Across the Great Divide

World Book Night in Grand Junction, Colorado.

I chose Michael Perry's Population: 485 as the title I'd distribute for World Book Night*. I thought his tales of small town life, quirky characters and sense of humor would appeal to the potential readers I approached today at the local soup kitchen.

On my way into town with the books, I came upon a fellow with a cane I'd often seen walking along Monument Road. Since he was heading my way, with his back to traffic, I pulled over to offer him a ride. His brown hair fell well past his shoulders and he moved toward me with an unsteady step. I figured he didn't get many offers.

Turned out he didn't want a ride. He was walking as rehab from back surgery, though he said it wasn't working too well. Sometimes he did go to town, but this trip was an out and back to the mountain bike trailhead about a mile down the road. His name was Herb, he said, and he rented a room in the house up the road, which looks like the sort of place for folks who are recovering from one thing or another. He was wearing a jacket from the West Elk Mine, a coal operation owned by billionaire Bill Koch.

My first customer.

The second was the guy at the recycling center where I unloaded a mass of cardboard, cans and beer bottles. He listened to my pitch, then said, "I'll take it for my wife. She's the reader."

Who knows, he may pick it up himself if his wife starts reading him selections like this:

The Beagle has other problems. Both his ex-wives work at the only gas and convenience store in town. So he's gotten to where he avoids the Gas-N-Go. Drives to Bloomer for his morning gas and coffee. Sometimes he'll send his new girlfriend in to get him a can of chew. The ex's have been known to give her the evil eye, and sometimes they slap down the Kodiak a little sharply. "They don't like it," says the Beagle, "but they know my brand!" Big guffaw.

There's something every couple can chew on in that passage.

I parked next to the Catholic Outreach building and found a couple guys I know from the day center hanging out.

Roger has visited Wisconsin and Minnesota in his travels and said he was up for a book about life in the midwest.

"I was in jail for three days and was part way through a book set in Minnesota, but they wouldn't let me take it when I left," he said.

The giveaway is aimed at infrequent readers, and I suppose interrupted ones qualify, too.

I worked down the line outside the soup kitchen and got a lot of takers and a few polite refusals. I know from my time in the day center there are some avid readers on the street but some aren't very literate. (Last week, I confirmed the spelling of get and next for a texting guest.)

Paco turned me down. He reads, he says, but needs large print editions. Another man took a copy once he confirmed I wasn't handing out religious tracts. The two women in the photo above each took a copy.

After lunch I headed back to the parking lot and spied a man with a backpack and bedroll hugging the corner of the fence enacting the international sign for I couldn't hold it any more. I couldn't see his face when he turned around, but I recognized what he was slipping into a pocket of his pack.

Population: 485.

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* World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person.  Each year on April 23, tens of thousands of people go out into their communities and give half a million free World Book Night paperbacks to light and non-readers. 

World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so. But it is also about more than that: It’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways—through the sharing of stories.

Shelter Report: Winter Angel.

If you're downtown much, you've seen the couple I'll call Jorge and Vanessa.

He moves slowly, pushing a sort of heavy duty luggage cart loaded with clothing and miscellaneous possessions. His impassive expression can look like a dangerous glare because of his unkempt hair and fu-manchu. Sometimes his moustache is flecked with foam. I think he takes medications that sometimes put him in a bit of fog.

But if you speak with him, you'll find he observes the world with amusement.

The bird-like Vanessa dresses a bit further out than Big Edie of Grey Gardens, favoring long dresses and multiple layers that cover most of her body in all seasons. This week's head gear consisted of a colorful silk scarf, a knit wool cap and a brown plastic grocery bag.

She's very particular about hygiene. She calls me Roger.

I hadn't seen them at the Day Center all winter until this week, so I asked Jorge whether their living situation had improved.

This Tioga's only 35, but you get the idea.

No, he said. They were camping again, but over the winter they'd met a woman in the park. She'd offered them a place to stay in her back yard—a 40-year-old Dodge Tioga.

But one night in January it was so cold Jorge told Vanessa, I don't know if we can make it. We've got to do something.

So they found the woman's house and she let them move into the camper. When she came to the door and told us we could stay, I thought we'd found an angel, he said. Later he realized her friendliness was largely the product of alcohol and pot.

