October 31, 2007

• Story: Mispaced, Not Homeless

  (I did it in time! Please see the intro here.  Yes, this is totally a work of fiction, aside from the neighborhood details.)

              Speaking of the memory of the dead, Ronald Reagan is a good example of the inverse-proportion rule.  Given his recent passing and its proximity to the writing of these words, fresh in the minds of my contemporaries is much nostalgia.  It’s a testament to the bleakness with which I regard our current President of the United States of America that I, a lifelong Reagan-hater, nonetheless would prefer a reanimated, Lovecraftian version of his corpse in the White House to our current bout of malaise who thinks of himself as “the Decider-in-Chief.”

   

              I live in San Francisco, a city in which this feeling is widely held, although by no means universally.  I was alive and came of age in the 1980’s, and can still remember him, his deeds and his words (“Mi casa es su casa” is one of my favorites given the anti-immigration sentiment on the Reagan-lionizing American right these days).  I was not, however, old enough to recall his time with the House of Un-American Activites (classic silver-age conservative paranoia), and I was not in California when, as governor of the state, he had a hand in de-funding public mental health services.

   

              Many people in San Francisco do, indeed, remember those days.  More to the point, many people in San Francisco are of the opinion that his actions were a root cause of The City’s homeless problem today.  It comes as something of a shock to visitors who didn’t realize that sometimes Third World countries live right under our noses inside the First World in a forgotten span of block or under an overpass.

   

               Golden Gate Park gets the bulk of the displaced.  The park, if you include the panhandle, easily takes up half the width of the city.  Among the scrub, thick but not prohibitive, there are places in which one can easily hole up.  I always liked the park and took much delight in “discovering” various features: follies, fly fishing pools, gardens, and the odd bison you run into.  You just have to be careful how far off the paths you walk, lest you discover someone’s living room or toilet.

   

              But that’s by no means the only place in The City the homeless can shelter.  A long stretch of wall by a highway, some tarpaulin and a shopping cart can make a passable, and portable, haven.  Sporadic police sweeps and random angry neighborhood denizens all occasion the need for expedition and hasty departures. 

   

  For those with even less than this, the time-tested tradition of curling up in recessed doorways must suffice.  Neighborhoods accustomed to the presence of the “hardcore” homeless – those homeless who are resigned to life on the streets with no hope of improving their lot – long ago added shutters and wrought iron gates to dwelling entrances, even those barely a foot in depth.

   

  Sometimes, there’s not even that.  For some, there is no home to be found in this world at all.

   

  Divisadero Street is nearly at the geographic center of the city.  The span of street from where it curls into Castro northward to where it meets Pacific Heights is a boundary, and as such, no neighborhood can really claim it.  Regardless of that, it’s a lively stretch of town with much-used cafés, pizza joints, philly cheesesteak sandwich stands, mom’n’pop grocery stores, Ethiopian eateries, vegan restaurants, dollar stores, comic and hobby shops, yoga studios, and residences. 

   

  Further up around Eddy street, there’s a communal urban garden spot adjacent a small church, and then, just past Eddy, is the San Francisco Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California.  It’s something of a jolt, architecturally.  The old Victorians that line Divisadero are mostly preserved, although occasional newer buildings dot the strip irregularly.  But the SFH&SC, the letters of which are etched in the gray concrete wall that faces the road, is something different altogether.  Much more of a bunker feel to it, and, despite the appeal of the trees in its courtyard on a sunny day, usually sits sullenly on the road, out of place, like a slab of blotchy, still-wet cement.

   

  I used to pass this building every day before I moved a block east of my old place on Divisadero.  All up and down that side of Divisadero, there are wild lavender plants coming up in nearly all seasons.  I got into the habit of picking a flower stem of it every day and stuffing it into my jacket top button hole – very retro and silly, I thought, but I loved the scent of the stems.  I collected them at work in a small, empty honey jar and soon had a rather nice dried floral arrangement on my desk.  It was a way of counting the work days, after a while.

   

  But the SFH&SC building I passed as I picked the stems . . . well, it’s like this:  You get used to the city being a patchwork quilt of both people and architecture; around the city, you'll see all manner of styles from faux-Tudor, to ubiquitous Victorian, Edwardian, American Ranch-style, and various unsuccessful “modern."  The SFH&SC building is definitely in the “modern” category, and, to my eyes, not very successful.  You wouldn’t think a living, thriving, active building could seem abandoned, but it does.  Intellectually, you're aware of people going in and out of the front door.  You see the horrible, institutional fluorescent lighting, and occasionally you hear a couple of younger kids playing in the enclosed, but hidden, courtyard.  But there was always some sort of emptiness about it, as if it were craving something to fill it.

   

  And I never did see any actual children, come to think of it.  I only heard their laughter.

   

  While I would occasionally be able to see inside the front door to the reception area, there is, on the north end, a recessed emergency exit, which reminded me of a dank cave.  During the day, it merely looked unpleasant, smeared with lichens or humors of unknown origins, and the odor was redolent of unclean, newspaper-lined gerbil cages.  But at the end of the year, as now, when the darkness arrives earlier and earlier, my walks home from Mt. Zion were well after sunset, this exit hole turned into a void into which nothing was visible at all.

