I opened it, and inside was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. I held it up and looked at the label. It was 1943, the year I was born.
“Very good,” said Allen. “Very good year.”
“Where is he?”—another obvious question.
Allen reached out and hit the round bell. It rang loudly. Then he extended his arms and waved them up and down like a bird in flight.
“You know C. He’s an angel!” Allen exclaimed and smiled.
I was stunned. My mind was in turmoil for a moment, and then I understood.
God had, after all, sent me many angels. I had been blessed—blessed to meet C, blessed by the Lady in Red, blessed to be fed by Mrs. Peebles, to talk to Marcia at the hospital, to share time with Andy before he died, to look into the eyes of Karen before she took her life at the bridge. I was blessed to experience the Major’s mystery pitch and Mary’s miraculous hit, blessed to walk into the woods to visit Adam at The Hilton, to have Rodney share his lucky rocks with me, to be there for Lilly’s dance for David, to share s’ghetti with Dorothea, Elijah, and Dustin. I was blessed to be watched over by the pastor as I slept in the parking lot of one church, and to be received as a beloved family member by a another pastor whose church had become my home.
Many were there to steady me if I began to fall—with a hot meal or a few dollars, with a caring glance or a touch of the hand, with kindness, understanding, and love. They treated me with respect, dignity, and grace, while so many others had snickered and scorned.
C was my Number One Angel.
He was a slovenly, half-blind, marijuana-smoking, drug-dealing, rumdrinking angel-in-training. He taught me the joy of rolling in the grass like a kid and helped me see the world through the eyes of others. He got me high by reading the works of the masters and got me flaming drunk on life.
C took me to windows where I could view the lives of others and opened up a chapter of the book of life—a chapter I had somehow missed. No one could have done it any better—not Joseph Campbell or Carlos Castaneda, not Steinbeck or Hemingway or Mann, not even Buddha or Jesus. He possessed knowledge beyond his years, and he had shared it with me, his fellow traveler.
C taught me you have to give half of what you have to help a fellow human being—and sometimes more. When the need is great enough, you must reach even deeper in your pocket and give all that you have to a stranger, with no hope of reward. And he taught me that this is the ultimate gift—not only to the receiver, but also to the one who gives.
Responding to a need is a leap of faith. Life is a leap of faith. And when you take that leap, you get the ultimate high, which no drug can supply and no amount of money can purchase—an irrepressible feeling that comes welling up from deep inside and causes every nerve to tingle. It makes you cry. It makes you trust that—somehow, somewhere, sometime—the things you need will come to you.
It’s magic.
C had spread a roadmap before me with many paths to choose from. I could go on a bitter journey to a place of anger and hate, or head out on the highway of grace and kindness, though it may be the road less traveled and in greater need of repair.
I was going to choose the latter.
I had never told C of my journey to the bridge in the year I knew him. I had never learned his last name, or his real first name, for that matter. He had never told me. I had never asked.
“Thank you,” I said, nodding to Allen and putting the gift back in the bag.
“You are a writer, right?” Allen asked.
“I’m trying to be.”
“Well, you have a book to write. You must write now. I call you ‘Peng-you’—that means ‘Friend.’” Then Allen bowed to me from the waist, held up two fingers, and said, “Peace. Be safe!”
I bowed in return and then walked out of the mini-mart with my bottle of Dom Perignon.
After two years of wishing and waiting for the angel of death to take me in the night, I now wanted to live.
I had a reason and a passion to live. I had learned grace, found a new dignity—a real one, not based on what I owned—and a new identity, one that I loved. I was going to write a book.
Mark Twain’s final chapter in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is entitled “Nothing More to Write.” I, on the other hand, had so much more to write, and that would keep me alive for quite a while. I now had the wisdom of C, the knowledge of the street, and a new addiction, to the drug called Unconditional Love.
I was going to try to finish my book about people without a home. Would my writing open any hearts, minds, or doors so that other men, women, and children would not have to live in the street? Could it give a ray of hope to someone curled up under a blanket in a car or shivering in the cold in the woods? Would it help someone look twice and think twice when passing by a person in need?
I did not know. I had never been here before.
EPILOGUE
July 20, 2005 BE SELFISH: VOLUNTEER!
It was on July 20, 2002, that I became homeless.
I live in an apartment now, where Willow the Wonder Dog sits under the table as I write.
I was lucky. I am not sure I would have survived the last few years in Seattle or San Diego or Houston. The community in Bremerton, Washington, helped me out of homelessness. My miracle happened here.
