanked him for thinking of me.

The day he died, the day after his 68^th birthday, he’d been waiting at a bus stop and the bus driver thought he looked…not good. Richard waved the driver on, but the driver, concerned, called 911. All sorts of vehicles and ambulances rolled out, according to my new friend in the coroner’s office. But when they got to the bench Richard was no where to be found.

They found his body a few blocks away. He had his pack, and my name and address and phone number. My friend on the phone said surely it was quick. I suppose they are taught to say that.

The thing is—I seem to be alone in remembering him. He kept to himself. He loved being under the sky. He’d done time in prison as a young man, manslaughter. A stupid fight, he said. He said he had a bad temper as a kid. He loved the light on the desert and the light through the redwoods. His eyes were brown. He carried a lot of hurt and a lot of love and wasn’t sure where to put it down, all of that.

So..there’s a strange hole in the universe, or a shift, or something. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. One thing I know—he mattered, this guy who tramped the woods and desert and cities for years, whose heart gave out at last. I won’t believe there is any person or any life that is wasted.

I’ll remember you, Richard. Thanks for the time. Maybe I’ll learn to listen better to my other friends, the other wanderers. I’ll try.

Trying to break through

Time passes. The rain falls, the sun comes out, flowers in my gardens open, bloom, fall. In the graveyard I see doves and ravens, woodpeckers and jays.

There are meetings, and partings. There are books read, books sold, books given. There is bread given out to the hungry, blankets; there are phone calls made.

There are depositions and witnessing. I take down the stories of the ones no one listens to. I try to make those stories heard.

My hands are usually dirty, with newsprint and with ink smudges, with garden dirt, with soot from the woodstove.

I pin my hair up, but it straggles down.

I don't get enough sleep.

And sometimes I cry. When Benny brought his friend to me, and asked if I had shoes, I had none. And I looked at his friend's feet, which were raw, bare, swelling. Which oozed with sores. Which barely held him up.

And he was a young man, walking as if he were so old, so pained. Yes, I cried. I had soft new socks, but I had no shoes for him. I sent him to the clinic, being serious, being stern, saying "you must go there, you must have them look at your feet, there must be salves or medicines, give them my name."

And I cried all that night. Well, the oil spill had also happened, but somehow it was those poor feet, that had walked so far, in such pain. It was my lack.

Today my friend Debra had close to 50 people, poor people, travelers and locals, gathered in the hope of food in the town two miles north, where usually there is a lunch. The lunch had been canceled, but Debra had heard that another friend was bringing sandwiches. So imagine her, a big, tall woman, wearing velvety red and purple, rings on her fingers, her blond hair graying, her voice loud. And imagine our friends, all of them, gathered about for food. And imagine that the food did not come.

And they waited. Now, that's not so bad, but as they waited the police came and said "move on". So they went to the vacant lot. And the police came again and said "move on". And again.

And there was no food. Debra came here to my shop and we talked and shared news and schemed. And a customer came in, a nice woman, asking "what was that demonstration in the other town".

No demonstration, said I, those were merely a few of the hungry people. Perhaps they were demonstrating poverty. The woman was shocked. Hunger?

The guys gathered in the park across the way were also hungry; we brought fruit and bread. I'd already gone over in the morning, trying to find Frank Senior. I walked into a rowdy group, busy singing the most amazingly obscene song I had ever heard, at the top of their lungs.
I stood a while, near one of the guys I know best, and suddenly another looked up and said "oh, no, hush, that's the booklady". I told them I wasn't offended by the song, but needed to get in touch with old Frank, because his son is in intensive care. Broken neck. May not live out this night. I knew they'd get word to him, through our network of the dispossessed, the mad, the loving, the lonely.

And I've been thinking tonight of young Frank, in the ICU, down in a city far away. It is strange that he shares his name not only with his dad but with a friend who died in the same city, long ago, perhaps in the same hospital. At about the same age.

I remember meeting young Frank one Thanksgiving, when I was walking my old yellow dog down by the camps. He came up with a pup of his own, Gargomel, a spotted and very happy dog who only lived a year. We talked dogs, and I told him about the free Thanksgiving meal; he and his dad were new in town. He was just a kid. He had hard luck stories and wild hopes. His mom had been dead a long, long time. He met a pretty local girl here.

She's with him now, down in the city, waiting for the news.

