Harbor Light Mission Sunday Evening, December 5, 1999 Stayed at Salvation Army Harbor Light for men. Looks like it might have been a reconditioned warehouse with a freight elevator that works although the doors often stall and have to be helped with a push. On the front side of the building there's a large, covered porch with a few men standing or squatting, backs against the wall, smoking or gazing out toward the street, lost in their own thoughts. Walking in, there's a large foyer to the left and a folding table to the right. When the men come in, as late as ten-thirty p.m., they line up in the foyer and, one by one, present identification to a man seated at the table: driver's license, social security card, passport, state identification card--any of these. I gave the man my social security, he asked my birthdate, and gave me a four-by-five inch piece of blue paper with a number written on it and my name written down at the bottom. I'm told to take the freight elevator up to the third floor; there I find a small entryroom, another man at another table index card case in front of him. I can see blankets and sheets stacked in wire shopping carts and on the floor which, by all appearances, is kept very clean. I make my way over to the man and he asks for my identification and the blue slip of paper given to me downstairs, I hand them to him and he places a threadbare towel in front of me and a small bar of soap on top of it. Very businesslike, he tells me the showers are to my left. I tell him I just took a shower before coming here and he says it don't matter, showers are required. Okay, I think, sounds like a good policy to me, and down the hall I trudge, holding the handles of my Randall's paper bag that has some clothes in it, toiletries, newspapers and a book. I find the showers on the right, very clean with a long row of washbasins along the far wall and to the left, about ten or twelve stalls along the back wall, no doors. The showers are in about a twenty-by-twenty foot space, clean, but since I don't need a shower I just wet my towel to wash my face and hands, wet my hair for good effect and then back to the desk. The man behind the desk looks at me a little suspiciously at first: did he have time to take a shower? then seems to shrug his shoulders and tells me to throw the towel in a shopping cart half-filled with others already used. He gives me another small numbered slip--he's kept the first slip I was given downstairs and my social security card in his index box on the table. I'm directed to take my paper bag of personal stuff over to a dutch door at the far end of the room. Two men are standing behind the door carrying on a lively conversation. I give them my bag after taking out my book to keep with me (an idle mind the devil's workshop!) and they ask me for the white slip of paper I had just received. My number on the paper is eighty-one and I see a long row of numbered wooden cubicles where they put my bag in, you guessed it, cubicle eighty-one. They returned the white slip to me telling me not to lose it, you'll need it to get your bag back in the morning. Then they give me a well-washed, well-worn, thick camouflage army blanket and a very worn fitted sheet for a single-size mattress...no pillowcase, and tell me to go ahead and get my bed made before going down to eat dinner. Back down the hall then, it looks like hundreds of bunkbeds double-high in a very large room to the left of the showers and extending far back. At first I wander around wondering which bed to take, top or bottom? Is one area quieter or with better light for reading than another. Then I realized that each bunk bed has two numbers spraypainted on it--a number for the top, a number for the bottom. Aha! I didn't get that college degree for nothing! The number on my ticket, number eighty-one, is also the number of my bunkbed. It takes a few minutes to figure out which direction to look in--so many beds, so many numbers! Should've taken more math courses...but I find it, top bunk better for reading, thank you, and I proceed to get the fitted sheets on. The mattresses are that institutional type, plastic exterior, that squeak and make you sweat if your sheet slips off, which it often does, the stretchy material at each corner is old and not so stretchy anymore and the plastic is slippery enough you wonder if they WD-40 it after the Lysol. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, I slip it on best I can, having to walk around four bunks to the right to get to the other side and secure those corners too. Then the blanket on top and I'm set to go eat dinner. Down the hall, freight elevator down to the first floor, I'm lost. There's a guy, I ask what to do, he directs me to a hallway running to the back of the first floor, take it to the left...aha, a huge cafeteria, several guys behind a glass-fronted serving counter passing down food trays, ladling on a chicken-strip with popcorn shrimp serving, bread, a salad of dark-green lettuce and tomatoes, a couple of pears in juice and two small wrapped chocolate bars like you give out on Halloween. I get my tray and thank them--hey, I'm nothing if not courteous plus it gets you bigger servings if you're consistently nice, know what I mean? And that's life, taking care of yourself so you have something good to give to others. Further down the line, get a glass and some juice out of one of two of those kind of machines that lets you see the juice circulating, sit down and eat! Not as good as the Olive Garden, but certainly adequate, even impressive considering the circumstances. Finish up, carry the tray and glass over to the dishwasher's loading dock, put the chocolates in my pocket for later, I'm full and if not exactly happy, at leat feeling contented. Gimme shelter and freedom from hunger pains and a reasonable amount of dignity due any human being regardless of his station in life, and I feel like I'll be okay, make it through another day. One wall of the cafeteria is filled with opaque glass windows looking out on a full-sized basketball