People were parking in the bank parking lot, kitty-corner to Sally’s, and walking to the theater. As I glanced that way, I noticed that the crowd had lured AP and James off their comfy sofa. The boys were smiling and joking and panhandling as the well-heeled theatergoers trooped by. AP was playing to the crowd. He was shuffling his feet and cocking his head from side to side as he delivered his routine, trying to pry a dollar or two from their pockets. I imagined he was telling one of his jokes and asking for eighty-seven cents. I wished him well and watched as a man shook his head, but his mate reached into her purse.
I saw the profile of a man who looked strangely like C standing on the corner wearing a rumpled raincoat and a round, golf-style cap. He wore dark glasses and held a white-and-red cane in one hand and a cup in the other. He was tapping his cane on the sidewalk and saying something I was much too far away to hear.
The strains of Willie Nelson singing “Georgia” were coming from the jukebox, and the sound of laughter and the clatter of pool balls clashing on the break were coming from the Social Club. For a few moments, it felt like I was in New Orleans as I peered from this Victorian window, watching the well-dressed passing by the poor folk on the street.
Just then, four motorcycles sped by, filling the air with noise. I pushed the window down a little, pulled down the paper shade, and moved over to the bed. I kicked off my shoes and climbed into my sleeping bag. I was tired, and a good night’s sleep in a bed—albeit a precarious bed held in place by Dante and Milton—was both needed and welcome. It didn’t take but a minute for me to drift off.
The sound of voices and the flashing, spinning white-and-blue lights penetrating the paper blind jolted me from my slumber.
I discerned distinct conversation from the porch below. “They’re going to nail his ass!” This was followed by the sound of laughter.
I rolled over on my other side, hoping the sound and the lights would go away.
“The dumb fuck has a headlight out,” another voice said, again followed by laughter.
I slowly got out of bed and walked to the window. I pulled back one side of the blind, just to take a peek. The flashing lights of two police cars were mingled with the hues of all the beer signs at Monica’s. The police had pulled over an old yellow Buick right in front of the Social Club. Two men were in the car.
“You know them, Donnie?” I heard a woman’s voice ask.
“No,” came the reply.
Just then the shrill sound of a siren silenced the voices. Another police car sped past the window going in the opposite direction, its blue-and-white lights flashing and its engine roaring. I glanced up the street to see three figures, dressed in black, standing under the light of the big red cross mounted on the side of the Salvation Army building.
The police officer on the driver’s side of the old Buick stepped back as a young man in a baseball cap, T-shirt, and jeans got out of the car. He walked to the trunk and opened it. Another young man climbed out from the passenger side. Two officers stood at alert while two others began a search, one looking in the trunk, the other in the glove box and back seat. Whatever the officers had found warranted an arrest. The driver turned, placed his hands on the car, and spread his legs. The other man leaned on the police cruiser. They were both quickly cuffed and searched.
“Boy, I don’t even need TV here,” I thought. “It’s like Law & Order for real!” The police guided the two men into the back seat of their cruiser.
To add to the light show, a tow truck pulled up with its red lights flashing. In less than ten minutes, both police cars had pulled away and the truck had loaded its charge and pulled off, the Buick in tow.
With all the extraneous lights now removed, I could see the flying sparks and the glow of the fire being enjoyed behind Sally’s by AP, James, and the boys.
The teenagers had just begun to walk down the street toward Monica’s when I saw Brian around the corner of Monica’s parking lot. He was barefoot and shirtless and wild-eyed, carrying what appeared to be an automobile flare in one hand. The young men in black took one look at Brian and moved quickly across the street in front of John’s house.
“Look at that!” a voice from below said. “He’s shit-faced! He doesn’t even know where he is.”
Then a woman came rushing out of Monica’s and headed for the parking lot. A man was not far behind. She was reaching in her purse, apparently for her car keys, when he caught up to her.
“You fucking bitch!” he roared, grabbing the woman by her shoulder and spinning her around.
“Get away from me, Jason!” she screamed back. “I’ll call the cops!”
“Go ahead, bitch!” he yelled, pushing her against the car.
“Hey!” This new voice was coming from the woman on the porch right below me. “You can’t do that!”
The man looked across the street and glared. “Mind your own business!” he screamed.
“We’ll call the cops if you push her again,” came the warning from below.
The man stepped back, and the woman—crying and shaking now—put the key in the lock of the car door and opened it. She quickly got in and started it, backed up, and pulled out into the street. She sped away. The man glared across the street in our direction again, but he walked back into the bar.
“Jesus! You dumb ass! That could have been a bad scene,” a man’s voice said from below.
“I don’t give a shit,” the woman responded. “The son of a bitch shouldn’t be hittin’ a woman!”
I looked back up the street toward the 7-Eleven. The white, green, and red sign illuminated the three teenagers standing on the corner. A robin’s-egg-blue Caprice with shiny, spinning wheel covers was just backing up, turning around, and cruising into Monica’s lot.
