The Street Vendor

It's a small stand - one large table full of political bumper stickers, jacket patches & buttons. He wears black fingerless gloves no matter the time of year and he sits on an upturned milk crate. When he folds up at night, every thing will fit on one little luggage carrier.

The cloth draped over the table reaches all the way to the ground and it covers the fact that a large backpack and sleeping bag roll is under there.

He always has a smile and a big hug for me when I come strolling by. Always something to say about how good I look.

A couple of times I was out late on the avenue looking for a place to sleep and he's offered to let me come along with him. He knows a couple of decent places to roll out and never gets hinky with me. He's a good cuddler without taking liberties.

He's the one who showed me that cardboard makes the best insulation between a sleeping bag and the hard concrete. He always has an extra blanket to lend.

I heard from a friend recently that he died - another one lost to Hepatitis C. That's a long painful undignified death.

[Hepatitis C] [homeless]

The Last Time - The Hand of the Goddess

In January of 1994, I was doing a little thing every couple of days. I would pick up money from a couple of different people and then take a trip out of town a ways to a friend's house and get something. I'd get enough for the money I picked up and there was always a little extra in it for me. Sometimes there was a lot extra for me. It took me two days to do this gig, cause my friends that I visited didn't like traffic at their house. So if you came over - you hung out for a couple of days. Their neighbors thought I was her sister after a while and got to know my face.

Anyway, when I got back to town after each trip, I went down to the marina to separate out what was mine from what I had to drop off. I liked to put mine into a number of much smaller containers so that if anyone saw what I had, they only saw the smaller amount and couldn't figure out how much I really had. After this trip, I probably had 10 or 15 of the smaller packages in my pocket for my own use.

I had just finished up, had dropped off what I needed to and was hanging out at the marina trying to decide if I was going to head back to where I was staying. I had been staying with this guy, but he was bugging me. For some reason, he seemed to think that he was entitled to half of what I had. Anyway, another friend came up and we got to talking and I mentioned that the next day was my birthday.

He suggested that I come out to his houseboat and he would cook me a nice dinner for my birthday. When he mentioned a hot shower, I was sold and off we went.

The houseboat was moored way out in the bay, not tied up at some marina and it was so nice out on the water. I took a long hot shower and had a great dinner. It was nice to sleep in a good bed and not be woken up at all by anyone. I stayed out there for 3 days before heading back.

The place I had been staying was a duplex with a big apartment on the top floor - so 3 units. It had gotten really hot there for a while cause people were in and out all hours of the day and night. It was down in the industrial area right across from a wrecking yard. When I got back there, no one was there. Not in any of the units. I knocked on the door and a neighbor said "The police came thru a couple of days ago with warrants and took all those people to jail"

Yep, I found out later that on my birthday, the police had come and gone thru all the units and taken everyone on the property to jail. If I had been there, I would have had a pocket full of packages and surely would have been charged with possession with intent to sell.

I left there feeling like the hand of the Goddess had reached down, picked me up by the back of my neck and shaken me hard, saying "Is this what you want?".

It wasn't what I wanted - I've never been arrested and I would like to keep it that way. It was important to me not to be arrested, cause somehow I felt that if I didn't have a police record, I might be able to eventually get my life back. But if I ever had an arrest for possession, I would be forever stuck with it on my record and would have no possiblity of recovering my previous life.

So, I got what belongings I could carry, went back to the houseboat, sold or did the rest of what I had, and bought a ticket out of there.

I haven't used since and it's been 12 years since that day. I now have everything I never dreamed possible for me to have. A home, a family, an amazing job, my sanity. I think of how insane my life was then and I am thankful every day for the peace in my life.

[homeless][recovery]

two hippies and their kids

There was a couple who came to town one day, set up a blanket on the sidewalk and did hair braids and sold trinkets on the avenue by the other street vendors. They had 2 or 3 ( my memory is dim with the passage of time) little girls who were just the greatest. I met them in the park one day and offered to let the girls stay in the park with me while their parents worked the street.

The girls and I played in the park and I told them stories and taught them songs. I taught them the songs of my childhood: My Bonnie lies over the ocean, You are my Sunshine, The hole in the bottom of the Sea, Little Bunnie Foo Foo, Ain't got a barrel of Money, etc...

We hung out for weeks before they moved on to Colorado in their big white school bus or where ever it was that they were headed to next.

