Across the Great Divide

Shelter Report: What if You Don't Believe?

You hear all kinds of personal stories around the Day Center, too many to get into this blog.

You hear how someone used to be an English teacher or a loan officer, and you believe them without having to check their stories. Though the former teacher has serious issues with alcohol, she selects the best books from the free shelves. The former banker probably always had his sunny disposition and collection of Hawaiian shirts, and it wouldn't take him long to figure out he was way too smart for the job.

When you hear one of our stalwart homeless volunteers spent time in prison for killing his best friend, you see his sadness and his resignation a little differently. There are other stories like his that I'm not going to tell, even in generalities, because the person may have moved back into grace but his sins brand him forever.

Other stories might strain credulity, but they can be checked out. No, the big guy with bad knees leaning against the shopping cart did not ever play for the Denver Broncos unless he changed his name. Yes, the frail young woman who claims she used to model in Paris and appear in the movies indeed has an IMDB bio, and one of our volunteers has a video featuring her.

And then there are the tales that are far out and can't be verified, and there's no reason to try.

For example, I doubt one of our former guests has actually seen NASA's plans for the defense of Neptune.

Although he's capable of this, it's unlikely my favorite drug addict was ever six months away from becoming a North Carolina state trooper before he found himself in a standoff with 65 Ohio cops.

When a guest says she's on the run from the mob for testifying against them in a child pornography trial, it's natural to file that one in the loony bin.

And when she says she's afraid they've located her and she doesn't know what to do, you think about suggesting she get her medication adjusted.

And if she says, you don't believe me, do you?, you find some way to indicate support without signing up for the paranoia.

And then Tony calls the Day Center from New York.

We don't get a lot of calls from Tonys in New York.

Tony asks the director if she knows — let's say — Stacy.

The director says yes.

Tony says, so she's there?

The director stops. This is supposed to be a safe place for our guests. No, she says, I said I know somebody by that name.

So she's there, right?

No, I haven't seen her for a while.

But you said she was there. How long ago? Two, three days?

He keeps drilling. Not like the usual caller who just wants to leave a message or hangs up. He keeps trying to pin the director down.

For the record, I don't know this Stacy. I've never met anyone by that name, and I know a lot of people here.

But I can swear to one thing. If she'd told me this story, I wouldn't have believed her.

Not for a minute.

Shelter Report: Of Time, Memory and Soap.

I've missed reporting on a few of the Day Center's more mundane events, as well as our guests' extracurricular activities.

Paco, for instance. Paco of the incompleted kidney donation. Last week he made the Friends & Family section of the paper under his legal name for harassing a 14-year-old and taking someone's car keys. Kelvin, another of our regulars, was picked up "on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance."

In Kelvin's case, this vague charge not only covered the wide variety of potential controlled substances he might be carrying, but also their sometimes puzzling origin. By Wednesday, he was out of custody and back at the Day Center, so I asked him what he had that'd produced the charge.

Mushrooms. He was surprised when the police stopped him and found the mushrooms in his pocket.

I told him, as a disinterested observer, his story lacked a certain amount of credibility.

Oh, he said, I don't deny I had them in my hand. I just don't remember putting them in my pocket. 

His memory on other matters can be surprising, though. The other day I heard him tell another guest, correctly, that I've been married for 37 years.

*****

William is one of those homeless men you wouldn't give a second look if you saw him in a library or college classroom. But with a bit more contact, it becomes clear he has some trouble dealing with the world straight on.

I have a pretty simple job at the Day Center running the men's and women's showers — signing people in, calling them for their turns and enforcing as necessary something resembling the posted 10-minute limit for a shower. Bigger picture, I have to get everyone through before it's time to close while preserve what decorum is possible with a men's shower that opens directly onto the only passage through the building.

Each time William comes in for a shower, he writes his name on the sheet and tries to put down the time he arrived. I explain the sheet is just to keep people in order. I will write down a time when he's called and goes into the shower, so I know how long he's taking.

He absorbs the instruction slowly. Then, when it's his turn, he takes a 30-minute shower.

The first time this happened, I warned him a few times to speed it up, but perhaps you can appreciate the difficulty of dealing with naked, soapy men who don't take direction well.

