“How have you survived?” Matt asked me through the gulf of quiet. “You are—well, an older guy. It must be tougher.”
“You know, I don’t really know,” I replied. “I ask myself that question at least once a day. I get a little help here, a little help there. People have helped me. They’ll help you, too.”
I made the final turn onto “Hilton Road.” “The path to the camp is right over there,” I said, pointing out the opening in the bushes. “Just follow the path back through the trees for about a quarter or half a mile. You’ll see the clearing in the trees. Just yell out ‘C sent me,’ and they’ll know you’re okay. They’ll make room for you, I’m sure. Tell Adam hello from Willow and me.”
Matt stepped out into the wind. “Thanks, Richard,” he said, closing the door behind him.
I watched as he walked across a wooden plank someone had placed over the drainage ditch beside the road and then disappeared into the thicket of cedars and pines swaying in the wind.
I put my foot on the gas pedal and pulled away.
As I headed back to the main highway, Willow whined to alert me that she needed to step out of the van. Wind or no wind, nature was calling.
We pulled into the parking lot of the local roller rink, Skateland; there was an undeveloped field right behind it. Willow jumped out as soon as I opened the door, and the wind tossed her ears and tail about. She braved the elements and the tall weeds to do her business and jumped back in the van. It was not a day for tarrying.
I reached to turn the ignition switch, but stopped. I thought of Matt.
I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the few pages of my book that were there, and a pen. I was out of clean paper, so I turned the pages over. I started to write, but nothing appeared. “Darn, it’s out of ink,” I said to myself. I scribbled on the corner of the page, just to check, and lo and behold, the ink began to flow again. The pen must have been cold.
I started recording my recollections of the afternoon and the way Matt had approached me. He was a burly lad with red hair and a short, red beard... I wrote. Then I lifted my pen from the paper. Matt reminded me of my son.
My son, too, had red hair, just like his mother. He was also a big, strong man with a powerful grip—much bigger than me. He was maybe thirty-four the last time I saw him; I couldn’t quite remember. It had been almost two years now since I had seen him or talked with him on the phone.
I had done everything I could to forget our last conversation, but now it came back to me, almost word for word, as I sat there in the windbuffeted van. I had asked him to lend me some money, and it made him very angry. The gist of it was something like: “Listen, you dumb son of a bitch. I am bigger and stronger than you, and I don’t loan money to people like you. Don’t ever call me again, or I will beat the hell out of you!”
I had lent him money—ten thousand when he needed to close on a house. And I had hired him to work for me when my business was steaming along. He had told me he’d make me proud. That he wanted to be just like me. But when the business failed, he not only lost his job, he lost faith in me. That is what hurt the most, probably for both of us—I had been his hero.
I had shared all I had with my son, but now when I needed help, he could not respond. And it was way beyond the money—he had rallied quite well financially and was selling real estate by that time.
His ugly words echoed in my brain.
“When did he learn to speak to anyone like that?” I wondered. I had never threatened or spoken that way to anyone in my life. Was it my fault? Had I failed him? The waves of self-doubt flooded my being.
I didn’t want to think about that. I put the pen back to the paper. “The people at my table at lunch were talking about you and Willow. You guys are famous.” Again, I lifted my pen from the crumpled paper and looked at the big, black clouds forming in the sky. “Famous?” I mused.
I thought once more about my son and remembered happier times when we had played “being famous.”
I had mowed the big lawn and was pulling weeds in the garden when I heard the giggles of the neighborhood kids coming up the driveway of our home in Ohio. I was about thirty-eight at the time. Rich, my older son, called out to me to come play football. I watched him approach with Kyle, Kip, Shirley (the neighborhood tomboy), and Scott, my younger son, who was holding the football. They were all looking at me expectantly.
“Hey, guys. I’d like to, but I’ve got all these weeds to pull,” I replied, getting a good grip on a thistle that was crowding out a tomato plant.
“Oh, come on, Dad. Please?” Scott pleaded.