The Tioga was in bad shape but it was better than sleeping outside. During the day Jorge worked to replace the floor and other parts of the interior suffering from dry rot.

Their host was anxious to get her yard cleaned up and she  wanted them to take the camper, Jorge said, but the title was kind of funny and they had no place to park it. (She had two sons living with her but couldn't get them to even take out the garbage.)

With the warmer weather, Jorge and Vanessa are back on the street and presumably their angel will come up with another strategy to unload the Tioga.

Last August, the local paper announced it would help us recognize "vagrants"—who have “rejected much of society’s norms, even while they eagerly accept its charity”—from “the truly homeless” who have “involuntarily fallen on hard times.”

The Daily Sentinel distinguishes between the term “homeless,” for those temporarily without a home and working to improve their lot, and “vagrant,” for those choosing a lifestyle without permanent residence, as defined by Merriam-Webster.

As I wrote to the editor at the time, I’m all for precise language as long as it reflects precise distinctions. But how does a distant oberserver know the good homeless from the bad ones?

Have the mentally ill fallen on hard times voluntarily or not? Will compilers of The Blotter determine for us which persons arrested are trying to better their lives?

Will reporters ask people without homes whether they “eagerly accept“ charity or do so reluctantly? How long must someone try to get back on his or her feet before that person qualifies as a vagrant?

Why is losing a home through foreclosure taken as evidence of good intentions, while having a one’s campsite repeatedly disrupted by authorities is no excuse for wandering from place to place?

What about common criminals and suspicious characters with fixed addresses? Do we need labels for them, too?

It may be comforting to believe people are worthy/unworthy, lazy/industrious, smart/stupid, able/disabled. But the world doesn't quite line up that way. Not from day-to-day or even within one person.

In print, the newspaper seems to have backed off its declaration. The labels, though, never go away.

Shelter Report: The Old Sex Offender Gets a New Start, Sort of.

The man I'll call Martin walks around the corner and back before coming in the front door of the Day Center. That's a common approach by first-time visitors since the building has no sign to identify us—just a partially glassed-in vestibule that might once have been the entry to a defunct dry cleaners.

Right now, though, it's a pretty good bet this is the place he's been sent to learn about services for the homeless, since through the window he can see a man with two black eyes who's too intoxicated to be admitted.

Martin's a small man in his 70s with a round, pleasant, hypertensive face and white hair. Imagine actor Ray Walston, long past his My Favorite Martian days, playing a leprechaun.

Only this leprechaun is towing an oxygen bottle with one hand and grips the handle of three-footed cane with the other.

Martin has toddled over from the Rescue Mission, a few blocks away. The Rescue Mission specializes in recently released prisoners who are trying to get reintegrated into straight society and need a stable address to give their parole officer. He told me upon release he was dropped on a street corner in Denver with a box of his possessions that he couldn't transport, given his walker and oxygen bottle. He went into a store to call a cab, and by the time he came back out, his box was gone.

He doesn't say how he got to Grand Junction, and I don't ask. With new guests, my job is to be welcoming, orient them to our services as well as what they want to know about other help, and collect some basic information.

Are you homeless? How long? Where are you living? Are you a veteran? Disabilities? Employed or looking for work?

We also ask if they have identification and for contact information for another person we could reach in case of an emergency. Many do not have driver licenses. They have a state ID card, a corrections ID or need to replace a lost ID. A fair number list a local relative, and a similar number, including Martin, can't supply the name of anyone at all.

In Martin's case, he had a Colorado Corrections ID and another card that identified him as a registered sex offender.

In my forthcoming novel, Monument Road, a young man working in his sister's day care center is accused of inappropriate touching. Joe Samson, a local reporter, decides to use the case as a hook for a deeper investigation. He interviews the police official responsible for tracking the county's sex offenders:

The captain unrolled his bundle, a county map covered with colored plastic tapes, the sort used to mark legal documents for signature. “Every one of these tabs represents a registered sex offender,” he said. “About half of these are in Grand Junction, the rest in the county’s jurisdiction. The vision is to be able to generate a map from the database and see all our sex offenders in one place.” He paused. “So to speak.”