The second time, the same confusion at the sign-in and the same ineffectual warnings on my part resulted in another 30 minute shower. This time he came out with a hang-dog look and seemed surprised when I told him how long he'd been in there (even though I'd pointedly given him a 20-minute warning). To reinforce why I was being so stern, I explained how we only had limited time for everyone to shower and it wasn't fair to others if he took so long. He nodded, so I hoped it got through.

Last week, when again he tried to write down the time he signed in, I realized I had to try something different. I asked if it would help him stay on schedule if I gave him a 10-minute warning. After all, there's no clock in the shower room and these guys aren't wearing watches. He agreed.

But then I got caught up listening to Kelvin talk about how he could see why they didn't want to legalize mushrooms because they were so powerful he could only do half an ounce every five days and about the time he took 25 hits of acid at one time and I finally noticed William had been in there 20 minutes without his 10-minute prompt.

So William got another 30-minute shower.

Next week, though, we're doing to do 20 minutes. I just haven't figured out how.

 

Shelter Report: High and Tight.

Last week Greg came up to me at the Day Center and asked if I was good with clippers.

We keep at least one set of hair clippers on hand for beard trimming and haircuts, but usually the men do it themselves or get help from another of our homeless clients. They spread a garbage bag on the floor of the vestibule and cut away. The only rule is they have to clean up after themselves.

But since Greg asked, I said yes. (I used to cut hair in college for the price of a pack of cigarettes, but in those days didn't give the kind of haircut he wanted — Marine-style, high and tight — so he could look for a job.)

His hair was thick but clean and I took it all the way down. When I was finished, it looked about like this guy's but without the gel. Greg's eyes are even the same diluted olive color, but have the disconcerting effect of neither one aiming at you when he's talking to you straight on.

Today, he was back in. When he saw me, he lifted his cap. He'd grown a little stubble that was the same length as his sidewalls and it looked pretty good.

I asked him if he'd found a job.

Yes, he said. I'm washing dishes at the college for $8 an hour. Sedexo said they'd lay me off in May, but if I'm good, they'll hire me back in the fall.

We talked as he looked over the book shelf.

I've read this one, he said, and pulled it out: The Alcoholics Anonymous bible. I finished it ten years ago and haven't had a drink since.

That may be true, but judging from the decomposed granite ridge of his teeth, some other substances may have crossed his path in the years since.

Greg is busy crocheting a baby blanket for a homeless couple. He showed me the three rows, straight and tight, like you'd expect an ex-Marine to do, if you expected a homeless ex-Marine to be crocheting baby blankets. The woman who runs the yarn shop gives him free yarn, he said. Nice German lady.

It's for the black couple that comes in here, he said. They're amazed how quickly things are coming together for them.

(I know them. They always tell me how they are blessed.)

Greg pulls down a book on fitness. I ought to read this, he said. I'm getting older and I need to keep my... he searched for the word.

Fitness, I offered.

Yeah, he said. I weigh 185, but I don't look it because muscle weighs more than fat. I walk places a lot. A lot of us do. A woman told me the other day, boy, you homeless people really take good care of yourselves.

Shelter Report: Yes, There Are Meth Moms, But...

Last week, a question about drug testing welfare applicants was posed to some of next year's commissioners-in-waiting (what the Republican candidates might as well be called in this county).

They were all for it.

One peppy young Tea Partier, sounding like she was running for the 1994 Congress, opined, "We need to get away from the entitlement mentality."

I suspect some of our guests at the Day Center would take offense at that and others would nod in agreement.

I've spent the better part of two days researching the various state drug-testing proposals, the arguments made for and against, the data on Colorado's welfare caseloads and what happens to federal dollars when they hit state and county welfare departments.

Now I'm ready for a drink.

The short version is this: If you're on a moral crusade, believe 20% of poor people are dope fiends and are bad at math, you might like placing drug testing as another hurdle before they receive help from the taxpayers. If you know welfare has already been turned into a work program and think smoking a reefer in the last six weeks shouldn't disqualify adults with kids from getting help through a rough patch, then you're likely to see drug testing as an unncessary indignity.

I've got plenty of data if you want a discussion in the comments, but let me get back to the Day Center clientele and their stories.