A while later (time has no meaning on the street - it could have been a few months, it could have been a year) I saw the bus coming down the street. It parked and out came the girls running to meet me. I was surprised they remembered me and the parents said "how could they forget, the girls sang every song you taught them every single day".

They were only staying for a week or so, but invited me to stay in the bus with them. The girls started calling me Auntie Barbara and begged me to come live with them when they left. They offered to share one bed of the bunk beds and said I could have the other one. Their parents added their offer to that one - said I was welcome to come with them.

I declined, but I often wonder what path my life would have taken if I had gone with them.

[homeless][children]

Vietnam Vets

It seemed like most of the men I met when I was homeless that were my age or older were Vietnam Vets.

I enlisted active duty Navy at the tail end of Vietnam. I was in a stateside unit that had men who had been rotated back, but it was only talked about on late night watches - and not really much then. When I went into the reserves later, I became friends with a few guys that had been in Vietnam and there were a a number of late nights drinking and telling stories that they let me hang out with them for.

I was talking to a guy the other day and he asked me why I thought Vietnam Vets had more of a hard time adjusting to re-entry into civilian life. I thought about the difference in the Korean War and WWII vets returning and it seemed to me that one of the big differences is that Vietnam Vets were not celebrated as heros when they returned.

Ok, this is just my opinion, I'm no expert and I certainly haven't done any research, but the guys I met on the street all had the same refrain... "We did what they asked us to, and then we were despised when we came back". I thought that could be one of the reasons that Vietnam Vets had a harder time with PTSD and living a life. I know that the guys I hung out with were bitter and resentful about the way they were treated when they came back and got out of the service.

I knew this guy called Sarge, and another one called Captain while I was homeless. Sarge had a messed up leg and couldn't walk very well. Captain was chronically ill from agent orange. They both had flashbacks and if a layperson could diagnose PTSD, I would sure say they both had it.

I never saw them together, don't even know if they knew each other, but they both had some characteristics in common. Each one of them asked me if I was hungry any time they saw me. Either one of them would (and did) give me a blanket and a safe place to sleep if I was tired. No matter how drunk they were, they were invariably polite to me.

One time when I was looking for services, the veterans counselor at the services center talked to me about a homeless veteran re-entry program. I had to have 48 hours clean and make a 6 month committment. I thought it was a great program and hope that it helped some of the guys get off the streets.

Sarge was still there the last time I was in town, but Captain isn't around anymore. No one could tell me where he went.

[homeless][Vietnam Vets][life][personal]

Walking the dog

I knew a guy with a big red dog. I really liked the dog. The guy was ok, but the dog was great.

One night I rode with the guy and his dog out to one of his friend's house. I stayed there with the dog and one of the guys that lived there while my friend and one of the other guys went looking for something. I hung out for a while, but then got bored and uneasy and decided to walk back to my own neighborhood. I took the dog with me.

The dog and I ended up having to walk down a street that had the reputation of being where the streetwalkers hang out looking for "dates". The reputation is true and there I was at 2 am in a skirt.....

The dog loved to play tug of war and using his leash as a tug toy was a lot of fun for both of us and we would stop every few blocks or so to do that.

Yeah, I can only think what a sight that might have been. Girl in a dress playing tug of war with a big dog out on the stroll.

The weird part is that guys would pull over in their cars and ask if I wanted a "date". How spooky is that? I wanted to ask, "What do you want? Me AND the dog?" I just laughed them off and walked on.

A police car pulled up as the dog and I were playing tug of war and the officer asked if I needed any help. I told the dog to drop it and sit - he did - what a good boy. I told the officer my story - about being abandoned and having to walk home. He told me this was not a good area to be in and I told him the story about the guys asking me for a date.

He was not able to give me and the dog a ride to where we were going, but said that he would patrol the street to make sure that I was not harassed anymore.

I continued my walk back to where I was staying and eventually the guy showed up and got his dog.

I sure miss that dog.

Lost and found and then lost again

I was sitting in the park one day. There was a music event of some sort going on at the stage - God rocks or something. Lots of people around - people that weren't normally hanging out there.

I had my blanket spread out and my treasures surrounded me. My bicycle laid on one side and I was fiddling with something. I may have been sorting beads or taking some small electronic device apart for the cool brass pieces inside of it - anyway - I was in my own little world.

The shadow of a person fell over my space and whoever it was asked me something. I didn't even look up, just said "no thanks" and continued with what I was doing. The person didn't move and spoke again - this time I heard my name and I looked up.

