A half-day in the life serving the homeless & homeless states of mind........
The gentle cadence of the auctioneer, the blinking impulse
of the stock exchange, slowed way down……. to the heartbeat awareness of each
and every moment, each and every client. The daily morning meeting begins, like
a flight control tower steadily connecting the dots of our client’s lives
through the fog of broken and blinding headlights. Coordinates, compasses and
compassion-along with our client’s daily psychotropic medication, daily money
allotment and consolations for every shade of light…we head out into the field.
The district’s odd jewel shaped contour is cut into 4
regions along with the ubiquitous downtown. The downtown is for the exhaustive
tourist and our yearly traveling circus called the federal government whereas
the NW is for the rich and suspiciously alert and the other three regions are
for the chocolate in the city.
I will be in NE this day as I align my compass and kick my
old mule in its direction; Giddy-up! I’ve also been graced with having the
on-call phone so that all 70 of our mentally unstable and typically substance
induced clients have direct access to me 24/7.
The first stop on today’s odyssey is to give meds to one of
our more cantankerous, disgruntled,
overtly disorganized clients who has been, as of late, wandering the streets of
Trindad in either a small pink leotard or naked. As for today he is at home and
fully clothed. However, I notice that
the neighbors in this 4 unit apartment have allowed their mean pit bull full
free reign in the fenced in front yard of the apartment complex-denying me
access. It is a warmer day and the windows are up, so I cordially ask the
tenant if he can put his dog inside due to it nearly biting my leg a month
earlier and this request sends the owner into a small tsunami of fury. Knowing
that he is also probably a client of ours I try to devise a plan B, but his
bickering turns into a full fledge family feud between the tenant and his
girlfriend over the merits of dog rights and the limits of private property,
with FU&# and NIG#$* filling each and every other word. At the same time as
this is happening, overlapping in perfect falsetto was an aria being bellowed
from the above apartment and directed at me. I then realized that this was Bob,
an old homeless friend of mine from a few years ago when I worked in
Georgetown. The same Bob who would saunter the streets of Georgetown in his
array of ill fit dresses occasionally donning a lamp shade on his head when the
spirit led him and singing any number of songs from his beloved Frankie boy.
Here he was beckoning me to come up into his new apartment to check out his
digs and share a mixed drink with him. Through the emerging cacophony of the
couple arguing about their dog’s rights and Bob’s bellowing-my head was
starting to swim in their sea of confusion. Through the fog-my client yelled
out through his broken glassed window, ”Who the FU*$ are you and what are you
doing here?” I remind the client that I had known him for over 5 years and that
I was here to give him his meds. Moments later my clothed client enters the
small courtyard reaching out his weathered, large dry hands and taking his meds.
Entering back into my car I realized that the on call phone
had been constantly ringing and before I could turn away it buzzed again. I answered to the
voice of my sweet, small, mean, ball of loving terror-Ms. Julie. Trembling as
she talked and doing all she can to hold back the dam of anger and frustration
that’s ready to burst, she quietly asks where her meds and money were. Before she explodes I reminded her that
someone will be there later in the day, just like every day, and not to worry.
Much like placing small Band-Aids on children’s’ real or perceived boo-boos, this
art takes lots of balming oil. But God Bless my small ball of fire as she truly
needs all the help that she can get and before I can calm her down some more,
the on call phone is ringing from another client. While driving to the next
client’s house 4 more calls have been taken, acknowledged, hugged and set on
their way.
My next client is a diplomat’s son from the jungles of the Congo
and who witnessed so such trauma from their civil wars there that P.T.S.D. and
anxiety have left him mentally unstable and debilitated. As with most client’s
there are tricks to getting into each apartment complex, through backdoors,
sidedoors, screendoors, and the occasional rock throwing at the window, and one
learns the best method quickly. As for Mark, it’s the back fire escape steps
that lead me behind his building, past the couch covered in blue tarp, and to
his backdoor. This client is hard of hearing or shall I say he can’t hear
anything but his own repetitive mantra that he is constantly stating to himself-
so knocking typically awakens the rest of the block and alley cats. Just like
the Price is Right, I never know what’s behind each and every door that I open
at a client’s house and I learned to have this suspended flight or flight
stance as doors open. I hear Mark coming.
