“We can’t go nowhere,” Roberta said. “We can’t afford our own place. No one will give us a job. We’ve been here for two years now.”
“Roy was paying two hundred dollars a month to live in the camper,” Madonna said. “He was cutting firewood and selling it by the cord, but then his truck broke down a couple of times and he had to buy parts. He couldn’t pay, so she kicked him out.”
“Why don’t you ladies get an apartment together somewhere else?” In my astonishment, I was grasping for helpful suggestions. I had sensed the unhealthiness of this place, but I had no idea it was this bad.
Madonna chuckled. “The cheapest place we’d be able to find would be four-fifty to five hundred a month—plus another fifty a month for electric. They’re going to want first and last and a damage deposit. Plus Roberta got herself caught shoplifting, twice,” she continued, raising her voice and lifting her eyebrows. “And my ex beat me up so bad that I spent several days in the hospital and he went to jail. He’s been out for a while now, but I know if he ever finds me, he’s going to kill me. I’m counting on him not being able to find me here. This is the best we’ve got right now,” she said emphatically, nodding at the trailer.
I considered Madonna’s plight. She was poor, hiding out in her own prison, wearing the brand of a person who would kill her when he got out of jail. As for Roberta, she wasn’t making any move to get her things packed, so I assumed Tina had not actually thrown her out, in spite of the threats.
It was time for me to share my plans with them.
I stepped closer. “I’m taking off this morning,” I said. “I want you to know it was a pleasure for me to meet you.”
“Oh, Tina’s not going to like this,” Madonna said. She took a long drag off her cigarette and shook her head for emphasis.
“I’m heading for Bremerton,” I said. “I was thinking ... well, I could give you girls a ride into town, and maybe you could get some shoes, and some help finding a place, and ... well, I was thinking maybe you girls could get a fresh start.” A glimmer of hope appeared in Roberta’s eyes.
Madonna had begun to stiffen as soon as I suggested the ride. There was no hope in her eyes. “It’s a risk,” I continued, “but sometimes you have to—”
“Maybe we could, Madonna!” Roberta was actually getting excited. “Maybe we could ...” But this time her voice trailed off as she saw Madonna’s expression.
As the two became quiet, I realized the answer was no.
Madonna snuffed out her cigarette. “Come on, Roberta. I’ll brush your hair.” She opened the door, Roberta put her cigarette out, and they both disappeared inside.
The closing of that trailer door could not have been any more final if it had been a cell door slamming shut. These two women were serving a life sentence. Parole denied. And worse yet, hope gone. And that was the ultimate devastation of homelessness—whether or not the victims had a roof over their heads.
With a heavy heart, I turned back to the camper. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to gather my clothes, get Willow, and head for the van. I turned the key, shifted into reverse, and slowly backed up. I then put the van in drive and quietly pulled away, trying not to disturb the gravel as we made our escape.
Chapter 15
DAVID’S SONG
I was heading back to Bremerton, knowing I would be sleeping in the back of the van again.
I’d had a home for a couple of days. But now I was free! In many ways, I thought, the homeless are the freest of all. We have no dignity, no honor, no pride, no ego to protect. We are like Hare Krishnas, living in the assurance that Mother Earth, the Universe, or the grace of God will somehow provide.
I was anxious to get back to Sally’s for some breakfast and to see C. I couldn’t wait to show him my freshly blessed Bush bumper sticker, to share with him how I had been saved, and to tell him about my escape from Tina’s compound.
It was about seven thirty in the morning when I drove down 6th Street toward Sally’s.
Workers were using a mobile crane to place patriotic decorations on the light poles for the city’s Memorial Day parade. Three motorcycle cops had parked their rigs in front of the old downtown theater and were rousting two of the Vietnam vets I had seen at Sally’s many times, Ogre and Hillbilly, from their sleeping quarters under the marquee.
Ogre was struggling to roll up his sleeping bag with his one good arm and the stub that remained of his left one, and Hillbilly, his matted hair sticking out from under his soiled baseball cap, was picking up a couple of empty beer bottles and some trash and putting them in his backpack under the watchful eyes of the police officers, who stood waiting with their hands on their hips.