   

  While lavender would accompany me to work, jasmine, typically stronger at night, was the scent of my trip home.  A few of the houses just above the SFH&SC had curly string vines of twisted confederate jasmine of a more subtle strength than the night-blooming jasmine I would catch wind of when I was growing up in Miami.

   

  But the SFH&SC had no odor at night.  The emptiness hinted at as I passed by in the mornings became more fully realized at night.  The place didn’t just feel empty, but it genuinely was empty.  And passing by that emergency exit at night . . . well, I mostly never really noticed.  But occasionally I’d see movement, darker shades moving against the deep pitch of the alcove out of the corner of my eye.  When I looked at it, though, I couldn’t see anything.  I always assumed it was mice or rats.  I’d like to say that, when I’d stop and peer into the still gloom, it was almost as if the emptiness watched back, but that would be . . . silly.

   

  I passed by one evening, long accustomed to ignoring the small tricks shadow would play on my eyes, but that night I was unable to ignore definite movement.  I was more surprised than nervous, but the hacking cough that issued from the darkness dispelled any otherworldly airs that might have otherwise collected.  It was most definitely human, and I could see meager possessions propped up against the black interior.  Ah, I realized, someone was making a home for the night.  This was not unusual for San Francisco, as I mentioned, but it did occur to me that we didn’t actually have a lot of homeless on our immediate neighborhood streets.  We were close enough to the Panhandle and parks that such rough accommodations weren’t really necessary.

   

  The coughing stopped and a mostly-shaded face partially emerged from the gloom.  I was caught in my surprise and made eye contact before I realized it.  The face grinned at me.  “Spare change?” it said through a wiry, white-streaked beard.

   

  “Sorry, no,” I said, on autopilot, and that was true.  I rarely carry change in San Francisco that I’m not going to use for busses or laundry.  And that night, I was picking up dry cleaning from a place across from the communal garden just on the next block, on the other side of Divisadero, and I had no change whatsoever on me.

   

  “Well, if you don’t give to the homeless on the street, if it helps, I don’t consider myself homeless,” he said with a grin as I began to walk on, the spell broken.  But I stopped when he said that and turned around.  I felt an impending joke and thought it would be rude to turn my back on it.

   

  I grinned back.  “No?”

   

  “Nope.  I’m just misplaced!” He laughed and began to cough again.

   

  “Heh,” I said, feeling that particular mix of emotions San Franciscans are accustomed to feeling in these situations.  “Good night,” I said, though it was only 7 o’clock.  He coughed good-bye.

   

  As I stood inside the small dry cleaning business, I conjured the ticket for my long coat and shiny clothing, which the proprietress located and handed over.  I’d had some repair work done on the long coat lining, and it was nearly as good as new.  I counted out the bills, but lost count when I heard the most horrendous sound off in the distance, coming from heaven knows what direction outside.  I stopped dead and stared at the woman.  Her back was to me and she was on the business phone, talking away in Tagalog.  The cry I’d heard was fairly brief, but I had no idea what made it.  If it was a human sound, I’ve never heard people make a sound like that before.  Living in cities most of my life, I wondered if was an owl or nighthawk.  But they tended to be pretty quiet, especially when hunting.

   

  And that was not a good thought.

   

  The woman, however, was oblivious.  After she hung up the phone, I asked her if she’d heard that . . . sound, but of course she hadn’t.  I don’t think I’d have been as rattled as I was if she’d admitted she heard it, so as it was, I walked home very quickly the rest of the way up Divisadero. 

   

  The event faded from awareness fairly quickly after I ascended the stairs to my flat.  By that time, I’d rationalized it into some cat catching a bird, or some other urban animal transaction.  Real life was tapping its foot, awaiting my attention.  My cat was hungry.  I had messages on the machine.  Dishes needing a cleaning were in the sink.  The particulars of unwinding after a day’s work were demanding their time.  I eventually slept, but not restlessly.

   

  The next day, as I plucked some lavender and walked my route back to Mt. Zion to pick up the shuttle to take me to work, I passed by the SFH&SC.  Unusually, I saw an actual person on the premises with a garden hose in hand. Their were trying to unkink a length of it, but it was obvious that the hose hadn’t been used in a while.

   

  Walking further north, I was about to pass by the alcove.  My nose caught its usual peculiar odor, slightly more organic and human than usual, which made sense since it had been occupied the night before.  The emergency exit alcove, however, was an absolute mess.

   

  I caught a few recognizable items in the debris – the blue of a tarpaulin, some torn blanket.  The humid alcove was slightly more wet and blotchy than usual with other oddments stuck to the walls.  I found myself looking at the . . . bits stuck here and there, and at that point my brain cut in and insisted they were Ramen Noodles.  The poor guy must have been violently ill after a meal of Ramen Noodles.

   

  At that point, the hose-straightener gushed a stream of water against the walls, washing away the definitely-noodles, sluicing them out into the gutter.  He saw me watching him and mistook my expression for curiosity.  “That’s the second one we got this year.”

   

  I took a cab home that night.

   

  The next day, there was a note pinned to the door of the alcove:

   

  Dear Neighbor,

   

  While we are very sympathetic to your situation, please don’t sleep here. You’re blocking an emergency exit and your belongings pose a hazard in case we need to exit in case of emergency.

   

  It’s dangerous to both of us.

   

  Sincerely,

  San Francisco Hearing & Speech Center

  

  • 4:07 pm
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