True Stories from the Frontlines of Homelessness in Portland
I’ll start with this story. Penny’s was a frail body, slumped into a chair, ravaged by late stage Hepatitis-C and MS. Penny’s mouth and gallows humor more than made up for any physical failing. Hell, a few days before christmas she rolled into the auditorium and was greeted by the sounds of several deranged women singing Christmas carols. Penny said, “Oh for Christ’s sake, I’m going back to my abusive husband and he can kill me, I can’t listen to this,” and she piloted her chair around and headed for the front door.
She had the dubious distinction of being the worst off of all our visitors to our little slice of hell.
Her body wasn’t doing well. It was cold and wet Christmas. It usually is in Portland, or at least every Christmas I can remember growing up. In that chair, with no showers, her body was rotting. She had the dubious distinction of being the worst off of all our visitors to our little slice of hell. She liked me; a blessing and a curse. Her dirty mind would conjure twisted fantasies she’d tell me in hushed tones as I loaded her onto the bus headed downtown every morning. This was flattering. But when she was hurting, she let me know, in the poignant poetic vitriol of the wounded. Enough melodramatic exposition: I’m sure you understand by now, I worked in a homeless shelter, Penny was dying in one.
The damn wheelchair lift got stuck, Penny half way up. It was snowing. 5:30am. Not that anyone was in a hurry to get back downtown, we just had to vacate the building by 7:30am. A hundred plus women ranging in ages from 18–85 had to be up and out on a snowy day. Many of these women were also waiting in the snow as Penny’s life experience kicked in, “Oh for fucks sake. You are going to probably all stand around making cell phone calls while I sit here. It’s cold. I hurt. Do something, Lewis.”
…as a Special Education teacher, homelessness was a subsidiary of the main enterprise of teaching.
Most of my job was to motivate people onto that bus. Formerly I was a school teacher, so unwilling people were sort of my business. And as a Special Education teacher, homelessness was a subsidiary of the main enterprise of teaching. However teaching is a millennia’s old vocation. Loading 500 pound power chairs onto biodiesel busses in a middle class neighborhood under the watchful eyes of unapproving neighborhood associations is a relatively new field. I had no words of wisdom for Penny. She knew it. She locked her eyes on me.
“Lewis. This is life. I spent 50 fucking years on this planet, had three children and now look at me. I have a compromised immune system. I can be outside in the snow. I can’t. I don’t deserve this, no one does. Lewis,” and she cried. Not loud wrathful tears, the silent sobbing of someone who hates to cry in public. And is there a more public place than eight feet in the air like atop some twisted pulpit as the people of the homeless shelter try their best to pity you… as the scornful eyes of the middle class neighbors size you up and blame the sound of the idling bus on you?
Some days earlier waiting for the bus to take us up to the shelter, after a particularly nasty fight on the street in front of the day center, I was smoking a cigarette with Penny. She had a distant twinkle in her eyes; you could see she was drop dead gorgeous in her day. “What the fuck made you work here?” she asked. I was still winded from attempting and failing to break up a fight.
I lost my son, my career and my wife. It’s a cruel fucking world.”
“Well, my ex wife got high on Spice on Christmass eve and told the cops I did the worst of the worst. The courts were closed and it took weeks to get it cleared. I spent the holidays in a shelter. I lost my son, my career and my wife. It’s a cruel fucking world.”
“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Penny said.
Most stories are supposed to have a beginning, middle and an end. Mine don’t yet. Penny stopped going to the shelter. She didn’t say goodbye. She did once on the bus she looked at me with yellow eyes (failing liver) she made me promise I’d tell these stories. And I am going to try. Penny made me promise I’d tell these stories because I have been homeless, I never looked away from tragedy like it wasn’t happening and she liked my sense of humor. I hope I can do her right.