Pastor Earl’s soul provided everything my soul asked for that day in his office. Shelter in the church for nine months. Church members to cosign a rental agreement for an apartment. Others to fix my car when it broke down and to take Willow to the vet when she was sick. Still others to offer me friendship and family and the promise to be there when I die so that I don’t have to fear dying alone. And Sandy to first edit this book. More importantly, by his own most gracious example, he put me in touch with God, so that we can have our own conversations now. Willow and I attend church every Sunday, where I sing in the choir; Willow sits beside me in the choir loft. She walks at my heel through the communion line, then eats the dropped crumbs of communion bread.
In the very act of writing this book, I have undergone healing. In 2003, I was diagnosed with depression-related memory loss; I could not recall the names of my grandchildren, friends or acquaintances throughout the years, streets I had lived on as a child, and many other details about my life. I didn’t have a particular motive when I began writing; I just found my friend C very interesting to write about, and as I wrote I began to remember things and feel things and see things, and I wanted more. So I continued. Perhaps I am beginning to heal on many levels.
My daughter, Michelle, called me the other day and invited me to come to her house for Thanksgiving. We had turkey and dressing with all the trimmings and, best of all, I got to spend time with my eleven-year-old granddaughter, Sierra, who told me about her school, her friends, and the softball league she plays in each summer.
I gave a copy of my manuscript to Michelle and she read it. She then passed it on to my youngest son, Scott, in Ohio, who also read it. Scott then called me and flew out to buy me dinner the day after Christmas to tell me he loved the book. I had an exquisite salmon in a dill sauce with baby red potatoes and received an up-to-date photo of his family, including ten-year-old Makay, Kyler, now seven, and eleven-month-old Quiterie, which Scott tells me means “one who is in peace” in French. I still see my psychologist, Rodney, every two weeks, and he guides me down the river of life. I have learned to embrace my depression. I still go to the church dinners and play softball every Thursday on the Salvation Army “Field of Dreams” during the season. The Major is even talking about getting us some caps and T-shirts for the games.
Allen sold the mini-mart and went back to Hong Kong. It’s now the newly remodeled Manette Mini-Mart and Deli. They even painted the inside of The Maple Leaf. But it still leans toward the road.
I love this town.
No, it’s not perfect, but then a perfect town wouldn’t be real, would it? The fact is there are more people living on the streets in this town and in towns across the country than there ha
ve been since the Great Depression. But there are also more people looking at the reality of homelessness and trying to do something about it. In Bremerton, several local churches have fought for and built a homeless shelter to house twenty men and one family. It has taken three years to wade through all the permit and construction complications. It seems so small compared to the four-story government center, the new and bigger jail, the convention center and parking facility, the new waterfront condo complex, and the new baseball field, but it is at least a start.
Many times, as I prepare to fall asleep with Willow beside me in my bed, I think about the hundreds of times we parked in a church parking lot and crawled into our sleeping bag in the damp and the cold, with no money in our pockets and no hope in our souls. We lived on daily miracles.
It was a journey I did not plan. But looking back, I would not change a day. Because I met and got to know so many wonderful people, including myself.
The homeless lost a dear friend when Mrs. Peebles passed away in February of 2006, at age seventy-four. Despite the repeated warnings from her doctor to slow down and let others do more of the work and the worrying at The Lord’s Diner, she kept doing the things she loved and felt called to do. Her son, Michael, took over his mother’s calling and, with a group of volunteers, still feeds hundreds of the hungry every Saturday and Sunday.
Gentleman Jake can be found at Sally’s just about every day. He is now helping the guys coming back from Iraq. Many are homeless and lost.
C? He’s off someplace helping some other souls, quoting Joseph Campbell, reading Shakespeare and Yeats from some bar stool and breaking bread with the poor and hopeless at a Sally’s in Tulsa, Cincinnati, or Fargo. He’s probably got the Armadillo parked next to some mini-mart and is reading Hornblower out loud to MyLynx.
Maybe he’s in your town now.
IN APPRECIATION
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
—Lennon/McCartney
I have so many people to thank—people who made this book possible. Here are just a few:
Major James Baker of the Salvation Army in Bremerton, Washington, who helped me when I was down and out and gave me encouragement.
Pastor Earl Rice, First United Methodist Church, who got me off the streets and gave me a whole spacious church to live in. He renewed my faith in man and in God.
My friend and editor, Sandy Rice, who took my sloppy typewritten pages, edited them with love, and turned them into a book. She invited me into the deeper questions.
Michael Gordon, a talented and gifted young artist, who was able to capture personalities in his drawings that will help put a real face on homelessness.
Debbie Johnson, a friend who never gave up on me.
Sarah Murphy at Bainbridge Island Helpline, who would not allow me to stop writing in times of depression.