Rains come. Sunlight comes. Sometimes I think...how can this all go on? And my friends are told again, "keep moving". And in this plentiful land there is real hunger. And I keep trying, trying to break through.

update: I met Frank Senior today as he came into town in the rain, just as I was walking out of the graveyard with my dog. Some phone calls, some scrambling. He's now enroute to his son at the hospital. Come what may, at least he'll be there. He has my number and instructions to contact me when he needs a return ticket home. His hands are covered with burns from when his tent caught fire, after the pretty dog died. I'm keeping them all in my heart and thoughts; you could do the same.

Second update: June 1, 2010...tonight there was a knock at the closed bookstore door, and Frank Sr. was there, grinning, back from the city. "How is your son?" I asked, bracing myself. He is out of the hospital and recovering at the home of the woman who helped raise him when he was a little boy, after his mom died. He will live. He will walk and dance and sing and play and be joyful.
Oh, and so will we. There was much hugging and rejoicing and grinning going on tonight at the bookshop, let me tell you.

Loving the wild skies

I've been thinking of the Vietnam vet--well, I think he was a vet--who for a year stayed in a seacave overlooking the Pacific ocean, down in southern California. I remember very little of his story. What I remember is the sunsets. He was taking photos of each sunset, he said, for year. And each was different.

I think he's on my mind because of the skies here, which are so changeable and so magical that every day when we are not soaked in rain or covered in fog I simply stop and stare. The sky takes my breath away here. Great swirls of clouds, great billows, and wisps.

Yesterday I asked my son Gabe to wait with me outside as the sun set. We have to see it, I said, I think it will be one of those flamingo days, or violet. He smiled and stood, and waited. It was a softer sunset than I'd predicted, but for a moment the new leafed maples across the river were backlit and glowing. So beautiful.

We have to look at beautiful things, I tell my son, so that we can keep them with us, so that we keep strong. Because Gabe so seldom speaks now I carry on a strange conversation with him, and I notice I keep telling him these sorts of things. Why it is good to smile at people. Why we need to take time to look at the birds. Why we feed our goldfish carefully.

Gabriel listens, and sometimes he laughs at me.

"Look at the sky!" I say to my daughter, as we walk from the coffee shop to the bookstore. "Oh, just look, look at those clouds". She glances up "well, they're all right, I guess". It's my turn to laugh. "You don't know, Laurel, you were born here. These skies are one of the things I love most about living here. Some places the sky is flat, all one color, all the time." She gives me the "sure, mom" look.

Robin understands the skies. I met her years ago, and no longer recall what we first talked of. With Robin it could have been anything, depending on her state of mind at the time--or mine. There are days when the world is full of danger and conspiracy and signs, and she talks of them. Those are harder conversations for me; usually I simply listen, struggling to find the thread.
But there are the days we talk of beauty, or when she comes and says "the fawn lilies are up already!" or lets me know the state of the river.

And she talks to Champ, my rescued pitbull, a great deal. I think Champ talks back. I know Champ loves her.

Robin sleeps where she can, outdoors, under bridges, by the river. She's had a few carefully hidden homes. She's lost a few, as the police find her and threaten her with arrest. During the snows of the winter I looked for her and begged her to come in to shelter. She told me she couldn't; she'd lose her edge and not be able to survive. She accepted an extra sleeping bag and blanket.

Sometimes, rarely, she asks to borrow a book. The latest was on John F. Kennedy. "I love to learn things" says Robin. And she brings me food--a chocolate bar; a snack for Champ.

I think I love her because ours is a mutual and respectful friendship, and I am easy in it. One of the days when she was being threatened by police I went out to stand beside her. The officer--I'm old enough now that I knew this officer's kind, gardener mother--said "Why are you here? This isn't your concern". I told him of course it was my concern, and he asked why. The words leaping straight to my tongue were simple, and stopped him.

I said "Robin is my good friend. I'm staying with her now".

And I put my arm around her shoulders, more to anchor myself than to reassure her. The officer left.

There was the year of the foxes, when Robin came and asked me for bandages for her bitten hands. And we had days, weeks--nearly three--of conversations on the theme of "you must go to the clinic, you must be treated". It was early in our friendship. I recall pouring peroxide over her wounds and saying "you can't die, please don't do that, go to our clinic".

Our beautiful foxes so often carry rabies. She did, at the last possible moment, seek treatment. And maybe she was right, she might have been fine without it. She told me how delicate the foxes were, prowling round her campsite, the mother and the two kits. Robin watches many animals through the seasons; she knows them, she knows the river.

And she knows the sky. When she runs into me on the streets she grins as she catches me staring up at the clouds; "It'll be a great sunset tonight!" she calls. Robin has no camera, but over the years her heart has recorded thousands of skies and sunsets and dawns. She has walked the mountains. She has migrated with the wild geese some years, and some years stayed. She's been robbed, and hurt. She's been cold and she's been hungry and I've come on her drunk and sobbing and raging at the skies we both love so. She survives.