Ivy city is known for good drugs, better transvestites and
bad homicides. And here resides this young, shell shocked African running from
the hell of war in his country to be placed in a location where even the cops
hesitate to tread. And to top it off, Mark’s brain continues to tell him that
he needs to be taking late nights walks in the neighborhood and he sees this as
a perfectly logical, safe, risk-free exercise and is appalled to be told
otherwise. The cops stopped by their apartment last week to gain insight into the
dead body found in their bushes and Mark remained oblivious to the fact that he
is still living in a war zone {needless to say I have recently helped ,along
with his brother and guardian, orchestrate for this client to move to another
part of town}. Mark always greets his
guest in the same manner, a ritual of sorts, where he, like a scratched 45 record,
repeats his name, nationality, genealogy and insistence that he is intelligent
over and over for up to five minutes. I have learned that a side hug and a
healthy smile can sidetrack this prerecording and allow me to get a few words
in. This time I was able to implement my strategy, hand him his meds and talk
briefly about being med compliant and the final steps in his apartment move. We
talked for a few moments and then my phone starts to buzz, so we wave goodbyes.
I know this number by heart. Its’ St. Elizabeth’s Psych
ward-home of the notorious John Hinkley-as well as various other unknown
legends. The call is from Joy, whom I believe holds the all time record at St.
E’s for most times committed to the psych ward; like I said she is a legend in
her own right. I believe that the last time that she was admitted, number 35,
was due to her accosting her landlord, taking all her furniture from the
apartment, breaking them into small pieces and lighting them on fire in the
living room floor. She is calling because she will be moving into her new
apartment tomorrow and she is too anxious to wait till morning; like giddy
children on Christmas Eve. I listen as she goes from sobbing to hysteria all in
less than one traffic light as I’m driving while fielding these calls, only to
patiently soothe her anxiety and remind her just how far that she has come;
eventually she agrees and states that she can wait another day. Earlier in the
morning I coarsely joked with my colleague who was ordering her a new set of
furniture for her place that perhaps a stack of firewood would be better suited;
I know….but we have to add some humor and let the light and lightness filter
through.
The next client I refer to as the black Popeye, due to his striking
resemblance with that iconic square jaw, warm demeanor, and short physique.
This client, whose wife of 25 years, died unexpectedly a few weeks ago asleep
in bed next to him, is headed to go see the doctor for his checkup on his
cancer. While patiently waiting for him to come out of the apartment I field a
few more calls: a DC investigator calling to find a client of ours, another who
is about to get out of jail and another who needs a crisis bed for the night as
she feels like jumping off the GW bridge.
Popeye finally gets in the car with a huge jug of some
beverage that I can’t decipher if it’s alcoholic or not but figure that it must
be something that he needs to get from point A to point B. After we breeze through
greetings and salutations I ask how he is coping with his recent loss. Looking
over I could see that he was trying to hold back the pain, the tears, the
trauma and shock of loss and he begins to tremble in sadness. I have rarely
heard weeping and gut wrenching agony like this-it was so real that I could
almost touch the sorrow. I listened as he raised his clinched fists, part
holding on part anguish, while he tried to convey the sadness for the one who didn’t
give up on him when he lost all hope when diagnosed with cancer 5 years; like
Hosea from that old testament story and his radical love for his wife…….Popeye’s
wife was constantly in those days carrying him home at 3 am from the local
tavern or drug houses because she believed in him and loved him; regardless of
conditions………and here he was, it was all in reverse; she was gone and he was
left all alone………I listened some more, empathized and noticed that he would ask
why and plead no! as if a bargain could still be reached. Here I was…….in my own little world perfectly
protected and controlled from all such major calamity and here’s Popeye
crashing through the cosmos ablazing with no safety net……….but somehow there we
are together-openly broken. Everything for Popeye triggered this incredible
love that they shared and every moment he had to choose to slowly let go into
the new.
It turned out his doctor was gone on an emergency, so Popeye
asked me for a favor. We headed to the local drug store so that I could help
him enlarge 3 old Polaroid pictures of his wife so that he could frame them on
his walls. I tried to hold back the tears as absolute jubilation radiated
through Popeye’s body and face as the first 8 by 10 print came out of the
printer and for that moment he was there- back with his wife, looking face to
face, captured in the moment, as he whispered his love for her……as he stood in
that lonely, bleak, blue carpeted drug store the center of his universe opened
up. He stood like a lover at the end of a cell phone, assuring his distant
lover that things were going to be alright-telling her that he was striving to
do what she wanted him to do-to walk in the light of love.
-the clock struck noon
-several more clients to see
-and countless more heart breaks, aches, attacks, ailments,
alignments, choices and rejoices…and before our day ends-may I stop and be
silent at that sector of life where sanity and life teeter delicately between that razor thin line of love and loss.