Rodney Hitchcock, my psychologist and mental-health guide, who, when I asked, “Is this book I’m writing some wild and crazy fantasy?” simply said, “No. You will be successful.”
Robert Reinach, my psychiatrist.
Bill Hoke, a longtime friend and publishing advisor.
The poor and the homeless people of Bremerton, who treated me with respect, dignity, and kindness and offered me their friendship.
The women and men of the churches in Bremerton, Port Orchard, and Bainbridge Island, Washington, who provided free dinners.
Chuck Brewer, of the Perry Avenue Mall secondhand store, who gave me my Travelwriter, and Michael, who returned it to me.
Bill Sipple, Sharon Masters, Pastor Scott Huff, Reverend Randy Lord-Wilkinson, Dr. Thomas and Beatrice Burch, Bob Barnes, the YMCA staff who let me shower for free when I needed to, all the people at the First United Methodist Church, and the Baker family of Bremerton.
Roger Pike, for his literary advice.
Cindy Adams, who cashed my social security check and opened an account for me when no other bank would.
MaryLou Baille, who supported me emotionally and financially, and who was a veritable lifesaver for Willow.
Mildred “Mitty” Pratt, who was always there when I needed her most.
Lissa Gennings, known as the “clothes lady” for giving out free clothes at the Lord’s Diner that kept me clean and stylish.
Ditto to Maryann and her helpers at God’s Closet.
Lee Stiles, Director of Development at the Seattle headquarters of the Salvation Army North West, for his passion for the book and his desire to help the homeless.
Scott Sciuchetti, Donor Relations Director of the Salvation Army North West, for passing the word around about Breakfast at Sally’s, and to Stacy Howard, Walt Mead, Captain Howard Bennett, and all the devoted people at the Salvation Army.
The kind people at TrueSense Marketing in Pittsburgh, Shawn Reed and his wife Karen, Nancy Shroads, and Matt Lorenz, who believed in my book.
Rachel Pritchett, Chris Henry, and Larry Steagall of the Kitsap Sun, and Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times.
For my editor Lilly Golden for her wonderful editing efforts.
For Tony Lyons at Skyhorse Publishing for taking a chance on a formerly homeless author with a story to tell.
Bill Block of the King County, Seattle Alliance to End Homelessness.
Sister Pat Millen of Catholic Community Services.
Bev Kincaid.
Leon and Christieann Martin.
Kristina Boewe, who as the church choir director invited me to sing joyfully again. Then, after reading the manuscript, she began singing for the homeless to give them a new wonderful voice. A gifted vocalist from hymns to rock and roll, she wrote a song from the book entitled “A Place Called Home,” which she now sings with her daughter Madison and son Parker at events encouraging help for the homeless.
As you can see, this once lonely homeless man has got a lot of help and now has a lot of friends.
And last but not least, I must thank Willow the Wonder Dog, who accompanied me on this journey with nary a whine nor a whimper.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICHARD LEMIEUX lived on the streets of Bremerton, Washington, with his dog, Willow, for a year and a half while writing Breakfast at Sally’s. They lived and slept in his Oldsmobile van. Richard wrote on a secondhand manual typewriter at picnic tables in parks around the city. After eighteen months on the street, Richard and Willow were allowed by the pastor and the congregation of the First United Methodist Church to live inside the church. They were there for nine months. With the help of the church community, Richard moved into an apartment, where he finished his book a year later.
Richard was born in Urbana, Ohio, and attended Urbana College and Ohio State University. He was the sports director of WCOM Radio and a sportswriter and columnist for seventeen years at the Springfield Sun (Ohio), covering events ranging from Ohio State football and Cincinnati Reds baseball, to major professional golf and tennis tournaments, to basketball games and dog shows. He was known as “the Wizard” due to his uncanny knack for predicting the outcome of football and basketball games.
Richard has lived in Washington State since 1981. He worked as a fundraiser for the state Republican Party and also ran his own publishing company, The Source, producing medical and university directories for fourteen years. He became homeless when his business failed; he lost his livelihood, his home, his possessions, and his companion of seventeen years. Richard was diagnosed with severe depression in March 2003 after attempting to take his life by jumping off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. His battle with depression continues.
Richard enjoys taking Willow for long walks in the park. When he had money, he was an avid golfer and downhill skier, and he has traveled to Italy, France, Greece, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, much of Canada, and forty states.
Willow is an avid grass-roller who finds joy in meeting people and playing fetch with her ball, “Bounce.”
Richard is now working on his second book, the story of a woman he met on his journey.
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Richard LeMieux, Breakfast at Sally's
Breakfast at Sally's Page 38