As I unearthed the thistle from the ground, I traveled back across the years to when I would plead with my own father, who was sitting at his desk off the living room paying bills. “Hey, Dad, you want to play some pass?” I had asked, with baseball and glove at the ready. We went back and forth—he giving all the expected refusals and rationales, and I continuing to beg and plead—until I saw the twinkle in his eye that let me know I had won the contest. “Well, maybe I could take a break,” he said, smiling as he pushed away from the desk. “Let me see that ball. I wonder where my glove might be?” And I had rushed for the hall closet, where I knew it would be.
How could I do any less for my sons? I tossed the handful of weeds off to the side of the garden. “Well, I guess I could take a break,” I said, brushing the dirt off my hands. “Let me see that ball.” Scott tossed it to me as I stood up. “Go deep, Scott,” I said, and he was off and running as fast as his eight-year-old legs would carry him. I pulled my arm back and fired a pass that he caught over his shoulder.
We all headed for the middle of the yard. “How about the same teams as last time?” I suggested. That worked out well: Rich, Shirley, and Kip against Scott, me, and Kyle. At age eleven, Rich was obviously the group leader, and once he said “Okay,” everyone else concurred.
“We’re still the Buckeyes,” freckle-faced Shirley announced.
“And we’re still the Bengals,” Scott chimed in.
“Okay then. The big elm tree is your goal line and that little pine tree is our goal,” I said. “No arguing or fighting, and plays in question will get a do-over,” I added. “I’m the referee, and I’ll be fair.”
Rich assured me that he trusted me.
We determined that the Bengals would kick off first, as we moved to our sides of “the field.”
Rich yelled out that we were playing tackle, as we lined up for the kickoff.
“Oh, well, okay,” I replied. “But not too rough. Remember Scott is just eight, and—”
“Don’t worry about me,” Scott interrupted, trying to sound big and strong. “I can play rough!”
I took the heel of my right foot and punched a hole in the ground to set the ball for the kickoff, turned, and took six steps back to get a run at the ball. “You ready?” I yelled.
“Ready,” the Buckeyes yelled, and I ran forward and kicked the ball in the air. Shirley caught the ball and began running to the left, but when Kyle and Scott closed in, she wheeled and pitched the ball back to Rich, who turned and began galloping to the right. I headed toward Rich, but he changed direction and dashed to the middle of the field, toward Scott and Kyle. Scott reached out and wrapped his arms around Rich’s waist, but slipped down until he had him only by one leg. It was enough to slow Rich down until I got there to help out. I grabbed Rich around the chest with one arm and then the other. I could feel the fragileness of his young body, but at the same time I could feel the strength of his heart and his determination to keep going toward the goal line.
As I gently pulled him down toward the ground, I did so with the unspoken trust between father and son. We both knew that I was twice as big and three times as strong as he was and that I could easily crush his body if I landed on it with my full weight, but we knew just as well that I would never do anything to harm him.
I placed the ball at about midfield, and the Buckeyes went into their huddle to dream up a play. They broke th
e huddle, with Shirley at center, Rich at quarterback, and Kip as wide receiver. Rich yelled “Hut, hut,” and Shirley snapped the ball and did her best to block Scott. As Scott rushed in, Rich retreated and pulled back his arm to uncork a pass to the speeding Kip. But the ball was thrown just a little long and fell to the ground. I saw Scott rubbing the side of his face where Shirley’s bony arm had bumped him in his rush to the quarterback. He brushed it off.
The Buckeyes huddled again, and this time Shirley was calling the plays. Kip centered the ball, and I could see Rich’s eyes watching mine as he faked to the outside and then raced past me. Shirley launched a wobbly pass that just made it over my outstretched fingers and settled into Rich’s arm for a touchdown.
The Buckeyes cheered as they headed for their end of the field.
And I smiled. For I was playing my role so well: to let them have fun; to score the touchdown; to let them win; to let them be heroes.