I kept rolling on by.
The line to get into Sally’s had gotten longer while I was away at Tina’s. The door didn’t swing open until eight, but by seven forty-five the line went around the corner of the building.
I saw a Chinese couple for the first time. That was unusual. The man, maybe sixty years old, was slumped at the shoulders and avoided eye contact. The woman stood quietly, with those worried eyes I knew so well. They didn’t want to be seen in this line. They still had some pride left.
I wished C was here. He would have known what to say to make them more comfortable. As I waited in line, I kept looking out for him.
Who, or what, was C? I had wondered about that from time to time when I could not find him. Was he some imaginary friend I had created, the way a child would? No, I knew that wasn’t true, because I could smell him when he came around. I was repulsed by his dumpster diving. He would fish a half-eaten Big Mac and fries from a trash can and eat them like a hungry stray dog. He could not pass up a trash can. He often looked like Pigpen from “Peanuts,” dust flying from his stained clothes. He wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty with the beggars and the drunks, cleaning up their puke, duct-taping the soles to the tops of their shoes.
C had energy. He was like a five-year-old just before bedtime, never wanting to go to sleep, always afraid he might miss something.
And he was a man of God—though maybe not in what many would consider the traditional sense. If anyone in the history of man was going to move a mountain with faith, it would be C. He talked to the crows, and they would often gather in his presence. He was like a box of Whitman’s chocolates—one minute a cherry cordial, then a tart orange, then a nut. I wanted to toss away the pieces of him I didn’t like but found it impossible.
I came to admire him. He would quote Yeats while sitting on a park bench eating peanut butter from a jar with his fingers. Of all the people I had ever met—lawyers, judges, priests, bankers, star athletes—C was the most alive, the most attuned. Women were attracted to his blue eyes and the dulcet tones of his voice, but he would challenge their intellects and their spirituality in a mental sparring contest I didn’t quite understand. They wanted to talk about Oprah, or Dr. Phil, or the next American Idol. He wanted to talk about Carlos Castaneda, or Jean-Paul Sartre. He seemed to want to get into their brains, not their pants.
C was a “long-hair” in an age when short hair was in, and he didn’t like to have his picture taken. He would always turn his face away or get up and move out of range whenever a camera was pointed anywhere in his direction.
My attention returned to the activity around Sally’s. The local citizens were beginning to gather for the parade, carrying their lawn chairs, dragging their coolers-on-wheels past the breakfast line. A pickup truck towing a green-and-white float decorated with shamrocks made a wide turn from Warren Ave to 6th; 4-h builds character was written on its side.
Hillbilly and Ogre came strolling up the alley and got in line behind me just as the door of Sally’s swung open. C was right behind them, tossing bread to the crows and pigeons on his way. C had his sea bag tied around his shoulder. The crows were crying out in a marvelous chorus as C reached into the bag and broke each slice into generous pieces, tossing some left and some right. Then he shook the crumbs from the Wonder Bread bag ont
o the ground, put the bag in his pocket, and walked toward us, smiling.
I stepped behind Hillbilly and Ogre and put my hand out to C. “Richard!” C’s smile warmed me. “It’s good to see you!” He reached out to shake my hand. “Where have you been?”
“Boy, have I got a story for you,” I replied as the line began to move. “I got saved in Gig Harbor!” While the line crawled along, I told C the tale of Pastor Bob and our car trip, informed him that horoscopes are the work of the Devil, and let him know I’d been saved in a little white church. C laughed as I relayed the details of that incident—the hands on me, Pastor Bob’s wife crying out “Oh, God!” Jim dancing over me, the woman chanting “God, hep him, hep him!”
Hillbilly and Ogre were chortling and shaking their heads; they couldn’t help overhearing the story. “He was lucky to get out of there with all his body parts, right, Ogre?” C said.
“Damn right, C!”