The map covered McLearn’s desk. In places, the tabs were stuck atop each other, as if a load of autumn leaves had been dumped on a neighborhood. Joe’s eyes scanned immediately to the Redlands. No flags close to his house. He looked for the Crimmins-Diaz address. There was a scatter of red and yellow tabs on Orchard Mesa, but none very near Wee Amigos Day Care.

McLearn said, “County-wide, we’re watching more than four hundred. The number’ll just keep growing, because once these guys register, it’s tough to get off the list. If they stay clean, they can petition for removal, but who wants to be the judge who decided a guy was not a threat—then he goes out and abducts a little girl?”

“So the numbers keep growing, the problem looks worse, the public cries out for more protection and the numbers grow some more.” Joe meant to phrase it as a question.

“You could put it that way,” said McLearn. “I didn’t. There are definitely predators you want to supervise forever. But that’s only about four of the four hundred guys we’re tracking. The rest—especially your child molesters—their risk of re-offending is way lower than your average criminal.”

“And why is that?” Joe asks. “Do the extra restraints work?”

McLearn shuffled through a drawer, then gave up looking. “A while back, there was a big hue and cry over child molesters living near schools and playgrounds. The state did a study before passing a new law restricting where they could live. It found their distance from schools and such didn’t make any difference. You know what mattered most?”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t some extra-special public humiliation,” Joe said. McLearn gave him a sharp look. “I mean, it seems like a funny system, where a paroled drug dealer or murderer could move in next door and you wouldn’t know it, but you get notified about a guy who got a sixteen-year-old pregnant. So what does matter most?”

“Support systems,” said McLearn. “The guys are more likely to succeed if they have treatment, a job, friends and neighbors who support them. The trouble with shaming these guys—they’re more likely to move away from their support network to get out of range of the pitchforks. We have people come here from out of state exactly for that reason. I don’t want to say community notification’s a joke, but most of the people we have here are unlikely to reoffend. For the most part, you’re already going to know the person who molests your child, and it’s someone you trust.”

Shelter Report: Signs of Spring.

The most reliable sign of spring in the Day Center—aside from the lack of bulky coats, knit hats and gloves—is the increased number of times the hair clippers are checked out. The front vestibule has a small mirror mounted on the wall and the heavily traveled floor is the one place we allow hair cutting.

Last week, three haircuts were given during my shift and a fourth was aborted after the guest cutting his own couldn't get the clippers to mow through his thick hair.

Yesterday JD, a tall, skinny wraith who walks with the sideways curl of a stroke, allowed his long white hair and beard to be taken down to the skin. Others who'd wintered with long hair came in looking clean cut, including one regular who, without his ubiquitous ball cap in place, might've passed for a banker.

I suspect the skinhead look is most popular, a long with a few mohawks, because it extends the time until the next cut. Also, the style is easy for volunteer barbers with limited skills—no trimming, evening or fades.

As you might imagine, not many of our male guests are highly invested in their appearance, and a radical change from time to time may even be advantageous for a few of them.

But the biggest reason may be that spring is also the time to find work.

Road work, construction and landscaping jobs come back with the warmer weather, and spring is a critical time for pruning the valley's vineyards and orchards so the vines stay healthy and the trees are shaped for efficient picking.

One new guest, fresh out of prison and living in the nearby mission shelter, was doing a phone interview for a job he'd found in the morning paper. A request for an in-person interview was complicated by the fact that he doesn't have a car and the work is in Palisade—a fruit-growing town about 13 miles away with what you might call spotty bus service to the local farms.

An additional challenge was the ankle monitor he must wear as a condition of his probation. He can't leave a proscribed area of the city without prior authorization—all of which he explained to the woman on the phone.

I know another man who found orchard work a few weeks ago. He's a firefighter on permanent disability from being caught in the collapse of a burning school building, and he's survived a bout with cancer. Shortly after landing the job, he was stricken with migranes that kept him awake at night in the overflow shelter. Last time I saw him a few weeks ago, he was walking like man trying not to spill a large bowl of water.

I haven't seen him here since, and I hope it means he's working.

James, too, was moving a bit gingerly. He's in his 50s. He'd spent Tuesday loading rock into a landscaping truck.

 

Wendell's portable workshop

Self-employment is another option, and last week Wendell was on the corner outside the Day Center making crosses to sell on the street near Wal-Mart and Chik-Fil-A.

