On the Other Side of the Bridge

by Ray Villareal

  His dad continued to drive in silence. Finally, when he stopped at a light, he asked, “Where is it?”

  “Mr. Treviño said it’s downtown on Main Street.”

  His dad turned the car around and they headed to the shelter.

  As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, mobs of homeless men flocked around his car.

  “Hey, partner, can you take me to my sister’s house?”

  “Amigo! Amigo! How about giving me a lift to Michigan Avenue?”

  “The bus is running late, and I gotta get to the unemployment office before it closes.”

  Lonnie’s dad shooed them away, and the men scattered like pigeons, but not before cussing him out for not giving them a ride.

  “I don’t know about this, buddy,” he said warily, staring at the brown building.

  Lonnie wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision, either. When Mr. Treviño told him about the Helping Hand, he envisioned a nice, clean place where staff members with cheerful smiles would be ready to welcome them with open arms.

  Instead, they saw lots of dirty, smelly, homeless people, mostly men, milling about the front doors of the shelter. Some sat on the railings with their legs dangling. Others walked up and down the steps, waiting for the doors to open. Many of them passed the time by talking to one another, but others stared blankly with glazed eyes.

  And there was smoking. Smoking. Smoking. Almost everyone had a cigarette in their hand. As destitute as these people were, they somehow found the means to support their habit.

  It frightened Lonnie to be there, but he didn’t say anything. He was the one who was insistent on going to the shelter. Even if they found another place to spend the night, they would eventually have to come back here. So he gritted his teeth and kept his head down, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

  At four o’clock, the doors opened, and everyone made their way inside.

  The first thing Lonnie noticed when he walked in was how clean the shelter was. The floors and walls were spotless and gave off a strong smell of lemon-scented disinfectant. Lonnie and his dad walked through a metal detector. After that, they were told to sign their names in a book sitting on a table.

  “Are you first-timers?” the man at the table asked Lonnie’s dad.

  “Yeah, we’re here to see … what’s the man’s name, buddy?”

  “Mr. Marriott.”

  “Okay, but since you’re first-timers, I need you to go to intake,” the man said.

  “What’s that?” Lonnie’s dad asked.

  “That’s where they take down your information. It’s right over there.”

  “Can’t we just talk to Mr. Marriott?”

  The man snapped his fingers and pointed to the intake center. “Come on, pal. You’re holding up the line.”

  They walked to the counter where a woman asked if she could help them.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Marriott,” Lonnie’s dad told her.

  “Does he know you’re coming?” she asked.

  “He’s expecting us,” Lonnie said.

  She picked up the phone receiver and asked Lonnie’s dad, “What’s your name?”

  “Um … can you tell Mr. Marriott that Lonnie Rodríguez and his dad are here?” Lonnie asked. “Tell him I was Mr. Treviño’s student.”

  The woman punched a button on the cradle and waited. “Mr. Marriott? I’ve got a boy and a man here who say they’ve got an appointment to see you.”

  “We don’t have an appointment,” Lonnie said. “Please tell him that Mr. Treviño sent us here.”

  “The boy says that a Mr. Treviño told him to come here. Yes, sir. I’ll do it right away.” The woman hung up. “Okay, go down that hallway. It’s the last door on the left.”

  They started toward Mr. Marriott’s office, but he stepped out to greet them. Mr. Marriott was a heavy-set man with thinning white hair and a friendly face.

  “A pleasure to meet you both,” he said, “although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

  He invited them into his office, and Lonnie and his dad sat in the two chairs facing his desk.

  “Adam Treviño speaks very highly of you, Lonnie,” Mr. Marriott said. “He also shared some things about what you’ve been going through. This is why we have the Helping Hand, to assist people such as yourselves who are struggling.”

  “We don’t plan to stay here long,” Lonnie’s dad told him. “We got robbed of all our money, but I’m gonna get an unemployment check in a couple of weeks. Then I can find us another place.”

