True Stories from the Frontlines of Homelessness in Portland # 2

Snow mixed with rain. I smoked out front of the train station, downtown Portland. Some security officers shooed off some familiar faces from under the awnings. The taxis waited in patient lines for fares to come stumbling on board from the bars. I had ten minutes until I had to pick up the list of reservations and load one bus three times full of homeless women, headed toward another side of town.

I went to the Wal-mart of homelessness and got my reservation list. The employees swiveled idly on chairs, stoned out of their minds.

I decided to smoke a pipe at the end of my last shift before the weekend. A cigarette was a liability. It was a flaunting of wealth. Working in the social services one was exposed by the vice of smoking. Poor people, by the numbers, smoke. So do I. It was a hand banner of sincerity. Working with the homeless it was like eating in public. The kind of shit tobacco they were forced to smoke contributed to their nagging coughs, their bronchitis, their pneumonia, but for christ’s sake smoking was all they had left. I couldn’t smoke Camels in front of them. Today was my first time smoking a pipe while loading the bus. There was nothing to ‘bum’ this way.

I went to the Wal-mart of homelessness and got my reservation list. The employees swiveled idly on chairs, stoned out of their minds. Their jobs were to randomly drug test their participants and monitor what was on the TV. Theirs was a comfortable job. Entering such a space, you bring the weather with you. Ice melted and dribbled onto their workspace as I printed out my reservation list.

“Are you full tonight up there?” they asked.

“I don’t know”

“Who is working tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you get on that list?”

“I don’t know.”

“This piece of paper here says you pick up on the East Side. You doing that?”

“I don’t think so.”

Not that I was a stoic martyr for the cause. I flipped them off through the security camera outside the front door on my way out. They threw a crumpled piece of paper at me which bounced off the window. I tamped in the correct amount of Captain Black into my pipe and walked through the rain towards the bus.

“I am Mike today,” I deduced from circumstances. Mike probably did my job days I wasn’t there, what ever my job was.

And like Christmas, the streets were aglow with color. Cop cars were revealed as I turned the corner onto Glisan where the bus was to meet us. As I approached I saw a meandering line against a building, broken where outcroppings on the structure provided small overhangs and protection from the weather. I joined the line and watched the police interview two women. I didn’t know what else to do.

Finally the bus rounded the corner, it’s hydraulics grunting. The women grabbed their belongings and crushed together in a line, eager to get off the streets. A bus driver descended from the height of the buss slowly like a space alien. Back lit, he too lit lit a cigarette. In a thick Russian accent he asked, “who is in charge., where is Mike?”

“I am Mike today,” I deduced from circumstances. Mike probably did my job days I wasn’t there, what ever my job was.

“These women all say they are first. I am not knowing who is first. Please load bus from the back,” with that the driver stood to one side. I felt hands on my back trying to move me from blocking the buss’s entrance. In my teacher voice I declared unsteadily, “Please say your name to me as you board so I can confirm you are on the list.” AS soon as I finished this a wrinkled face appeared beneath me.

“I’m getting on this buss, ain’t no fucking way I’m waiting out here for two hours.”

“May I get on first, I am not feeling well. Ms. Jean.” I quickly saw the name and moved to allow her. There seemed to be a collective gasp from the line.

“Who the fuck out here isn’t sick. I’ve been waiting here for THREE hours.”

I looked up to see a woman with a walker, perhaps sixty. As I nodded agreement my eyes focused on those in line next to her. There were canes, wheelchairs, bottled oxygen, drenched coats… The line had dissolved. All were moving towards the bus.

“I’m getting on this buss, ain’t no fucking way I’m waiting out here for two hours.”

I tried to think quick. I glanced at the bus driver who nodded his head. He was expecting this. “I am going to read the names…”

“The fuck you are, I’ve been standing right here for three hours…”

“Bitch, you just got here.”

“You don’t know shit. Don’t you DARE step up on me and tell me where I have been.”

I’d like to say I figured something out. But I really don’t remember how that first bus got loaded. I remember it leaving and being drenched with sweat on the inside of my clothes. AS it lurched away I realized the cops had left as well. Maybe 70 homeless ladies remained in the suddenly dark street.

“You are steaming,” a younger woman said, pointing at my shoulders, noticing the sweat and heat.

“Yeah, I panicked,” I told her.

My eyes got accustomed to the dark. I relaxed a little. The younger lady stood next to me. “What is your name?”

“Jesy,” she said. Her hands were tucked into the ends of her sleeves. Her hood cast shadows over her face. She seemed to watch what I watched. She perceived the marijuana smoke, the popping of beer cans and the seemingly shadowy influx of men to the line from down the street. “You smell like my grandfather,” Jessie said. It took me a moment to remember my ridiculous pipe.

“I hope he was a good man.” She didn’t answer.

I loaded the last bus. After the last stragglers were on, the bus driver I stood in the steam rain and haze of the bus lights and smoked. He had a slight gut but carried himself like a proud boy. “These women, they don’t have families?” he asked. I shrugged. “I don’t know why this doesn’t happen in my country.”

Click here to read the first story in the series “Story #1 — Penny”