 

His primitive crosses are made in all sizes from juniper and other scavenged wood that he carves, planes, sands and varnishes. His sign asks for Donations: $10-$20-$30. God Bless!

This winter he awakened one below-zero morning to severe pain in his left hand. He'd fallen asleep with a wet glove and three frostbitten fingers were starting to thaw. The first half-inch of flesh on the tips now looks like freezer-burned chicken dipped in cornmeal. He's awaiting to see if he can get by without amputation.

He tells me his crosses are in homes, yards and shops all over the valley and have gone overseas with tourists and accompanied soldiers to war zones.

Though he's lost the fine dexterity in his hand, it still works to hold the wood he's shaping and to clamp the finished pieces into a right angle.

As we hear a lot around here, every little bit helps.

 

Shelter Report: Music, Magic and Might've Beens.

Over the last several weeks, travel and working on developmental edits for Monument Road have kept me from posting, but not from making it down to the Day Center.

As usual, there's more than enough going on. We've had to ban a few guests for drug dealing and crack down on people leaving and coming back during the day. This is supposed to be a haven for those who want to get away from using and users—if even for a few hours—and we do what we can to keep it that way.

Most everyone—even the troublesmakers—will acknowledge the rules when they're enforced, but they stretch the hell out of them when they're not. As the guardian of the front door, I have to walk the line between treating people like adults and being taken of advantage of. Beyond the house rules themselves, the best tools at my disposal are respect and remembering names when guests walk in.

Last week, a guest sat out in the vestibule and played the house guitar for about an hour. He's a handsome guy, powerfully built, with a clear voice. On one song, I noticed he was working off the musical notation—not just tablature, which is for guitar players who can't read regular sheet music.

Back at the house I had a drawerful of Acoustic Guitar magazines I'd been saving the way some people save expired boxes of food. I wasn't going to use them, but they were too good to toss out. The covers featured all kinds of artists, ranging from Richard Thompson and Patty Griffin to Norman Blake and Keb Mo—as well as guitars well beyond the price range of a homeless man.

I asked MD if he was interested in them, and he responded enthusiastically.

Last night, during one of those quick fact checks that turns into a half-hour devoted to remotely related trivia, I ended up watching videotape highlights of my former high school's football team, which over the past two seasons had the most productive offense in the state and one of the best rushing offenses in the nation.

As an ex-footballer, I was curious about the no-huddle offense they ran and decided to check out a minute or two of video. I ended up watching for more than ten, as with deception and quick hand-offs, the team sliced apart the opposition as if the players were CGI renderings instead of real tacklers. One runner in particular found lanes and downfield blocking with the speed and grace of an Adrian Peterson. Of course, the video was edited to feature his long touchdown runs, but the supply of material seemed endless.

It was beautiful football that seemed to employ magic and dance instead of violence.

I knew the quarterback had won an award as the top player/citizen/scholar in the state, but who was that unstoppable No. 1? I looked him up and noted he shared a last name with the guitarist, and yes, a certain look around the eyes.

Today I brought in the magazines and had forgotten them until MD came in late to play the guitar. There were too many for him to carry away without a backpack, so he stowed most of them in his storage bin, where guests can secure belongings they can't leave in a shelter or camp. As he sorted through the pile, I asked if the running back was any relation.

He's my son, he said.

He's an amazing runner, I said.

Yes, he said proudly. He was one of the top running backs in the country. Now, I'm trying to get him healthy and ready to take advantage of the opportunities he has that I messed up.

He tried to talk to his son about his own mistakes, but the boy didn't want to hear it all, he said. He complained that the cops always showed up at his games. Why do they always come looking for you, he wanted to know.

Because that was the one time they'd know where I'd be, MD said.

I screwed up a lot of things for reasons that don't matter any more, he said. My boys are the best thing I've ever done and I want to be there for them. Back when I couldn't see them, I cried so much for my kids, my nickname was Cry Baby.

He smiled. You should see my youngest, he said. He's really going to be something.

Shelter Report: State of the Union.

Yesterday one of the regulars at the Day Center asked me what I thought of President Obama's State of the Union address. I find it best to veil my politics there and do more listening than talking, so I responded in a limited but truthful way: I was kind of dozing.

