Saint Boniface Winter Shelter
Ilook at my watch. It’s ten after seven.
It’s cold and drizzling. I lean my spine against a parking meter and wait for the signal.
Loitering with me are Blacks, Whites, Mexicans and Natives, mostly. Why are they homeless? I don’t know, really. As for me, I happen to be a forty-seven year old White American who fell hard. My story is real and so is theirs.
Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom, a San Francisco Supervisor, feels that, regardless of how we fell from favor, homeless stories are trivial stories.
Mister Newsom is making quite an impression on street folk. The San Francisco Chronicle prints his view point each morning and each evening homeless people read it.
The soup kitchens are abuzz with his views. All the mirrors in the public restrooms have his picture, too. His newfound publicity is because Gavin has rock-solid knowledge about homelessness, so he says. The Supervisor has researched the homeless issues for two months and now he claims to know how to solve it.
The shelter door opens. The vestibule light shines on the dark spot just outside the door. The elderly guy is at the opening is playing doorman. I forget his name. He’s bald on top and has frizzy brown hair on the sides.
He reminds me of “Larry” from the television sitcom “The Three Stooges”.
“One through twenty.” Larry repeats it again. “One through twenty.”
The homeless people file in line, if you could call it a line. Once inside the hallway, the doorman shuts the door.
Along the edge of the de-lighted street I can see the outline of my friend. I walk over and sit on the curb, beside him.
“Hey, OG! What happened to Bud last night?”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“No. I got in after nine. Joe gave me a late pass.”
“Buddy got punched out!”
“Wow!”
“It happens all the time. The macho marine on mat forty-two smacked Buddy down but he got right up and hit him back. I was proud of him.”
“Why did Jarhead slam him?”
“You know how it is up there.
Fights break out for no reason.”
We watch a homeless man push his shopping cart along Golden Gate Avenue toward Jones Street. A squad car stops. Two uniforms question the carriage pusher. Moments later a Department of Public Works truck appears. Two men exit the truck and, without saying two words, lift the homeless man’s carriage onto the flatbed. The vagrant hooks his fingers into the steel cage but one of the police officers raps his digits. The vagrant argues with the cops. Meanwhile, the Public Works Truck turns down the block and the cruiser follows.
“They had no right to take his property. All that fellow owns is in that cart!”
“It’s part of homeless life in the Tenderloin District. I see it all the time.”
The vagrant shuffles down the street, alone.
“Where were you today, Al?”
“I went to hear Supervisor Gavin Newsom speak.”
“Oh yeah! Newsom! He’s the dude that wants to scrub the streets of homeless people, like we was scum around the tub!”
“Right, that’s the one. The Supervisor was at the Next Door Shelter on Polk Street. The press conference was open to homeless and activists, too. I wanted to hear his reform plan that he says will ‘benefit homeless and non-homeless’.”
“That jerk off wants to stop me from panhandling on the medians! Is he off his rocker? Panhandling is how I make ends meet!”
“He wants to help you, OG!”
“Yeah! Right! So, what did he say, Al?”
“He got booed so bad that the police had to escort him out of the shelter.”
“Serves him right! He’s never been homeless so what does he know!”
“He says that all homeless are substance abusers!”
“Let him live this life and see if he don’t be using!”
OG and I pass couple of “short ones” back and forth.
“I’m tired of the same old same old, OG.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sick of Saint Boniface.”
“What are you talking about? It’s not that bad here! We get food nearly every night and a mat with two covers! What more do you want?” “I’m sick of the routine.”
“How can you be sick of the routine? You’ve only been in San Francisco for seven days!”
“It’s the same shit at every shelter. In at a certain time, out at a certain time. Los Angeles was the same dig. El Paso, New York and Boston, too. How come The City doesn’t have Section Eight apartments?”
“They do, but there’s not enough apartments for everybody.”
OG took the last drag and flicked the butt on the wet asphalt.
“What up, Al?”
“I need to stuff more gusto into my days, OG.”
“You need some juice?”
“No man. This problem of mine is not about junk.”
“OK.”