“Ogre didn’t lose half his left arm in Nam like some people think,” C said. “Right, Ogre?” Ogre nodded. “Do you mind telling Richard how you lost it?”
As his name implied, Ogre was not a good-looking man. It appeared his nose had been broken more than once, and part of his right ear was missing.
“I got saved, too, Richard,” he said. “Four or five years ago—after I got arrested for breaking and entering. But I went crazy with that Jesus stuff. The Pastor said, ‘It’s in the Bible: If your eye offends thee, pluck it out!’ Well, my offender was my arm; I stole with it. So one night I got drunk and cut off that arm with a bandsaw.”
I didn’t know what to say; fortunately, the line picked up speed as Hillbilly and Ogre rounded the corner, and into the confines of Sally’s they went. “I guess some people carry that ‘being saved’ a little too far,” I whispered to C.
“Ogre sure did,” C said. “He’s a good guy. His real name is Paul. But he likes to be called Ogre now. He’s gotten used to it.” The line moved forward again and we stepped inside.
The Major was making an announcement on a microphone. “There is a parade for Memorial Day today at ten a.m., and you are welcome to stay here and watch it with us from the side of the building. I know there are a lot of Vietnam vets here today, and we are going to have a special church service here on Sunday to honor those who served in all the wars.” Then the Major put the microphone down on the table and got into the food line behind us.
“Hello, C,” he said. “And you, too, Richard.”
“Something smells good,” C said.
“Chef Pat’s made biscuits and gravy,” the Major replied. “They’re always pretty good.”
The line moved forward again, and we were at the serving window. I picked up my tray and held it out. The server took a piece of Wonder Bread and placed it on my tray and then piled on a hearty portion of sausage gravy. “We ran out of biscuits,” he said, “but you could put Pat’s gravy on just about anything and it would be great.” I nodded my thanks and got a cup of coffee before heading for a table at the back of the room. C and the Major did the same, and just as we were sitting down, we heard a clunk and then a screech emanating from the loudspeaker system. Lilly, a diminutive Native American, had the microphone in her hand.
“Oops,” said the Major. “I should have put that away.”
“I have a shong—a shong I want to shing,” Lilly slurred as she rocked back and forth. Lilly was about four feet tall and about fifty years old. She wore black jeans and a stained black sweatshirt this morning, and she was obviously intoxicated.
“It’s called ‘David’s Dance,’” she said. She paused a moment and then began to sing. “When the shpirit of the Lord moves in my heart, I will danshe like David danshed.” Lilly sang off key and attempted to dance—or at least sway—from one foot to the other, but she nearly fell to the floor. She repeated the line, slurring some of the words and looking at the floor. When she tried “I will shing like David shang,” seven or eight people shoveled the last spoonfuls of their grub, deposited their trays in the washtub, and escaped quickly out the door. Others just laughed as Lilly continued. “I will shing ... I will shing ... I will shing like David shang.” Lilly stumbled and almost fell down again. She tried to continue, but when she saw how many people were laughing at her, she put the microphone down.
The Major jumped from his chair and quickly retrieved the microphone from the table. “Thank you, Lilly, for your song,” he said, heading for the office with the valuable equipment.
Lilly then saw C and leaned forward, squinting to bring him into focus. “C! C! C!” she said, and with unsteady steps she made her way between the tables to the spot where we were sitting. She sort of fell into the seat the Major had vacated. “C,” she said, leaning towards him, “I am in need. You gotta help a girl out!” She gave him a pleading, if not quite focused, look.
“This must be the terrible Tiger Lilly,” C said, leaning back and holding up his hands to form a cross with two fingers. “Oh, no!” he said. “It is the terrible one, not the sweet little Lilly everyone loves. It’s the evil twin!”
“Come on, C.” She lowered her voice. “You know what I need. I need some weed ... shumthin to get me through. Gimme some.”
“I don’t have any right now,” C replied.
“Oh, c’mon, C! You ahways do,” she slurred.
“I don’t. I really don’t,” was his reply.
