Half of new paid subscriptions for this series of posts go to my friends on the street. Lately, you’ve helped me buy a tent heater and small propane tank (they’re safer than I thought); a train ticket to Atlanta for Melvin—a story in itself; two weatherproof blankets, a tarp, a piece of quiche, two pieces of pizza, one pint of coffee ice cream, a package of beef jerky, and other items to help folks get through the day…and increasingly cold nights.
Note: I’m aware that some of this money may go towards things we might wish my friends didn’t buy, regardless of my best efforts…and their best intentions.
At first glance, Mary looks like the lady next door who has emphysema and is on a walker but still wants to bake you cookies.
She isn’t homeless. She has a place to live. She just doesn’t always have the money to get there. Because it’s 25 miles away, and her husband often has to go to the ER or clinic in town on short notice for a host of maladies, including several broken bones and infections.
Their old Subaru got totaled so they drive their even older truck that gets maybe 15 miles a gallon. 50 miles roundtrip. So maybe three gallons. At $3.60/gallon. At least $10. More for food and, of course, cigarettes.
Their house burned down ten years ago. So, they live on their land in a trailer. Both their boys have trailers there, too. Her husband had a mechanic shop but can’t handle much more than inspections these days. He should be on disability but isn’t yet for some reason or other. Sometimes they get vouchers for gas to and from appointments, but other times they can’t for some reason or other. I run into a lot of people who think they’re supposed to be getting something but aren’t for some reason or other.
The first time I meet Mary, Kenny and I are sitting on a bench under the bus shelter minding each other’s business when she comes up and asks us for a cigarette. She looks somewhere between 45 and ageless and, on this day, has the nervous energy of someone who has an urgent appointment, clinical mania, or an addiction. Kenny says sorry, we don’t smoke which, in his case, is kind of a dodge since it seems to me he has the equivalent of a half-pack-a-day pot habit.
She holds out three little pearl-like things and asks if they’re worth anything. Kenny says yes but not more than four dollars.
I asked Kenny if she’s a friend of his. He tells me that one time she calmed him down when someone was fucking with him, and he had picked up a blunt instrument. How blunt I wonder. Not blunt enough he answers so fast I’m not sure if I asked yet.
He tells me that Mary’s had a lot of violence in her life. At which point she starts gulping back a tear or two. He counters with a bit of tough love explaining that he’s had a lot of violence in his life, too. That he was raised in a rich family with two doctors but it didn’t make any difference. He tells me to give her $5.
I ask her, in a matter-of-fact way, about why she’s in town, and she looks at me the way people do when I’m with Kenny…like they’ve been thrown a tenuous line to the real world that could get ripped to shreds next time he opens his mouth.
So, she tells me about her husband’s broken face and back and compartment syndrome, whatever that is, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome that, surprisingly, I have heard of.
Gee, he must be in the hospital, I say.
No, he’s in the truck right now…we got a scrip for antibiotics, and we want to get home.
So, Kenny, I ask, should I give her more money?
Don’t ask me he says. You’re embarrassing me and her.
C’mon, you’re my banker Kenny.
You want a pearl? She asks me.
Kenny then takes the high road, a place with which I believe he’s less familiar than he claims. Will you two stop for a second, please? David, she's such a good person that she’s embarrassed to take money.
OK, fine. Here Mary, give me the five back and I’ll give you 20.
You sure you don’t want a pearl?
No, Mary, that’s fine.
Kenny has had enough. I'm going to let you two talk, he says, because I'm tired of you asking me what you should do. You’re a grownup, do it yourself.
He starts to assemble his haphazard belongings as Mary continues her litany of miseries. The car crash(es). The coma. Broken bones. Mercer. Oh yeah, and cellulitis. It’s a long story. And that’s just her husband. She has a few problems of her own. I start to lose track.
Can’t your sons help?
We don’t like to ask. They’re embarrassed by us.
Kenny interrupts. I have to go to church, he announces, because he has a meeting with another mother named Mary. He walks off, telling this mother Mary not to worry about taking money from me because, “He’s loaded. You’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t take it. He has strong feelings for the homeless.”
Go away, Kenny. She’s not homeless. And I’m not loaded.
No, I’m not, she insists. Don’t tell people that Kenny.
After he goes, she explains she makes money by cleaning condos for rich people but it’s hard with her husband having all these appointments.
She adds—for some reason that makes perfect sense to me at the time—that her grandmother was a coalminer’s daughter from Newcastle. Same as Tammy Wynette. [She means Loretta Lynn.] Today’s diamond in the rough, I think. Good luck, I say, handing her $20.
But can’t I help you in any way? She wants to know. Clean your place or something? (Mary was about to spend the night sleeping in her truck with her sick husband and she’s wondering whether my place needs cleaning. Next time she’ll want to bake me those cookies.)
Hey Mary. I gotta go. Really glad to meet you. Hope this helps. Have a good ride home.
The next day I’m starting down the hill to go for a bike ride and I see her standing on the sidewalk near the Co-Op. I guess she didn’t make it home the night before…Or she did and is already back for some reason…Or never needed gas money in the first place.
Truth is a rare commodity on the street. Most of my friends can’t afford it.
I get off my bike, walk up on the sidewalk, and call her on it.
"Truth is a rare commodity on the street. Most of my friends can’t afford it. "
I appreciate that you can get on your bike and ride off into the wind. Your wings.