court. I ask a fellow doer (that's the quick and painless way of saying "down-and-outer") if there's any place I can go to smoke (please God!) and he points out to the basketball court. So, out the cafeteria and through another door leading to the basketball court. The far end of the court is full of pallets with boxes of building and remodeling materials: seems they're in the process of remodeling an area upstairs, one guy says, for a TV room and something like a large living room. Ayup, get these guys off the streets and you've done your community a real good service. It's nice to be able to smoke, no big hurry, get that nicotine in baby! I can stay out here as late as ten-thirty p.m. if I want before I have to go up to my bunk on the third floor, just as long as I stay in the building...go outside you ain't gettin' back in. Although the basketball court is walled in about eight feet high against the outside world, the steel or aluminum roof is maybe twenty or thirty feet high so there's a space between and sunset is showing veils of red and orange, taking over the blue of sky. Nice weather here in Houston in December; granted, it gets cold as a witches teat sometimes, drop below freezing and add humidity for a bone-chilling cold...but today is perfect, cool but not chilly and my tummy's full and all I'm lacking is a rocking chair. Still, I'm careful not to show I have a full pack of Marlboro Reds. If there's one universal fault of bums and homeless doers it's that universal need to smoke and therefore bum cigarettes. Add to that I'm dressed better than ninety-nine percent of these guys--not for show, really! I just have a hard time making myself wear really grubby stuff--I'm a bum cut from a different cloth. It is a disadvantage here though, better clothes makes you a marked man, someone with money and smokes to spare. And so, a thousand times a day to "Man, can you spare a smoke?" or the harder line, going for intimidation, "Give me a smoke!" in-my-face like. Good for me I learned early how easy it is to say a simple no. No excuses, no apology...like that. You do have to watch some of them, though. Did you know people have been killed for as little...maybe less? "No" doesn't have to be a put-down, as if anyone who has to beg for a smoke must be the lowest scum on the earth. Neutral but firm, that's the trick, body language, look him in the eye but not too hard. Here's one of the places a man can pick up a motherlode of street wisdom, information, directions: where's the best free meals and shelters, what times are they available, what bus to catch, where to go to get bus tokens, free showers, phone calls, medical attention, where can I have my mail sent? So many things! Get down on this basic level and you start to see how many variables our basic expectations involve. So, I'm talking to two fellow doers and one shares a nugget: Martha's Kitchen, east of downtown, man, catch bus seventy-seven and look for these buildings and you're there...best damn food I ever ate, huge helpings, man, last time I was there they was servin' a quarter-chicken barbequed and potato salad and rolls...hoo boy! I come outta there about to burst, couldn't even make it back to work I's so full! Is it free? Hell yes, whatcha think I's doin' there? Get on over there, man, see for yourself. And that's how it's done...a nugget of golden information and I'm a step closer to health and happiness for free! Well, free in one way. We bums all know we're society's pariahs like the untouchables of old, and a man pays a high price for that knowledge. Enough talk, enough nicotine, time to stretch out on my top bunk, all ready and waiting for me, warm shelter on a cool night, and enjoy a good read before lights out. Down the hall, up the elevator, left on the third floor, see how fast I learn, bunk bed eighty-one off the floor about five feet. Damn, I'm not in such good physical shape anymore, no ladder to help bridge the gap and a mad-lookin' black dude on the bottom bunk. Step on his mattress to swing up and over? I don't think so! I might not sleep so well with a toe or foot bit off. So, bite the bullet, grab the side rail and heave-ho! Shit! Am I just now finding out what thirty extra pounds feels like? But I make it like a man, well, barely, but there. Take off my shoes and put them by the pillow...can't believe I'm actually wearing a hundred-twenty dollar pair of Rockports--you know, waterproof but breathable? Yep, better keep these puppies close by. The pillow's thin and, like the mattress, covered in plastic. Not exactly dream sleep but give the guys a break, they gotta be able to Lysol these suckers down. Take off my shirt and smooth it over the pillow...hope it stays there...that's fine, stretch out to read. Except there's the noise of about fifty doers already there and more comin' in all the time...all ages, sizes and types...talking, singing, farting like all men do when they get together without women around. Old man about three bunks down grinding his teeth like a washboard--ouch! I'm just now realizing how overwhelming it all is. Some look like their body's here but they're ready to cry real tears, others are already curled up asleep and snoring...got to be real used to it or too tired to care. Most seem to be relatively happy though, trading friendly insults with a buddy a few bunks down or across the room--what the hell, let it fly, let it ride! One middle-aged black man is singing a gospel hymn in the sweetest voice...what's he doin' here, sign him up somebody, make him a star! Lucky me, though, I bet I have the most interesting fellow bedmate of all, just across to my right laid back on a top bunk an older, worn-but-still-game Jamaican dude with strangely spaced teeth is tellin' tales to the mad-lookin' black dude below me...yah maan and he's a real talker. Story after story flows in that melodic way they have, mostly about his adventures in the crack cocaine world...busted in New York alright but you got any idea how much time you can get for the same t'ing maan here in Texas? My