  “That’s exactly the right attitude to have,” Mr. Marriott said. “While we’re here to help the indigent and the needy, the Helping Hand isn’t meant to be a comfortable place. We provide shelter, but this isn’t a flop house.”

  Although his face was cheerful, and his voice was calm, Mr. Marriott spoke with authority. He didn’t look like a man who could be intimidated easily. Lonnie was sure he could be tough, especially when dealing with some of those scary people he had seen.

  “We’re not going to try to rush you out of here, Mr. Rodríguez. You decide how long you want to stay, but let me explain our policies.” Mr. Marriott glanced at Lonnie. “We have family rooms for women and their children, but we don’t have a children’s section per se. Ordinarily we’d call Child Protective Services to put Lonnie in foster care, where he would stay until you can find something more suitable. But your son’s at the age where we could go either way. I’ll let him stay with you in the men’s dormitory, provided you keep an eye on him at all times.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Lonnie’s dad told him.

  “There’s also a ten-dollar charge per night,” Mr. Marriott said. “You can pay for your stay, or you can work it off. That’s what some of our clients do. Almost every worker here is homeless, from the attendant at the table where you signed in, to the clerk at the intake center. The cooks and the servers in the cafeteria, most of them are homeless, too.”

  “I don’t mind working,” Lonnie’s dad said. “Like I told Lonnie, it ain’t that I don’t wanna work. I just can’t find nobody who’ll hire me.”

  “Well, if you prefer to work for your stay, we can certainly find something for you to do,” Mr. Marriott said. “As you know, our doors open at four, but everyone is expected to be out of the shelter by six the next morning. We want our clients up no later than five so they can shower, get dressed, eat breakfast and then be on their way.”

  “Where do they go once they leave here?” Lonnie’s dad asked.

  “Again, the Helping Hand is not a flop house,” Mr. Marriott reiterated without answering the question. “We don’t want our clients spending all day here, doing nothing. We do make exceptions, though. The sick and the elderly can stay. So can anyone who’s attending our in-house drug-treatment programs. But for the most part, we expect our clients to go out and look for jobs.”

  Lonnie found out later that most homeless people at the Helping Hand didn’t spend the day job-hunting. At six o’clock, they spread over the downtown area to panhandle. Or they might go down the river bottoms to homeless encampments. Others staked out their spots under bridges or street corners with their cardboard signs.

  “Some companies offer catch-out jobs, and that’s one way our clients earn money,” Mr. Marriott said.

  “What’s a catch-out job?” Lonnie’s dad asked.

  “Catch-out is a term our clients use. It means day labor.” Mr. Marriott turned to the window, and Lonnie and his dad looked out with him. “Trucks and vans will pull up to that vacant lot across the street. Our clients call it the catch-out gap. The drivers will announce something like, ‘We need ten workers.’”

  “What kinds of jobs do they have for them?” Lonnie’s dad asked.

  “Nothing pleasant, I can assure you. Factory work, construction, roofing, that sort of thing. But these are not forty-hour-a-week jobs, if that’s what you’re thinking. The reason our clients take them, regardless of what they may be, is because they g
et paid the same day they work.”

  “So if I decide to take one of those catch-out jobs, what do I do with my boy?” Lonnie’s dad asked. “I don’t want him here by himself.”

  “We have the Flournoy Center, which is just down the street. Basically, it’s a child care facility where our clients’ children can stay when they’re not in school, or when they can’t be accompanied by a parent. The center has a bus that will take Lonnie to school and pick him up if you can’t do it.”

  “Looks like you got all your bases covered,” Lonnie’s dad said. “Listen, I got our stuff in the trunk of my car. Where do you want me to put it?”

  “I’ll give you a tour of the place in just a moment,” Mr. Marriott said. “But let me explain to you that the Helping Hand is more than an overnight shelter. We offer a number of services, such as mental health care programs and Alcoholics Anonymous, which I strongly recommend you attend to help you with your drinking problem.”

  Lonnie’s dad glared at his son. “Who says I have a drinking problem?”