I thought it was very disappointing, he said. The same old stuff. Nothing but Washington political rhetoric. The only thing he said that made sense was about education.

(What he favored about the education message wasn't clear, but I expect it had something to do with college loans. This fellow has been getting and defaulting on student loans for years, while managing to find his way back into a college classroom again and again.)

Another guest, I heard second hand, was raving to the director about his love for Obama. The source of his affection seemed to center on how the president's policies made it possible for him to live without working or paying taxes. (For a time he'd done both and found he didn't care for it.)

I hesitate to dwell too much on the man's appreciation of the safety net freebies available to him because his disdain for responsibility corresponds to a common and distorted stereotype of the homeless. But it would be dishonest to deny that his attitude exists.

Federal policies aren't the sole enablers of his responsibility-free life—and the meals, beds and medical care he receives aren't entirely free. Private charities and city, county and state resources also contribute, and he spends his time waiting in lines for food, weathering bureaucratic delays for assistance and sleeping in different places every three days because of shelter rules and capacity. The doctors aren't fooled by attempts to feign ailments that would allow him to obtain medications, and we aren't, either.

Those who volunteer time, drop off clothing and supplies, work in soup kitchens and shelters or pray for poor souls don't like that man's attitude. He is being selfish and his example may well mean we'll see his son as a client one day. But everyone isn't like that and maybe one day he himself won't be.

For myself, I've found I can't spend my day judging how deserving every person is who walks through these doors. Instead, I have to ask what kind of person I want to be and then go about the business of being that guy.

I do wish the president could do more about improving the State of the Union, but he'd have his hands full just with this little segment we see each day, where one man sings his praises and one is full of disdain.

 

Shelter Report: Homelessness Can Be a Lot of Responsibility.

Homelessness can be a lot of responsibility.

I had to laugh when he said it.

After all, Special K had just told me how the majority of people aren't real, then launched into a tale about secret sewage pipes crossing the river against state law. He'd invited me any time to visit the island where he lives, where I could see a mysterious hole in the railroad trestle pier, which may have had something to do with the sewage pipes.

Or with the deep rumbling of the ground when the coal trains pass over the pier.

If I came, he said, I should warn people, and then he digressed into an incomprehensible discourse on the type of call I should give, which led him to tell me about how his call used to be Woop-woop Beep-beep until someone told him woop-woop was racist.

I didn't understand his explanation.

It's hard to follow the leaps his mind takes, especially early in the month when he has money enough to fuel his drug consumption above the recommended doses. And with no teeth, his articulation is not the best, even on a good day.

But he also constantly surprises with his humor, his soul, his openness and interest in the world, even if some of it is the tweaker's scattered attention that rarely leads to a productive conclusion.

Underneath the chaos of his mind and his life, he has a clear intelligence. He read my newspaper piece on guns and suicide a week ago and figured out, without knowing my last name, that I was the Charlie who wrote it.

So when he says the majority of people aren't real, I probe to find he means that most don't live as their authentic selves.

When he talks of responsibility, I realize he means—at least in part—that he thinks the danger he sees along the river from the trains and the pipes should be exposed in the newspaper. And since I am writer, maybe I know how to do it.

It's not the responsibility most of us recognize—we who abstain from illegal drugs, stay employed and out of court, pay our bills and manage to keep our families intact.

But try living in a tent on the river some winter and leaving your possessions behind each day.

Try living peaceably in a community of peers who have similar issues with substance-abuse, mental and physical illnesses, criminal records and the poverty that comes with it. Try establishing mores so they don't steal from you, turn you in or attack you in your sleep.

Try knowing your mind is not right and never will be.

Try seeing wrongs committed around you and know you are among the most powerless people in town.

And then try holding onto a belief that the world is a gift, that other people, even when they aren't being real, are good deep down, that there is a God and a heaven, and that your own mistakes don't disqualify you for eternity.

Homelessness can be a lot of responsibility. I didn't need his explanation for that one.

It is and it isn't. It isn't and it is.

Free Christmas Books While They Last.

Who knew...

that James Patterson, John Grisham, Anne Perry and Mary Higgins Clark have all done Christmas books?

That romance writer Debbie Macomber (New York Times Bestselling Author!) is a Christmas juggernaut.