Carl could pass a drug test, but his kid is past the age of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. TANF — what's left of "welfare" after the AFDC cash assistance program was transformed into a return to work program in 1996.

Carl's son is career Navy, patroling the coast of Africa for pirates. He's the first man on the pirate vessels, with a flamethrower that sucks all the oxygen out of the places it doesn't toast. "They don't mess around when they board," Carl says. But he can't communicate with his son when he's deployed, and he fears the last time he saw him could be the last time he will.

Another couple, who shall remain nameless, probably could not pass a drug test on certain days, but they do pass the non-urine-based sobriety test at the door. They are quite civil here, and grateful for what we provide. I don't think they feel entitled, and they acknowledge on occasion that their problems are of their own making.

Today, for example, the man told me he had mental issues that made it impossible to live in a structured setting. They paid their bills when they lived in apartments, he said, but apartment living brought out behavioral and relationship problems that were easier to manage when they were not anchored to each other inside four walls next to other people.

Welfare recipients are more likely to have significant physical or mental issues than they are to have serious drug issues. (A drug test indicates use, remember, not impairment, abuse or dependence.) One study found 19% of recipients had suffered from at least one of four psychiatric disorders (major depression, agoraphobia, panic attack and generalized anxiety disorders) within the previous year. One quarter of the adults receiving TANF aid in Colorado have one or more disabilities, according to the state. About 92% of the adult TANF recipients in this county are either single mothers or the head of their household.

Anyway, the woman's son came in with his wife today. They looked clean and clear eyed, which has not always been the case. Get out of the city, said the mom. Whatever you're doing is working, so go back there and keep doing it.

She didn't ask for taxpayer support in giving that advice. I don't know if she ever got it.

For the first time, I saw a younger woman and her partner who were regulars at the Day Center last year. They've apparently found a stable place to live. They could pass as any young couple on the street, except for their pit bulls and their farmer coveralls. She's pregnant, which would make her eligible for TANF, but her plan is to deliver the baby and allow her cousin in Alaska to adopt it. The cousin can't bear children of her own.

Maybe drug testing will weed out a few bad actors without hurting their children. Maybe. But the posturing I see seems more about being superior to people you don't know at all.

Shelter Report: I'll Take Vodka for Five Hundred.

“What would you do if you were a dead man walking?” Marshall wanted to know.

Check that. He wasn't asking what I’d do. He was telling me why he was doing what he was doing. Just like on Jeopardy, he was phrasing the answer in the form of a question.

“I’d avoid becoming a dead man walking in the first place,” I said.

 The last time I’d seen him, six weeks ago, two of us were picking him up out of the gravel of a nearby parking lot. We’d turned him away from the Day Center because he was too drunk to be admitted, but he was also too drunk to walk.

We watched him careen east toward the park where he could flop on the frozen grass or collapse on a bench. His progress parodied the dying man slogging over sand dunes toward a mirage. He stumbled left, then overcorrected off the sidewalk onto the boulevard strip. The traffic on the street there flows one way, and a car would hit him from behind if he swayed a step further

For half a block, he maintained his general course before he veered sharply left and out of sight. We stood by the Day Center entrance for a while, waiting for him to stagger back into view. It was possible some glimmer of self-preservation made him head for the alley, but it was even more likely he’d collapsed.

And there he was, on his side in the dirt. We approached him calling his name and he raised up, eyes still closed, weakly balling his fists in front of his face like a TKO’d prize fighter. I wondered how many times he’d been jumped in a similar stupor.

He’s a big man, late thirties or early forties, not someone you’d mess with on a normal day. That is, a day when he’d only had half a gallon of vodka.

Like this morning.

Today, Marshall let everyone know he was in a good mood. He borrowed one of the guitars and sang part of a song. He hugged the women. He sat on Marty’s lap and shared some business with him. I asked Marty, in his red shirt, if Marshall had told him what he wanted for Christmas.

“He didn’t have to tell me,” Marty smiled. “I already know.”

“Half gallons,” Marty and Marshall said together.

And now Marshall stands in front of me, insisting on an answer.

“But if you were a dead man walking, what would you do?”

“I’d stay in the sunshine,” I said.

Marshall looked away and smiled. “Good answer,” he said. “Good answer.”