  “Do you have a drinking problem, Mr. Rodríguez?”

  He shrugged. “I like to drink, sure, same as the next guy, but … look, all we need right now is a place to stay, that’s all. I don’t wanna go to no programs.”

  Mr. Marriott sighed. “Let me show you around then.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  HE TOOK THEM TO THE CAFETERIA. It resembled the one at Lonnie’s school. Long lines of men, women and a few children snaked along the walls of each side of the room, waiting to be fed.

  Mr. Marriott introduced Lonnie’s dad to Jerry Parnell, the cafeteria manager. Jerry, as he told them to call him, said that sure, he could always use the extra help.

  Afterward, they took the elevator to the third floor, where Mr. Marriott showed them one of the men’s dorms. The room had rows of bunk beds, most of them already occupied by grungy, beaten-down men, who sized them up and down as soon as they entered. Next to the dorm was the shower room, a large, open area with multiple showerheads, like the one in Lonnie’s school gym. The shower room offered no privacy, and a number of men were bathing in there without any sense of modesty.

  Lonnie had long gotten over his shyness of showering in front of the guys at school, but there was no way he was going to bathe in the same room as those men.

  They got back in the elevator and rode down to the basement, where Mr. Marriott showed them the laundry room, which was lined with rows of coin-operated washers and dryers. There was a sign-up sheet, so Lonnie wrote down his name to reserve a wash time.

  After Mr. Marriott left, Lonnie and his dad took the trash bags out of their car. They carried them up to the third floor and stuffed them inside their assigned locker. Then they made their way to the cafeteria, where beef burritos, pinto beans, salad, sliced peaches and iced tea were being served.

  As soon as Lonnie’s dad finished eating, he spoke with Jerry Parnell. Lonnie sat, mildly amused, watching his dad do “women’s work,” clearing dirty dishes off the tables and carrying them away in gray plastic tubs to the dishwashing area.

  While his dad worked, Lonnie decided to get started on their wash. He asked his dad for some money, and then returned to the dorm to get their clothes.

  He was gathering their things when a man, stinking of nicotine and body odor, approached him. He had watery, yellow eyes and yellow fingernails.

  “What are you doing here by yourself, young man?” the yellow-eyed man asked.

  “I’m getting ready to do our laundry,” Lonnie said nervously.

  The man picked up one of the bags. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  “What are you doing with that boy, Wyman?” another man shouted from a few bunks down. “Is he bothering you, son?”

  “Mind your own business, Lucas. This young man’s with me.” The yellow-eyed man wrapped an arm around Lonnie’s shoulders, which made his skin crawl. “You gotta watch out for these guys. Know what I’m saying? But don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  At that moment, a security guard walked in and saw the man with his arm around Lonnie. “Get away from that boy, Wyman,” he barked.

  “I ain’t doing nothing. I’m just trying to help him out, that’s all.”

  “He doesn’t need your help,” the guard said. “Now get on over to your bunk before I throw you out of here.”

  The yellow-eyed man quietly slinked back to his bed.

  “Are you Lonnie?” the guard asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your father told me to check on you to see if you were okay.”

  “I’m all right. I was just getting our dirty clothes together so I could wash them.”

  “You really shouldn’t be up here without your father,” the guard said. “It isn’t safe. I’m not saying that these men are dangerous, but you can’t take any chances. Don’t talk to anyone here unless your father’s with you.” He picked up one of the bags. “I’ll help you carry these down.”

  He escorted Lonnie to the laundry room, which felt much safer than the dorm. Most of the people in there were women with young children.

  While their clothes churned in the washer, Lonnie did his homework on a table. The laundry room was noisy, but he couldn’t use that as an excuse not to do his work. He had bombed out most of the semester, and he needed to get back on track. If Mr. Treviño was correct when he said that many people became homeless due to bad decisions they’d made in life, Lonnie thought it was time he started making a lot of good ones.