Lilly became quiet. She slowly got up, steadied herself on the edge of the round table, and walked away without a word. “Poor Lilly,” C said. “Too much firewater.” He picked up his sea bag and his tray. He was obviously ready to move on. I picked up my tray and followed.
“I’ve got to tell you the rest of the story about the trailer I stayed in and the two women I met. You won’t believe it!” We walked toward the door, and C nodded his encouragement.
“Well, I thought I had this place to stay,” I began. “The woman told me I could stay there free, but it didn’t take long before—” I stopped in mid-sentence when we pushed the big door open and found Lilly lying in the grass.
“Oh, Lilly,” C said. “Are you okay?” He got down on one knee and touched her face.
Lilly opened her eyes. “Jus resting,” she said, looking up at C.
“Come on, Richard,” C said. “Help me get her up. Maybe we could take her home. She only lives a couple of blocks from here.”
I bent down to help Lilly to her feet. She weighed in at maybe ninety pounds. We guided her to the van and got her into the front seat. Willow went right to work licking her face and bringing Lilly’s spirit back to life. C got in the back seat. Willow licked Lilly’s mouth, nose, and eyes, and she chuckled at the attention.
It was only three blocks to Lilly’s apartment, which was located directly across from the navy shipyard. Hers was a rundown, one-story stucco building—currently painted white, but you could tell from the flaking on the side that it had once been blue, once yellow, and once green. We rolled to a stop.
“Okay, Lilly, we got you home safe,” C said from the back seat. He stepped out and opened the door for Lilly.
Lilly had recovered somewhat. “I’m not gettin’out till you gimme shome weed,” she slurred, and she crossed her arms defiantly across her chest.
C laughed. “Oh, come on, Lilly, we did you a big favor bringing you home. The cops would have scraped you up and taken you to detox.”
“I ain’t movin’,” Lilly spat back.
“I told you I don’t have any,” C said.
“Well, then gimme a dollar,” Lilly said.
“We don’t have any money, either,” C replied.
“You got fifty cents?” Lilly asked, turning her head to me. “I’ll get out for fifty cents.”
I looked out on the crowd that was lining the parade route; they had become intrigued by our theatrical performance. “How am I going to get this drunken woman out of my car?” I wondered. I dug into my pocket and pulled out my last quarter and held it up to Lilly. “I’ve got a quarter,” I said. “
That’s all I’ve got.”
Lilly thought for a moment and then reached out and took the quarter from my hand without a word. She slid off the seat, stumbling again, but C caught her arm and held her up. Still silent, Lilly headed for her apartment door.
C began to scoot into the seat, but stopped. He looked at me, then back at Lilly. “This isn’t right,” he said. “You doing anything for the next couple of hours?”
“Not really,” I had to admit.
“Then let’s not leave the lady alone right now.” He stuck his head up above the van and called out to Lilly. “Lilly! You want some company for a bit?”
Lilly didn’t even turn her head, but raised her hand high to wave us in. She opened the door and walked in, leaving the door ajar for us. C got out of the van and headed for Lilly’s apartment. I pulled the van into a parking spot, picked Willow up in my arms, and went inside.
“I hope it’s okay that I brought my dog in,” I said to Lilly, who had thrown herself down on a sofa.
“Okay,” Lilly mumbled. I found a seat in a comfortable easy chair beside the sofa.
C began making himself at home, just as he always did. He walked into the small kitchen off the living room and opened the refrigerator door, bent forward to peer in, and then closed the door.
“We need some music,” he said, looking around the apartment. “Aha!” he said, spying a radio sitting on a side table. He walked over and turned it on.
“Hurry on down to Cal’s,” the announcer was saying. “We’re open till nine tonight and we have the car for you with NO MONEY DOWN!” Then the deejay took over. “We’re back with the top one hundred of all time. Here is ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, It’s Magic,’” and the song began to play.
C walked over to a table by the window, covered with plants. He stuck his finger in the dirt. “Lilly, your plants need water.”
Breakfast at Sally's Page 17