And, in turn, I was their hero.
The Bucks prepared to kick off to us. Just as I had done, Rich used the heel of his tennis shoe to make a hole in the ground for the kickoff. They lined up, and on Rich’s signal, they charged forward, and Rich kicked the ball in the air.
“I got it!” Scott yelled, and he moved forward. The pigskin hit Scott in the chest and bounced to the ground. But he quickly picked it up, tucked it under his arm and began running, with his sandy-colored hair blowing in the breeze. Rich closed in on Scott and reached out to grab his shoulder, but the little man reversed field and Rich slipped on the grass. As Scott scampered to the left, he found himself corralled by Shirley and Kip.
“I got him!” Shirley growled, and Scott tossed the ball back over his head while yelling “DAD!” at the top of his lungs. The ball rolled on the ground and I reached down to pick it up. By then Kip had grabbed my right leg, and a second later Shirley was attached to my left. Rich then grabbed my waist and tugged with all his might to take me to the ground. I knew I was going to have to take a tumble, and I had to find a way to go down without falling on them and hurting them.
After I fell gracefully to the grass, I could feel three small bodies lying on top of me, their hearts pounding.
The sound of a car engine pulling into the Skateland parking lot ended my trip back in time. The doors of a station wagon flew open in the wind and five children scrambled out. A man stepped out from the driver’s side.
“Dad, I forgot my knee pads,” one of the children called out.
“Megan, that’s the last thing I told you not to forget before we left,” the father said. “We’re not going back for them. Just make sure you don’t fall down.”
“Okay,” the girl said as they slammed the car doors shut and headed for the rink.
The family I once knew was gone.
I was no different from millions of others—from the millions of teenagers on the street to the millions of aging heroes stored away like luggage in nursing homes across the country; I knew that I was in my family’s way.
I finally understood that my son’s outburst had come from the frustration that accompanies a problem that cannot be solved. My son was doing the same thing that I had done for over forty years—chasing the American Dream and trying to be somebody’s hero. All I could do was hope that when he caught that dream, he would recognize it.
The homeless were my new family. They embraced me. They waved and smiled and treated me with dignity and respect. We may be the most misunderstood and feared people in America, I thought, but we are still family to each other.
Those who don’t understand homelessness often share the groundless fear that we might rob them, or beat them up, or molest their children. They don’t recognize that there’s far more stealing going on at the gas pumps and in the boardrooms. Or that they are far more likely to be assaulted by a driver with road rage. Or that the real child molesters are more likely to be a next-door neighbor, a local priest or teacher, or someone surfing the Internet in a comfortable home.
I couldn’t explain to my son what was happening to me—he had no frame of reference for my depression. I hardly understood it myself.
I knew he wanted me to be the hero I had been before, strong and confident. I was a stranger to him now. As I was to myself.
All I could do now was just be.
And the best thing I could do for my children was not to fall on them.
I put my pen back to the paper: “Maybe I was a hero, sort of,” Matt replied, “but not anymore...” His voice trailed off. I eased my foot off the gas pedal, checked my rearview mirror again, and then merged into the slow lane. “What happened to the hero?”
Chapter 30
THE CHURCH MICE
What sounded like a nine-hundred-pound centipede on the move aroused Willow and me from our slumber on the flowered sofa in the long hallway on the lower level of the church.
It was a Monday morning, ending our fourth night of curling up in our old sleeping bag somewhere warm and dry, thanks to the kindness of the pastor, Earl.
Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp—the centipede got louder as it made its way down the stairway.
I poked my head out from under its cover and peeked over the arm of the sofa to see a woman holding the end of a rope, followed by a dozen children, each holding on to the rope as they headed to a small playground just outside the church doorway.
I snuggled back down to savor the warmth and safety of this moment, feeling very lucky.