It was a friend from the BEFORE TIMES. From when I worked and lived in a house and had friends and functioned. She and I had met when I first moved here and had been room-mates at times, lovers at other times. She'd been there for me after I was raped and I remember loving her.

She asked if I would have dinner with her, we could catch up. I said sure and we packed up my bicycle and stuff and put it in her truck.

She took me home with her and I got to take a long shower. We went out to dinner and talked for hours and then she let me stay with her that night. One of our conversations revealed that she had kept up with her sobriety and had about 7 or 8 years clean and sober.

The next day, she was off work and we just hung out - then she asked if I would go to a meeting with her. I went with her and sat there thinking "man, these women are not doing so hot"

The next day she asked if I would consider living with her, she said that she still loved me and wanted to know if I thought I could stop using and be a part of her life. I thought about it and told her that I just didn't think that I could do it.

I left the next day and went back to the park.

She came by once in a while and took me home, let me bathe, fed me and dragged my sorry ass to a meeting. I would stay a few days and then run off. There was one time when I thought I could stop using and I stayed with her for a few weeks, but I was wrong and violated her trust badly. I loved her, but could not get clean for her.

When I moved to Phoenix and decided that I had to get clean or die, I knew what to do. She had showed me that a better life was possible and that there were tools that I could use to get that life.

I want to thank her for all that I have now. None of it would have been possible if she had not found me, and continued to find me, and refused to give up on me. She saved my life and I hope that in some way she knows how much I appreciate it and how much I love her for it.

Standing on the Overpass

I stopped using for a time - moved to Phoenix and got about 6 months of recovery under my belt. I even got a little sane for a while.

It didn't last and I came back, back to the streets, back to using, back to trying to find a little oblivion.

But something happened to me after that little bit of clean time. I found that dope didn't work the way it did before. I couldn't count on the distance from the world that I craved. I started doing more at a time, hoping that the dope was just not as good as it used to be and that somehow I could get back to that place of detachedness where the pain was held at bay long enough for me to just exist for a little while in a bubble of blessed relief.

Not happening, no longer could I count on hours and hours of wandering in a fog of forgetfulness.

One night I was walking up from the marina, going back up to the park for breakfast. This one overpass over the freeway is a long slow rise high up in the air. There's a sidewalk for pedestrians, but no barrier. Just a low guide rail that doesn't even come up to your knees.

It was almost dawn - the sky in the east was light, but the sun was not up yet and I walked up onto that overpass on my way to another day. I reached the highest point and looked down at all the cars speeding past. So many people on their way to something.

I stood there with the sounds of traffic and the bay's waves and thought about how easy it would be to turn my back to the guide rail and just let go. How simple it sounded to stop fighting, to stop trying, to stop feeling, to just stop being. I wouldn't have to jump, simply relax one last time and let the wind carry me over.

It sounded so easy. So desirable. So do-able.

I thought it through and then I realized that in order to follow that to the conclusion of the act - my body would have to hit someone's car. Then I thought about how thoroughly it would f--k up someone's day (week, year) to have a woman's body come hurtling thru the air and land on your car while you were driving to work. Man, that would be so bad.

So I walked down off the overpass and resolved to not use that route any more.

What to remember

I was talking to a friend this morning about memories. It seems to me that as I get older, how much storage space I have to remember stuff dimishes. Ok, perhaps the data has just exceeded the space.

In any case, I find that the stories I have to tell, are not dramas about how hard it was. They are not about the tragedies of being homeless, but instead about the people whose lives touched mine in a way that even today makes me smile and miss them.

I'm pretty sure that I could dredge up the stories about being afraid, about being in pain, about selling, and using drugs, about standing on the overpass wanting to jump, and I probably will have at least one of those in here - with a happy ending and the lesson learned.

But that's not what I created this space for. I wanted a place to learn how to put in words the people and places and times that have molded my heart into what it is today.

I guess that is what the memory storage process is for me these days. I choose which memories to keep and which to let go. I hold on to the good memories and only keep the lesson from the painful ones.

If I can do that, put into words on paper the stories of those whose lives touched mine, perhaps they will never be forgotten. Perhaps the lesson will spread to someone else that love doesn't live in a building with people in it - love lives in the people.

Flowers for everyone

There was a routine to my days for a while. Well, to my nights and days...

