Doing time with Noel: Part 7
When Noel re-appeared after a long absence, I started to learn just how much I cared about this man who had slipped through the bars of Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility into my life more than two years ago, when I met him while reporting there.
I also realized that I had been sucked much deeper into this relationship than I wanted to be and knew was wise, but I couldn’t figure out how to extricate myself without hurting either or both of us.
At first, I had viewed Noel primarily as a subject for journalistic exploration, an example of the revolving door between the street, jail, and rehab — a vicious cycle that for many people only ends with death in one of those contexts. But as the months toppled along and I got to know him better, I began to feel like Noel was a member of my extended family.
Everything about Noel’s existence was urgent, pulling me in: his drug use, his jail time, his experience with homelessness. I realized in some dark corner of my brain that he provided an edginess absent from my suburban existence. Noel was a friend, a more intimate one in many ways than the soccer and carpool moms I hung out with in my “regular” life. Plus, I was still interested in writing about him.
So while Noel and I were genuine friends, we were using each other. Noel needed my sympathy, my constancy, my funds. I needed his stories and to feel like I was helping somebody. Part of me wanted to be the “Gangster Rat,” the moniker Noel gave me back when he first started calling me from jail.
I felt some relief when Noel recently told me that he had found work again on a small construction job in North Philly and had rented a room; maybe he would pull through this time. But, as usual, the little cash he earned wasn’t enough to pay for his rent and his drug use, and soon Noel was back to couch-surfing.
However, although I was never sure exactly what drugs Noel was using— he admitted to snorting heroin, which in Philly was mostly the more potent and deadly fentanyl, as well as to consuming benzos and lots of weed — and although I knew Noel was high most of the time when we talked, I still, perhaps naively, trusted him. I had never in the years that I had known him felt threatened. He had the habit of reassuring me that I was safe with him, that I was one of the most loyal, kind people he had ever known.
That’s why, in part, I decided to take him to see some cage fighting I was covering. I felt conflicted about exposing Noel to more violence when he experienced so much of it in his daily life on the street. But the tickets were free, and I knew Noel had never been to an event quite like it.
“Am I going to throw up during this?” I asked Noel as we Ubered to the 2300 Arena, where noisy fans gathered to watch people beat the shit out of each other in a cage.
“You’ll be fine,” Noel said. And I was.
I actually liked seeing ultra-fit warriors pummel each other for kicks and glory. But I especially enjoyed listening to Noel’s running commentary: “Oh, he’s in trouble now! Hit him in the body! Hit him in the body!”
When his Uber arrived to take him back to his friend’s house, Noel told me that it had been one of the best nights of his life. I teared up, just as I did a couple of weeks later when Noel called to wish me a merry Christmas.
He’d been on a slide.
Although Noel had finally secured a phone, someone had stolen it while he was sleeping. He’d been hit in the head during a fight and didn’t feel quite right. Noel hadn’t been on a job in days. On top of all of this, the friend he’d been staying with had gone to see family for the holidays, kicking him out.
“So where are you sleeping?”
“You know,” Noel said, finally admitting that he had been wandering around the streets of North Philly for several nights. Noel said he’d gotten ahold of a box-cutter for protection. The previous night he’d found an abando to huddle up in. Noel sounded so despondent that I could barely stand to stay on the phone with him.
I hardly slept that night and met Noel at his father’s house the next day to give him 40 dollars that he swore he would spend on rent and not drugs, though of course, I couldn’t be sure. Noel looked worse than I had ever seen him, thin, unshaven, haggard. He hugged me tight. I didn’t want to release him back into the cold world.
“That’s the last time I’m giving you money, Noel,” I said, wondering if I would be able to stick to my resolution.
Noel said that he hated admitting to me what kind of shape he was in, that he had his pride. He loathed being so desperate, he said. I knew on some level Noel was using me. But at that moment, I didn’t care. I needed to know that he had a roof over his head, at the same time realizing that this was hardly a permanent solution.
“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me,” Noel said, repeating something he often said. “Just because I’m from the street doesn’t mean I’m not a gentleman.”
Noel was a gentleman. I had known him long enough to understand that.
But I also understood that, in some ways, our relationship was keeping him rotating in a debilitating cycle, partly of his own making, from which he had been unable thus far to extricate himself.
With or without me, I wondered if he ever would.
This is part of a longer series called Doing Time With Noel: https://medium.com/@courtenayharrisbond/doing-time-with-noel-595ff276937b.