It had been a week of the worst weather most of the locals could remember. It had rained, and rained, and rained—the kind of rain that floods houses, washes out roads, makes streams overflow—the kind of rain that soaks you to the skin. It was the kind of weather that makes you want to tune out the world and curl up with a good book in front of a nice, blazing fire. But it was hard to keep a campfire blazing or even a book dry in a downpour like this (and a campfire was the best hope the homeless had for a fire of any kind).
Willow and I had managed pretty well up till now, burrowed down in the back of the van at night with our sleeping bags. Even when it was cold, we could usually warm each other up. And when my clothes got wet, I could usually crawl into something dry and make it through the night.
But the combination of being soaking wet and chilled to the bone was another thing entirely. I had no dry clothes left; everything I owned was wet. There was no way to warm up—and no way to take care of Willow. The pastor at the Methodist church where we usually parked the van at night finally suggested I see a friend of his on the other side of town, and off we went, begging again. The pastor at the new church, Pastor Earl, took pity on Willow and me, standing there shivering and dripping on his office carpet. He had just enough emergency money to put us up for a night in a motel.
So Willow and I spent that night at a motel, drying out and getting ready to face whatever was coming next. As usual, I had to smuggle her in and try to keep her quiet, and I worried the whole time that we would get caught and have to pay extra (which I didn’t have) or be kicked out. Each of us had a good, hot, soapy shower and a rubdown with clean towels. It was heavenly to be dry after the days of heavy rain. I spread my clothes out to dry, and we watched some TV in the comfort of clean sheets. As we lay wrapped in this cocoon, I listened to the rain beating against the window, and I prayed that the next day would dawn clear, or at least dry. Willow sighed in her sleep, and I wondered how much longer I could take care of her, living the way we did.
I awoke in the morning to the sound of the monotonous, continuous rain—again.
When it was time to leave the motel, I decided to go back to the church—First United Methodist Church—partly to say thank you for the gift of being warm and dry again, and partly to beg for some gas money. Pastor Earl invited me to sit and talk for a bit. After he had heard my story, he not only gave me twenty dollars for gas, he offered to let me sleep in the basement hallway of his church. We went downstairs to take a look. “I haven’t got enough money to pay for a motel room again, but it’s still rainin
g really hard, and I am afraid you are going to get sick if you can’t stay dry. You can sleep here,” Pastor Earl said, pointing to a high-back couch pushed up against the wall of a long hallway, “at least for a few days, and maybe we can we figure something else out.”
I had no idea what time it was. On Sunday I had sold my watch—a twenty-dollar Timex—for two dollars, which translated into another gallon of gas for the van. But I knew it was late enough for the “church people” (Pastor Earl, the secretaries, and others) to be in.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had been hoping that Willow and I could be “church mice,” mostly out of sight during the day and free to roam the dark halls and large sanctuary at night. But I knew that this arrangement couldn’t last long. In fact, it would probably end this morning when I climbed the stairs—rumpled, unshaven, and unbathed.
In my seemingly endless months of sleeping on the streets, I knew of only one other person who had slept in a church by himself overnight, and that was only because he had had pneumonia and someone had taken pity on him. I was the only one who had been invited to occupy the half-million square feet of empty church space in town.
Andy the Weed spent seventeen years out in the cold. C, Gentleman Jake, and a host of others never got inside. There were reasons, I knew, undoubtedly good reasons in someone’s estimation. I was pretty sure the church’s insurance company wouldn’t approve of this, and I was darned sure some church members would be afraid I would steal something. The pastor had obviously made a mistake in a moment of weakness. He had actually given me a key to the front door, which I expected him to ask me to return when I climbed the stairs this morning.
I had nothing to give this man or his church. I certainly had no money. I had no fine voice to add to their choir. And with my faith in God gone, I had no inspirational story to tell the congregation. But maybe that was just as well. Andy had once told me as I drove him to the liquor store, “It is better to have no hope than just a little hope. A little hope just gets you thinking something good is about to happen. And when that little hope is taken away, you are worse off than before. My hope comes in a bottle.”
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