“There’s real trouble,” said a masculine voice from below. The Caprice had come to a stop, but the wheel covers were still spinning. A black man emerged from the front passenger door, and another from the rear. The driver stayed in the car with the motor running, as the other two men walked toward Monica’s door. “Keep your mouth shut, no matter what these guys do,” the man on the porch pleaded. “They’re selling crack and they’re—”
“Okay, okay! Just shut up and give me a cigarette,” the woman interrupted.
In just a few minutes, the two black men came back out with a white man and got into the Caprice. I could see the driver light a cigarette and roll his window down slightly. It didn’t take long for the men to take care of business. The back door swung open, and the white man got out and went back into Monica’s. The driver tossed his cigarette out the window, pulled out onto 6th Street, and drove away.
As I turned to see the blue Caprice speed off, I saw Gentleman Jake and three other men approaching John’s front steps. One of them was called “The Indian”; the other two I didn’t know.
“Jake, you’re drunk,” I heard a woman say.
“I’m in a bad way,” Jake slurred. “You s’pose I can sleep on this porch tonight? I jus wanna be safe.”
“There’ll probably be a few others,” said the woman.
I watched as Jake half-collapsed on the steps. “I fuckin’ fell off the wagon,” he said. “Two years without a drink until tonight,” he slurred. “But I’m haaaapppy now.”
I pulled myself back from the window. I had seen enough for tonight. I left the blind up and got back into my sleeping bag. I rolled on my side and closed my eyes.
“It’s been four years for me, Jake,” I heard the woman say. “Four years without a drink and I am—”
“Whaoooooooooooooo!” A man screaming across the street interrupted whatever she was saying. “Whaoooooooooooooo!”
I opened my eyes. The sound of Bruce Springsteen pounding from Monica’s jukebox ended abruptly, and the light streaming in the window began to dim. “Monica’s must be closing,” I thought to myself. I pictured Monica pulling the plug on the box and turning off the neon lights, one by one, as she was shooing the customers out the door. I could hear the
car doors slamming and engines starting as the patrons began to take their leave.
“Hey! You fuckers across the street!” a man yelled. “You want a piece of me?!”
“Don’t say anything!” the man’s voice below warned quietly.
“I’ll whip your ass!”
“Come on, Bob. Leave the poor fucks alone,” another voice across the street said. “I’ll take you home. Come on. Let’s go.”
There was near silence for a moment. Then I heard another door slam and a car starting to pull away.
I pulled the sleeping bag over my head.
I wondered if there were windows and porches like this in Paris or Berlin—or was this just a piece of Americana, with a room reserved just for me?
It must have been sometime after three when I finally dozed off. I remembered hearing the voices on the porch becoming more subdued—still talking, but running out of steam.
When I opened my eyes and peered out the window, morning had broken, and I could see that it was overcast. I got up slowly, trying to not wake Willow. As I walked over to the window, I checked my watch. It was eight thirty.
The street was empty except for a car or two passing by. A small ribbon of smoke was still rising off the campfire behind Sally’s. All was quiet from the night before.
But I knew it would not be for long. It was going to be Saturday Night Live tonight.
As I looked out at the street below, morning brought some clarity about the previous night’s events. I was homeless, and I knew it was really kind of John to let me stay here. But out this window I had seen much too much in one night. I had seen homeless men sitting by a campfire as if they were in a third-world country. I had seen a drug deal, an arrest, and a physical altercation.
While I desperately needed a roof over my head, I knew it could not be here, by this window, where I could see the homeless day and night. I could survive watching myself escape into my van in a church parking lot every evening, but seeing others walk the streets without hope every night was just too depressing.
I felt that sometime, in some way, some terrible thing was going to happen here.
I woke Willow from her sleep and rolled up my sleeping bag. I picked up the bag and Willow and left the room, locking the door behind me. I tiptoed down the stairs and unlocked the front door. There were six people, including Jake, sprawled out asleep on the porch. Some were covered only by their coats; some had no covers at all.
I quietly closed the door, took the key John had given me, and turned it carefully in the lock. I slipped the keys back into my pocket, making a mental note to return them as soon as I saw John again. I stepped gingerly over a woman lying directly in my path and then cautiously around another body draped precariously at the top of the steps. I made my descent and covered the short distance to Sally’s parking lot. I got in the van and placed Willow on the seat.
Pulling out of the lot, I headed toward the water. A block and a half from Sally’s, I passed the girders of the new government center rising five stories in the air. Then I turned right and passed the construction site of the million-dollar condos and the new convention center.
In that block and a half, I had traveled from one world to an entirely different one—and I didn’t feel that I understood either of them.
Chapter 27
S’GHETTI
“Dear Lord, bless the hands that made this meal for all of us to share tonight,” the minister began, after asking all the poor to bow their heads in prayer in the small basement of the Community Christian Church at the end of Warren Avenue in downtown Bremerton.
“Thank you, Lord God, for bringing us together to share our joys and concerns as we break bread,” he continued. I raised my head a little to peek at him. He was a slim, older man, mostly bald except for a swish of graying hair that he combed over the top of his head. He had a gentle voice. “You are always with us in our time of need, and you lift us from the depths of despair,” he continued. “God bless us all.”