  His dad joined him after a while and helped him fold clothes. They took them back to the dorm room and placed them in their locker. The man with the yellow eyes stared at them, but Lonnie didn’t say anything to his dad about him. Nothing had happened, and hopefully the man would leave him alone.

  They spent their first night at the shelter. Lonnie’s dad insisted his son take the top bunk because he felt he would be safer there. Lights went out at ten-thirty. There was some chatting and laughing in the darkness. Eventually, the talking faded, replaced by loud snoring.

  Lonnie tossed around restlessly in his bunk, unable to sleep. All night, men got up to use the restroom, and he could see their silhouettes moving in the darkness. If he didn’t know better, he could have sworn he saw a pair of watery, yellow eyes, glowing in the dark, staring at him.

  He missed his mom. He wanted her to appear to him and say, “What are you doing in this awful place, mijo? You don’t belong here. Come on, let me take you home.”

  When he woke up the next morning, he discovered that he had wet the bed. The sheets and his underwear were soaked. He hadn’t wet the bed since he was three years old. Feeling humiliated, he climbed off his bunk and woke his dad.

  “That’s okay, buddy. Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’ll just take your sheets to the laundry room, and I’ll get you some clean ones. For now, go take a shower.”

  The last thing Lonnie wanted to do was to shower with a bunch of old, nasty homeless men, but he didn’t have a choice.

  “Can you go with me?” he asked sheepishly. “I don’t want to be in there alone with all those men.”

  “You bet.” His dad had showered the night before, but he stripped off his clothes and joined Lonnie in the shower room. The men laughed and told dirty jokes while they bathed, and Lonnie found the whole experience degrading.

  After a quick rinse, he toweled himself off and got dressed. His dad wadded the sheets and told him he would take care of them later. Then they went downstairs for breakfast.

  By six o’clock, people headed out of the shelter, like cattle. Lonnie grabbed a push broom and swept the cafeteria floor.

  Mr. Marriott stopped by and looked around. He asked Lonnie’s dad how their first night had gone.

  “Listen, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but that dorm room ain’t no place for a boy Lonnie’s age.”

  “I agree,” Mr. Marriott replied. “But it’s the only way I can keep you together. The other option i
s to turn him over to CPS.”

  “Are you sure there ain’t nothing else you can do?” Lonnie’s dad asked. “I mean, that room is really scary. Last night, Lonnie …” He leaned into Mr. Marriott and whispered in his ear.

  Mr. Marriott looked at Lonnie. “I may have something else. Let’s go to my office,” he said, and they followed him down the hallway.

  He shut the door, and after they sat down, he said, “I have a family room available, but like I told you yesterday, those rooms are reserved for women with children. I can let you have it for now, but if a mother and child come in, I may have to ask you to give it up.”

  “I understand,” Lonnie’s dad said.

  “However, in return, I want you to do something for me.”

  “Sure, sure. Whatever you want.”

  “I’d like you to see one of our psychiatrists for counseling.”

  “A psychiatrist?” Lonnie’s dad said indignantly. “I don’t need no psychiatrist. I ain’t crazy.”

  “I didn’t say you were crazy, Mr. Rodríguez. But the fact is, you’ve gone through a tremendous amount of stress, with the loss of your wife, your home … and now this. I think it would be beneficial for you to speak to one of our mental health providers. I’d also like for you to enroll in our Alcoholics Anonymous program. If you agree to do these things, then I will put you in one of our private family rooms.”

  Lonnie’s dad turned away and stared out the window.

  “It’s up to you, Mr. Rodríguez.”

  Grudgingly, he said, “Okay, when can we move into that room?”

  “Right now, if you’d like. Let me show you where it is.”

  The family room had two double beds, a small closet and a chest of drawers. There was a bathroom with a sink, but no shower. Lonnie would continue to bathe at school. But if they were still at the shelter during the Christmas break, he would wash up, using the sink rather than going to the men’s shower room upstairs.

  They took their bags of clothing out of the dorm and carried them down to their new room.