“I got so much energy and nothing to do with it! Understand?
“Yup.”
“Since I can’t get late passes every night what about leaving early in the morning? Say three o’clock?”
“Tell me the flat out.”
“What?”
“What are you doing down here?”
“What do you mean?”
“It just don’t seem you belong here.”
“I don’t know where I belong, OG.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the absurdity of human existence that keeps me down here!”
“The absurdity of what?”
“What’s the purpose to Life, OG?”
“I have no clue.”
“Neither do I and that’s what keeps dragging me down!”
“Before I became homeless, I worked as an auto mechanic. Dig it. I had a swank apartment in New York City’s Greenwich Village. I had threads, wheels and a fat bankroll, too.
My conscience kept nagging me. “Why struggle, Al?” “What’s the point to the effort?”
When the overtime wasn’t there I pumped iron. I lifted free weights, seven nights per week.
I had a lifetime membership at Gold’s Gymnasium.
I even won a bodybuilding contest.
OG doesn’t reply.
“I couldn’t shake the sense of the ridiculous.”
“The whaaat?”
“You asked me why I’m here? There’s no Providence, OG!”
“You don’t know that!”
“I feel it, OG. I feel it.”
“OK. Say you are right. Say there is no Providence! Now what do you do?”
“I keep searching for ways to live my life, man. The nine-to-five scene isn’t the way. Doing the family thing isn’t the way, either. Being homeless allows me the time and the leeway to be.”
“To be what?”
“That’s what I’m struggling to find out. Who I am and where I fit in!”
The shelter door opens.
“Twenty through forty. Numbers twenty through forty, only.”
“A’ight!” OG gets up from the curb. He brushes the dust and pebbles from the behind of his pants. “I’ll catch you upstairs, Al.”
“Right on.”
Twenty dregs crowd through the opening.
The homeless horde thins out.
Jose, a vagrant friend of mine approaches.
We shake hands.
“Hey Al!”
“Hey Jose! Como esta usted?”
“Bien! Y tu?”
“I saw you at The Next Door Shelter.”
“Bunch of us from Saint Boniface were there.”
“Can you believe that guy?”
“He says he understands the homeless man’s personality.”
“He doesn’t understand jack shit!”
“What grabs my nuts is that dude wants to fuck with my money! I have a locker to pay for! There’s no storage facility in the winter shelters. I can’t lug all my stuff around town.”
“Tell it to Newsom!”
“I need my GA (General Assistance) money for my transportation pass, too. How am I supposed to get to work?”
“Newsom believes that all homeless spend their time getting stoned.”
“I’m glad the homeless activists ran Newsom off.”
“What did you do after the hullabaloo, Jose?”
“I volunteered at the AIDS clinic.”
“AIDS clinic?”
“Yeah. My uncle died of AIDs in ‘94 and I’ve been volunteering at hospitals ever since.”
“Do you have the virus, man?”
“No. I go there to rap with the HIV+ folks. They are going to die so I make them feel good.”
“How do you get inside the AIDs ward?”
“I tell the counter nurse that I want to visit the AIDs patients. Simple as that! When I get up to that floor, I ask each patient, “Want some company? Feel like talking tonight? How about a game of cards?”
“Do they want to chew the rag?”
“Some do and some don’t.”
“That’s big hearted of you, brother. Are there other homeless that volunteer time like that?” “Few of us do. I know homeless folks that visit the children’s ward everyday.”
The door opens and Larry calls out.
“Only those men with mats from last night.”
Standing in the street, two dregs cup their hands bullhorn style. “What number are you calling?”
“Numbers forty through sixty!”
“Take care, Al.”
“Alright, Jose. I’ll see you upstairs.”
I move over to the window. I can see through the Venetian slats. Jose is toward the back of the line, thirteenth or fourteenth. I watch each of the brothers move up. They tell the seated monitor their mat number. The monitor finds the number in his ledger, makes a check mark next to the mat number and spins the book around. The vagrant signs his name and writes the last four digits of his social security number and scoots up the stairs.
It’s Jose’s turn.