I liked to ride my bicycle at night - late at night - about 2 or 3 am. The world is still then and the feeling of being the only person in the world is strong. At that time it was a good feeling.

All night long I would ride around my favorite places, stopping here and there to see what there was. Right before dawn, I would start to head back up the hill to the park for breakfast. The Catholic Worker organization would bring oatmeal or grits to the park every day - 7/365. They brought coffee, milk, brown sugar, hard boiled eggs, and day old pastries. That breakfast could last you all day.

There was a little flower stand about 2 blocks from the park, and they set their trash out each night on the sidewalk in two cans with a stack of boxes next to them. They threw away all flowers and greens that were starting to fade.

I would stand there with a box from the pile and go through each can, taking out any flower that still had any life left to it, all the greens and baby's breath too. I lay each find into my box until the box was full.

I would wheel my bike with the box balanced on the handlebars up to the park and find my spot for the day. In the mornings I liked to sit out in the grassy area in a sunny spot. By the time I got my bicycle unloaded, my blanket spread out and the box of flowers set down, breakfast would arrive.

Whether I was hungry or not, I always got two large cups of oatmeal or grits and a huge cup of coffee. Lots of milk, butter and sugar for the cereal and milk and sugar for the coffee. I always accepted the egg, but usually gave it away - hard boiled eggs give me gas.

Then I would sit on my blanket in the early morning sunshine and arrange my flowers. Some days I sorted them by color, other days by type. Sometime I just gathered them all together into a huge bundle and tied the whole thing to my handle bars.

Then there were the fun days. I loved to make small bouquets with a fern and some baby's breath and 3 or 4 flowers, tied with ribbon. I could sit there for a couple of hours making them. Then I would head up to the avenue to give them away.

I would put a bouquet under people's windshield washer blade when their car was parked at the market and then sat across the street to see what they did when they found it. Very rarely did anyone just throw it down.

I would hand them to people walking by - usually they took them. Sometimes the guys were startled - but the girls smiled at me. That was the fun part - seeing how a couple of flowers could make almost anyone smile.

A number of my street friends would take a bouquet from me and sit it on top of their carts or backpacks. And the street vendors always were happy to get a little something as I went by.

There were times when I did this 2 or 3 times a week and then other times when I went for months without visiting the flower stand. I remember being content for hours at at time, picking flowers out of the trash, sorting and bundling them up and then distributing them into the world.

Not dead yet

It was common for me to spend days at a time alone down by the railroad tracks or to go visit some other part of town. My central points were usually a SRO gone bad that some friends of mine lived in, or the park.

One time I had been gone for 3 or 4 days - wandering in my own little world with little care for anything happening anywhere. When I came back to the SRO, I met someone on the stairs who said they were happy to see that I was not really dead.

I was kinda confused by that, but wrote it off to their distorted reality when high. I understand how that happens....

When I got to my friend's room, however, I understood what the other person had said. It seems there was another homeless woman named Barbara that hung out in a different part of town. She had been found dead in a shed in someone's back yard a couple of days prior and the story had been in the newspaper.

The only homeless person my friends knew named Barbara was me, so naturally they thought I was the one who had been found.

I heard that there was talk of who was going to go and try to identify the woman to see if it really was me - but I don't know what happened with that. I know that a woman I knew from Before almost called my mom when she read the story.

Rumors of my death were (and still are) premature.....

Two guys who worked signs

These two were not your typical guys who stand by the freeway with "homeless please help" signs. No, these guys stand by the Home Depot with signs that say "need a job". They stand there in their tool belts and they frequently get picked up by someone looking for day labor.

Most days, they just get handed a buck or two by people going by.

I met them in the park doing their nightly routine. They come into town, stop at the store and buy something for dinner and a 6 pack of beer. They might stop at the park for some smoke. Then they get on the bus and ride down to the marina. Every thing they own is in huge backpacks they carry. Once they knew me, they would invite me to go with them in the evenings.

We sit at a picnic table by a BBQ box and they prepare whatever it is they bought to eat. They drink the beer and smoke the smoke and eat. They always shared everything with me - and sometimes I would have something to share with them. More often than not, I would not even have bus fare, but they always brought me along if they saw me.

We would sit up until after dark, talking. Once it was dark enough, we would climb a little hill and find the cardboard stashed from before. I never knew that two pieces of cardboard can cushion the ground and insulate from the cold the way it does.

We roll our sleeping bags out and sleep there throughout the night. It's peaceful and calm there with the water sounds so close. And I feel safe with these guys.