We run into friends, teachers, sisters, brothers in strange ways in our life. I've been very fortunate throughout my life in having them walk right up to me, or turn up in the oddest of places, like Robin on the streets of a small town, admiring the sunsets with me.

(the rainbow photo was taken by my daughter once upon a time. She loves rainbows the way I love clouds).

Where we are at home

You just never know what the day will bring. Today the old veteran who uses my address to get his too small benefits and keep touch with official folks came in, wildeyed and frantic. "Have you heard? Do you know what they are doing?"

No, I said, tell me. And we stepped outside, near the beautiful roses so valiantly continuing to bloom along the parking lot.

"They grabbed my son. They are going to all the camps, all of them."

"They" were the cops, some other folks. Nine vehicles in all. Animal control. Forest service. Up into the camps, where they were telling people to get out, to get out or else.

I sat down to try to gather my thoughts. The son--a fine kid who works down the street, who has a nice girl friend--well, I'd see her later this day--he'd been arrested for trespassing. Leastways that's what they told the father.

And the day went on. Sean darted in, near tears. He's about the same age as the veteran's child, close to the age of my eldest son. Sean is a reader and a survivor. He works two jobs, volunteers long hours at local nonprofits, keeps to himself. Doesn't like being hemmed in.

"They rousted us at dawn" said Sean. "They took our photos, they said we'd better leave town, they said..." They said a lot of things. Officer Fulton said, according to Sean, "nah, you guys don't work--tell me something else. The shit is sure getting deep here". Sean was indignant "How dare he say we don't work? Just because we sleep out?"
Of those 4 young men 3 have steady work. They were rousted from under an overpass.

So I started taking notes, and I started making phone calls, but as I was calling I saw the white cop cars cruising down the street, and went out to see where they were going. They pulled over, and out came two officers to talk with Robin, who has lived here all her life, who works for many of the local shops. Yeah, Robin lives on the edge and sometimes rages at the sky, but when she is doing well she is doing really well. Robin, on a good day, will bring half of her sandwich over for me to eat, because "you don't take enough care of yourself, sometimes".
Robin remembers Gabe's birthday. Robin looks after the stray dogs.
Robin was being faced down by two burly officers who were telling her "if we see you tomorrow we'll arrest you".
And I stepped in. "Please, why are you doing this?"
"People are tired of the homeless" said the officer. "They want something done".
What people, I asked? Who?
And he said "back off, this is not your business"
And I said "But of course it is"
"Why would that be?"
"Because I am a member of this community, and Robin is a friend of mine". And I stepped next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't need to argue with you" said the officer, whose mother I knew well. I was tempted to tell him his mother, dead many years, would not approve all this, but I held my tongue. We let the guys drive away in their shiny white car, with their promises of arrests and their self conscious anger.

I talked with Robin a while and went back to making phone calls. My partner called the local radio station and set Sean up with an interview. We called some meetings later this week. I talked with officials and more officials; I am fairly well known in my community and my views are also well known, for good or for ill.

The head of mental health services and I exchanged concerned messages; the head of my clinic and I exchanged concerned messages. I went out to talk with the veteran's daughter in law, who was trying to find out how long her partner would be held.

So--you might ask what of our shelter? It closed after six weeks. They were good weeks, in the heart of the hard weather, but...well, fragile reeds, tired volunteers. We did find permanent homes for several of the people, 6 found jobs, one found a way home to his mom. It was good. It wasn't enough. And now...the sweeps have come.

My clinic head reported, in confidence, that there were county wide attempts to stem the flow of transients through the region. Well, good luck with that, said I, it isn't going to happen. The bottom is falling out of the economy, and we have, always, an obligation to hospitality and to treat people with decent respect and compassion. With him I'm preaching to the choir--he wanted to be a priest once, as once I wanted to be a nun (ah, I was so stunned to be told that not being Catholic I couldn't. I cherished those black and white dresses)--and we can sling faith based arguments with the best of them. My partner, in the midst of all the phoning, ranting and witnessing, laughed "my god, it's like having Catherine of Siena facing down the political leaders of Florence".

I could use the power of saints, I could. Meanwhile--well, I'm going to stand up for the ones who need me. And I'm going to tell them, over and over, "Hey, I like you. You are good, you are important, you deserve to be treated well".

We're all home, you know. We're all family. As long as I have a bit of strength I'm going to keep insisting, pleading, standing.

And...I swear to you, hearts will be changed. We will have a community based on compassion. Love is where we really live, after all.