“Hey! Can you move the fuck out of the light, White!”
I look down at the pavement. Abrother has the cooker in one hand and fifty cent lighter in the other. I can see the junk inside the tiny cup. “Scuse me, Black!”
“I’m sorry if I’m rude. I want to get my head right before I go in. This stuff puts me out.”
“What is it?”
“China White. Want a chip?”
“Nah. Thanks. You got a mat, Black?”
“I’m on “standby.”
“Maybe you’ll get in.”
“It’s cold tonight, White. I want to be inside.”
“I’m mat number sixty-two. I go in with the next group.”
“It’s tight up there, huh? Mats are right next to each other?”
“Yup.”
“What about catching tuberculosis?”
“I’m clean. Three months ago I got checked. I just hope everyone else is germ-free.”
(I pause a moment to let the brother inject himself with the sauce. He found the vein he wanted and jabbed the point into his forearm. Once the point was inside he pushed the needle in further. I watched him squeeze the orange handle down, squirting the sauce into the protruding blood vessel.)
“Did you do The Next Door?”
“Oh yeah. Me and my partner wanted to hear this cat Gavin Newsom.”
“I was there, too.”
“Yeah. Newsom believes that he’s got the fat shit on homeless people.”
“It’s a joke, isn’t it?”
“Gavin wants to take my fingerprints in exchange for welfare services.”
“I know.”
“He wants to give me thirty-five dollars in place of the three hundred thirty-five dollars I gets now.”
“Soooome shit, hey Black?”
“Yeah! But knows what I’m gonna do?”
“What?”
“Armed robbery.”
“That’s not the way, man.”
“No? I gots a heroin habit here! If Mister Gavin fucks with my money how am I going to get my fix?”
I do not answer.
“I’m not going back to “tapering” down. No way! I’m going to break and enter into the bid’- ness’ down here.”
The door opens. Larry calls out more numbers.
“That’s me. I hope you get in, Black.”
Inside the entrance hall I tell the monitor my mat number. He makes the checkmark and spins the book around. I write out the last four digits of my Social Security number and sign my name.
I get up to the second floor, unhook my backpack and drop it on the flat mat. I strip down, to a long undershirt and my sweat pants. I come out of the bathroom, after the brush and the shave. One of the floor monitors is handing out Styrofoam containers of “Cup of Soup”. I get one and add scalding water from a coffee maker.
On the other side of the auditorium heated words are exchanged. A fistfight breaks out. Bam! Bam! Everybody gets up to watch. The problem is, Supervisor Gavin Newsom is not here to see how violent the shelters can be.
Fifteen minutes later, it’s quiet in the house. My oversized library book is perched on my kneecaps.
The neighbor behind me asks, “What are you looking at?”
“A book on Art.”
“Huh?”
“Most of these artists were poor as us when they started to paint.”
“Who painted that one?”
“Chaim Soutine. He was Homeless during the nineteen twenties and thirties.”
“Were there many homeless painters back then?”
“Oh yeah! They were not called “homeless” back in their day, but they didn’t have food or money.”
“Who else was homeless?”
“Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin.”
“Why are you interested in that?”
“I think artists may have the answers that I need.”
“What do you mean?”
“These guys were poor like me, understand?”
“Yeah.”
“They were searching for another way to live life, just like I am, understand?”
“Yeah.”
“They didn’t like their choices, just like I don’t, and so they created new worlds.”
“New worlds?”
“Here! Look for yourself.”
He flips through the pages.
“These guys knew of another way to live. I’m sure of it.”
“What have you found out?”
“Artist folks are just like homeless folks. They need something that society can’t give them.”
“What?”
“Enthusiasm for living.”
“Does painting take the place of drinking?”
“Yes.”
“Woah! Look at this one!”
“Yeah. That’s Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’.”
“I wonder what gave Munch the idea to paint that?”
“He probably had terrible insight into Life.”
“Look at the guy’s mouth, like somebody left the stove door open! Jeez!”
“I see it.”
“And look at his hands holding his cheeks! That dude is frightened to death!”
Albert