It was, thankfully, a short prayer. That was the kind the homeless liked—we were generally a hungry crew! The eighty or so of us who had crowded into the small basement that night lined up along the wall as three ladies began serving dinner from the metal trays covering the folding tables at the front of the room. It was a Friday, and the offered feast was fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and apple pie.
C and I shuffled to the end of the line. We were not there by choice, but in an effort to prevent a potential legal problem for the fellow with us. Our friend Johnny’s ex, Marion, had a restraining order against him, which involved so many feet of separation. Johnny was hoping his former lover would not be at this church dinner on this particular night.
But she was. Marion was at the front table.
Still, Johnny was hungry, so C was doing his utmost to keep the requisite distance between them and avert any contact between the two. He encouraged Johnny not to look, talk, or think about Marion—so, of course, Johnny had to look, talk, and think about her. “I know I was wrong to hit her, but she—”
“Shuussh!” said C, trying to position himself so that Marion could not see Johnny.
The line began moving forward at a steady pace as the ladies wielded their tongs and big serving spoons. “More fish sticks!” one server yelled out to the kitchen helper.
“Coming!” a voice yelled back from the kitchen.
By the time C, Johnny, and I reached the front of the line, the lady serving the fish sticks was frowning. A man from the kitchen had just dumped a fresh load of fish sticks on her serving tray, and they were burnt. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at us. “They burned the fish sticks.” She began picking through the pile for the least damaged pieces. “They’re only burnt on the bottom,” she said. “Maybe you can scrape them off.”
We all smiled and assured her they would be fine. Johnny and I then got our dinner portions, and C turned to scope out the situation in the room. Marion was sitting at a table in the middle on the right side. Her back was to C and Johnny.
“Okay, Johnny,” C began, in his best conspiratorial tone. “We are going to hug the left side of the wall to the very last table back there. Do not look at Marion on the way. Stay right behind me. Then sit down, eat, and leave. We don’t need any drama here in the basement of the church.”
I fought back a chuckle as C, the peacemaker, took the lead, followed by Johnny and then me. We moved quickly to our table, carrying our burnt fish sticks, macaroni, and apple pie. I peeked over at Marion, who was peeking back. Then she smiled at me, acknowledging our effort to keep Johnny away, which I considered quite gracious under the circumstances. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing all was going to be peaceful through this meal.
Yes, it was peaceful all right—if not entirely pleasant. C’s strategy to keep Johnny in a safe place put us smack-dab across from one of the people we usually tried our hardest to avoid: Ted, the master of the grossest burps and belches in this ragtag traveling community. Everyone knew the burp would eventually embellish any mealtime gathering; we just didn’t want to be too close when it did.
Tonight was no exception. We ate just as quickly as we could in an effort to be out of there before the inevitable occurred, but to no avail. I had just finished my last bite of apple pie when Ted lowered his head to his chest and the sound roared its way up from his depths, bringing all conversation in the room to a temporary halt. Then Ted pushed his chair back and left. Gradually the chatter around us resumed.
“I think I’ve lost my appetite,” C muttered. “What do you say we get going, Richard?”
“I’m ready,” I replied. “Need a ride, Johnny?”
“No, I’m going to hang out downtown. It’s Friday night!” he answered.
“But you are going to stay away from you-know-who, right?” C more ordered than asked as he stood up.
“Oh, yeah,” was Johnny’s reply. He stood up and we all walked outside together. Then he said, “Thanks, guys,” and began walking down the hill on
11th Street. C and I headed for the van, relieved for several reasons that this particular meal was over.
“Feel like going for a ride?” C asked after we got in the van.
I hesitated as I turned the key and looked at my gas gauge.
“Don’t worry about gas,” C said, reading my eyes and my mind. “I’ve got some gas money.”
“Then sure,” I said.
“Head out toward the fairgrounds on the east side,” he said, as I put the van in gear. “It’s not far,” he added.
C leaned forward, squinting his eyes to focus on the radio. He picked a button and pushed it. It was 101.5, one of the rock channels from Seattle. “Great,” he said as a song came on, and he began doing the imaginary drum routine I had come to know so well.
The taste of burnt fish sticks still filled my mouth, and I tried to clean my teeth and gums with my tongue as we drove. C’s eyes were closed now, his head shaking back and forth and his feet stomping to the song. Then he lifted his head and opened his eyes. “Turn right at the next light,” he instructed.
I did as he asked. “Up ahead—see that storage sign?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm . . .”
“Pull in there.” I took a left into the driveway by the storage units. “Oh, good. The gate’s open,” said C. “Just go straight in—all the way to the back, by the fence.”
I drove slowly over the speed bumps that dotted the path, past the steel-gray doors of the storage units, and stopped at the very end. We got out, and Willow, not to be left behind, jumped out after us. C walked to the end unit—number 33, put his ear to the door, and then knocked. “It’s me, C,” he said. “Anybody home?”
It took a few seconds, but then the door rose slowly. The bare feet, the torso, and then the face of a black woman came into view, and she broke into a smile. “C! It’s good to see you,” she said. Her eyes were flashing. Two young children stepped forward; they were boys who stood about waist high. “Everything okay?” she asked.
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