book's propped up in front of me like I'm reading but I have to listen...this guy's a gifted storyteller! He's relating all these past experiences in a way that makes me feel the story. If only I had my microcassette recorder...what a goldmine of crack culture I could capture here, melodic tales of self-destruction. He goes on steady, one story flowing into another for an hour easy. Then he falters, starts to pick up on another tale but hell, no juice left and he winds down into quietness. Hmmm...still an hour left to read before lights out. Monday Morning, December 6, 1999 Morning at Harbor Light. My first thought is a poem I wrote a couple months ago...I've made it a kind of mantra to contemplate, lift my spirits, strengthen my resolve in the face of life: "The night that falls holds hard fast in its way / (and dawn a dream of brighter things) / An eyelid slips its anchored folds / And flutters in the morning's gold / A day is born that never was before / And how could I ask for more?" With that thought in mind I sit up, oh, still sore from walking so much and the weight of my shopping bag pulling me to one side--but it feels good too, in the way a grunt to a weightlifter is sweet as a lullaby. Shed some dead weight, son, you'll be springin' up to that top bunk! One of Harbor Light's faithful heralds had come around the bunk-space perimeter at five in the morning thumping what sounded like a book, probably a bible, against the wooden frames and in a loud, commanding voice, not quite a shout, said "Rise and shine men! It's a beautiful new day, Praise God!" Looks too young to be giving me advice but no worse than waking up to country western music on the alarm clock. Since I slept in my clothes (hey, I'm homeless, who gives a shit about a wrinkle or two) I just slipped on my shirt and shoes, slid feets to the ground and pounced on the day (yeah right). Fold up the blanket, one more trip around the four bunkbeds to my right to unhook the fitted sheet on the far side and it's down the hall. Stop at the pisser then wash my face and on to deliver my blanket and sheet in exchange for my social security card, retrieve my Randall's bag from its cubicle giving the guy my little white card stored carefully in my wallet with the number eighty-one on it and I'm good to go. Breakfast! The thought gladdens my homeless heart but only for as long as it takes to ride down the freight elevator, whose doors are now stalling every time they open, like an arthritic shutter, and require a good hard shove to get going. Look at the bright side boy! Mo' exercise mo' better! Exit to the first floor and head towards the cafeteria in back, visions of coffee cups and steaming black liquid and creamer.... Whoa! Someone's yelling at me. Do they have a principal's office here and a split-sawn baseball bat with holes drilled in it and lead weights in the end? I'm getting deja vu to yon high school days...shit! I forgot to go by the bathroom and pad my butt with paper towels! But no, this ain't high school and the guy yelling whoa just wants to know where I think I'm going. Think? Is this a trick question? Hopefully breakfast and a cup of coffee, I tell him. No, no, no you gotta wait in this room over here until they ready for you. Where? See the door by the folding table where you came in last night? The room with the vending machines? Gotta wait in there 'til breakfast's served, six-thirty. Six-thirty? Damn, that's almost a whole hour away and all ten of the chairs are taken and the perimeter around the wall is almost filled with leaning, lounging bodies, a good fourth of them stretched out on the floor dead asleep. I'm crestfallen, truly, things had been going so much my way. Slip in between a couple oldtimers barely staying upright and sit on my paper bag of clothes and such. Mantra or no, morning is definitely my slowest time. Seconds stretch like chewed gum into minutes but the minutes seem to stand still. Pull a book out of my bag's front pocket but man, who can read with a mind like molasses? So I do the easy thing and fall into a stupor. A generation later I notice about ten men out of the fifty or so crowded into the room forming a ragged line pointed toward the door by the folding table. There's something sneaky, subversive in their movements as if they might wake up the human logs on the floor if they move too fast and start a revolution. I'm still groggy but dammit no one ever said I couldn't follow a lead once it hit me over the head. I slide up from my place, all liquid motion so's not to wake up cheech and chong on either side of me and join the standing band facing the door like it's the promised land. We are a ragged bunch, eyes heavy and clothes rumpled, but we're ready like freddy to go forth and bum smokes and take a free meal when it's offered and ask for it when it ain't. Suddenly, finally, we get our marching orders...onward christian soldiers into war! Move your limbs and masticate bravely! And we're off to eat at last. Down the hall it's ho! now not whoa, as if our labor in waiting was created to serve this moment. Right-turn into the cafeteria, right-turn towards the serving side...one old man with gnarly whiskers and beautiful long nosehairs almost stumbles...all this right-turning could make a man dizzy. Breakfast is pancakes tepid and cold cereal and grits, no sugar...get a glass, there's milk in that one but darn, no coffee. How can you have a mission without coffee and sugar for god's sake? I ask the guy next to me. Gotta go down to St. John's for that, the guy behind me says. Alright, tomorrow I'll be there or I'll be square! And I was too...there, not square, the very next morning. Most mission meals are fast like the military...eat it all before someone pulls the plug prematurely and ruins your outlook on the day. A homeless man has to try to keep his chin up, he's too close to the abyss to look down much...unless you're collecting used butts to make up a smoke. Trays to the dishwasher and each man moves bravely out into a new day, praise god!
Copyright © 1999 Randy Guess |