A Mike Huckabee holiday offering, sure. But Glenn Beck?

I apparently need to do my Christmas shopping in a different section of the bookstore.

These donated books for the homeless day center all came in one box from a local used bookstore.

One of our clients looked over the bounty and said, "I've read most of these."

 

Shelter Report: Family Bonds Stretched Beyond Mending.

Late in the morning an elderly woman with clear blue eyes and nun-cropped white hair came to the intake window at the day center. She didn't have the look of one of our homeless clients, and I correctly surmised that the plastic bag she carried contained toiletries she wanted to donate.

But she wanted something, too. Did I know a police officer named Corey?

I did.

The woman asked if she could speak to him.

I explained he didn't work out of the day center, although he sometimes came through here.

He's one of two officers who have been temporarily taken off the Homeless Outreach Team that works to get homeless people off the street and into housing or services that can make their lives safer and less chaotic. Until the department can fill a personnel shortage, the two members have been reassigned to other duties.

She asked if I knew a way she could contact him. "He helped my son," she said, "and I'd like to thank him."

I scribbled a phone number for her. She thanked me and left.

You'd be surprised how many homeless people here have family in town. Mothers, ex-wives, children, cousins, brothers and sisters.

In some cases, the family members have troubles, too. I know one man who stays in town to look after his disabled mother, but she doesn't have room for him. She's already putting up two of her daughter's kids and could lose her Section 8 rental assistance if he slept there.

I talked today with another man who's not long out of a psychiatric hospital. His mother lives in town, too, but for whatever reason, her home is not an option for him. He is living in a house with four roommates he considers a bad influence.

If I don't get out of there, they'll drag me down, he said.

He's thinking sleeping in his car may be a better option.

There are others. Most of them, in fact. The family bonds stretched and broken beyond mending. Loved ones had to give up for their own sakes, and for the most part, we don't see them here.

But once in awhile a mother comes to offer thanks to those who try to do what she can't do any more.

Shelter Report: All the Semi-Comforts of Home.

The Grand Junction Day Center where I volunteer accommodates anywhere from 75 to 120 homeless people on a given morning, but it's not a big place—especially when you fill it with a like number of backpacks, heavy winter clothing and maybe a wheelchair or two.

If it were a house, an imaginatively unscrupulous real estate agent might describe it as a 2000-sf ranch style two-bedroom with master suite, walk-in closet and three-baths, a roomy vestibule, a great room, custom window coverings, well-equipped laundry room and covered patio—within walking distance to all downtown has to offer.

The Day Center has ample space for guest parking.

Of course, this imaginary description leaves out a few key details. (There's nothing about ranch style that says a building can't be made of cinder blocks, right?)

You might've noticed there was no mention of the kitchen. Well, there is one if you don't want to cook or store any food. It's adequate for preparing urns of coffee. It has countertops, drawers and cabinets with a double sink where we wash coffee cups and a mop sink for filling buckets; metal shelving for cleaning supplies; plus, a three-by-four break table that may harbor a microwave. At least, I recall there's some kind of boxy thing under the expired snacks that arrive daily for volunteers to consume.

The vestibule is unheated. The "walk-in closet" (actually a storage room filled with Rubbermaid tubs for storing guests' clothes and personal items) is at the opposite end of the building from the "master suite," which now serves as an exam room, where a nurse or medical students are available a few times a week. It's a suite because a door opens into a small restroom that this week needed a space heater in it to keep the pipes from freezing.

The only way to come up with three 3/4 baths is by ignoring the fact the three toilets and three showers are contained in five different rooms. The laundry area is more of a passageway with five washers and driers that churn all morning from about 7 a.m. on.

The great room runs about half the length of the building, filled with three long folding tables surrounded by chairs. Another row of chairs runs against the wall under the windows, which feature metal roll-down security shades that were installed after the last firebombing.

You'll find the second bedroom isn't a bedroom now, either. It's the office for the Day Center's director. The shortage of actual bedrooms isn't a problem, though, since no one sleeps here unless they can do it sitting up in a roomful of people between the morning hours of 8 and noon.

If I haven't made this place sound very appealing, maybe that's because I'd hate to see anyone buy it and take it off the market. And so would a couple hundred other people for whom if it isn't exactly home, it's pretty damn close.