In the morning, we walk over to the marina showers. They have a key to get in, someone they did some work for gave it to them. The luxury of a hot private shower in the morning is amazing. I would stay in there for a much longer time, but the guys have to get to work. They head out in the morning and I walk back up to the park to see what the rest of the day is going to be like.

One evening a week, I could always run into them at the laundrymat washing their clothes. On nights when it's raining, they would look for me, cause they would get a room in one of the seedy motels on University for the night. It was great to sleep in a bed once in a while, they took turns on who gets the bed each time. They always let me sleep in the bed too.

One of them got a steady job and they both moved into an apartment in the suburbs for a long time. I didn't see them around much after that.

The man who fought the devil every day

He stands on the street with his hands cupped into a bowl shape in front of him. He's a fairly tall man, in shabby clothes. He's not drunk and does not appear to be under the influence of any drug. He tries to make eye contact with those that walk by. He doesn't speak and it's never clear exactly what he is doing. Is he asking for money with those outstretched hands? No one looks directly at him and even when they put money in his hands, they never touch him.

I was waiting for dinner one night at one of the churches that feed the homeless on the weekends and we started talking. This is the story that he told me.

He woke up one day in the hospital with a massive head injury. He had no memory of how he had been hurt and what his life before the accident consisted of. He had family come to visit while he was there and he remembered them, but did not feel an emotional connection to them.

While he was in the hospital, he realized that he is actually the current incarnation of Moses and that his task is to prevent Armegeddon by holding the devil at bay.

I asked him how in the world he was going to do that and he said that it is a hard struggle with the devil, but that so far, he is barely able to hold on.

When I asked him how he can tell who has the upperhand in this struggle, he explained that all day long he looks for the devil in people's eyes. When he sees the devil, he concentrates with all his might to drive the devil from that person. His goal is to see fewer people with the devil in their eyes than he sees without. His fear is the people who won't look him in the eye, he can't tell if the devil has that person and can't try to drive the devil out.

We sat and talked for a long time and he said that he was so tired. This struggle was almost a bigger task than he felt capable of handling. Every day it was harder and harder to find anyone with the light of god shining from them or even a person cut off from god without the devil. He felt that he could count the neutrals on his side of the balance.

We talked about how much he used to like playing the guitar and how little time he had to do that now. My friend R-- loaned him a guitar once and he really could play well. For a moment in time he played and sang and was not fighting his fight.

Every time I passed him, I looked him in the eye and asked how he was doing. His standard reply was "I am barely holding on". Somedays he told me that it was not going well, that his strength was so low that he feared this was the day that the gates of hell would open and the fight would be over.

I often wonder what sidewalk he is standing on and if he feels the struggle is going his way.

The man whose wife and child died

My friend was tall and very thin. He was older than I, by a lot of years. He didn't have any teeth and wore bad dentures that he had found - they clattered when he spoke.

He rode his bicycle everywhere, usually with a cobbled together trailer of some wheelchair parts loaded down with who knows what.

He almost always had some sort of squat going in a parking lot or under a building and would find futons and beds that he hauled there. I could count on him for a soft, safe place to sleep - if I knew where to find him.

We sat up one night talking about ourselves and how we had come to be where we were. He told a story full of pain about a younger man that drank too much. He was driving a car under the influence and got in a very bad accident that was his fault. His wife and son were killed but he was not injured.

Even 30 years after it happened, the pain crippled him. We talked about the oblivion that can be found and the necessity to make the world back away from our skin. How at times it feels like the air itself is laced with razors and can cut you if you even breathe.

When he was high (which was every moment he was awake) he always had a smile for me and an offer to share everything he had. No matter how little dope he had, some of it was mine for the asking. He found food all the time and tried to feed me everytime he saw me.

One time, he came up to a place where I was camped. He had stopped at the Bakery dumpster and the fruit stand on his way up the hill. He pulled a angel food cake out of the box on the back of his bike and then a bag of peaches from somewhere. The peaches were huge and overripe. He told me that peaches were god's way of making sure that we know how to eat angel pussy by the time we get to heaven. I watched him start to eat that peach and sure enough - that's exactly what it looked and sounded like. How could it get any better? Angel food cake and angel pussy peaches.

He died from Hepatitis C - a long slow painful death.

I loved that old man and hope that he is in a better place where his pain is gone and that angel pussy is as good as he hoped.