homeless stories page3Message: 3
From: "Morgan W. Brown" <norsehorse@NOSPAMhotmail.com>
To: hpn@lists.is.asu.NOSPAMedu
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 12:27:56 -0500
Subject: [Hpn] Man identified as friendly transient;Fort Worth, Texas;12/21/01-------Forwarded article-------
Friday, December 21, 2001
Star-Telegram <http://web.star-telegram.com>
[Fort Worth, Texas]
Fort Worth News section
Man identified as friendly transient
<http://web.star-telegram.com/content/fortworth/2001/12/21/fwnews/fw010402-1221-XB001-homeless.htm>
By DEANNA BOYD
Star-Telegram Staff WriterFORT WORTH - Carl Barton was homeless, but not friendless.
In the Stockyards, where he had been a fixture for more than two decades,
businesspeople often bought him lunch or gave him warm clothes for the
winter. D.D. Rees paid him a few bucks to keep the parking lot of the office
building she managed clean and helped him apply for Social Security this
year. Police officers working in the area frequently paused to chat with the
Vietnam veteran.
When Barton disappeared last month, some thought he had finally found an
apartment or a place to stay. But many began to worry when they learned
Barton hadn't picked up his latest disability check.
"Carl is always here right at the first of the month," said Rees, office
manager of the Alps office building. "He knew when the mailman came. He even
knows the mailman by name. He'd meet him out front."
On Thursday, friends learned the 59-year-old man's fate.
Mounted patrol officers Christy Grady and Susan Thompson went to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office and positively identified Barton as a man fatally injured in a fall last month on a grassy slope. Grady's husband, Lt.
J.D. Grady, had spotted a Star-Telegram article about the unidentified man
on Thursday and noticed that the victim was similar in description to Barton.
Using information Barton had shared with the friends he left behind, the
Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office and police are now trying to find
his relatives.
Rees first met Barton in 1992.
"He was just standing outside. He was picking up some kind of trash that had
blown up against our office building and I told him there was a lot in the
back to be cleaned, and I would give him a few bucks to clean it up every
day," Rees said. "He just kind of kept an eye on this building."
Through the years, the two became good friends. Barton told Rees he had been
a hot-tar roofer until an injury left him unable to work.
"He fell off a roof back in 1977 and broke his back," Rees said. "He didn't
have any family or anything, so after he was released from the hospital, he
just hit the streets."
Randy Scott, an executive recruiter for hospitals, noticed that Barton would
often snooze during the winter on a small porch near Scott's office at the Alps building.
He and other tenants couldn't help but like Barton, he said. "We'd bring him lunch if we'd seen him drinking too much," he said, laughing as he recalled the time Barton gladly took the $2 hamburgers, walked around the corner and sold them to others for a buck.
At last year's Christmas party, Scott said, everybody brought an extra gift
for Barton. Soon the homeless man was modeling the Texas Christian University sweatshirt he got from one TCU fan, the new steel-toed boots and leather jacket Scott had outgrown, and a new hat from another.
"He was all duded up," Scott said.
"To some people he was a nuisance, but he was a little bit of security here," he said. "He could tell you who did what, when. He slept during the day and stayed up all night to keep from being robbed."
Christy Grady met Barton during her occasional horseback patrols at the Stockyards. During the summer, she would often see Barton curled asleep in
the shade of a large tree behind one of the businesses or hanging out with
other transients.
"I'd come by and ask him, 'How are you doing today?' and just kind of check
on him," Christy Grady said. "I'd speak to him maybe once a week."
J.D. Grady never met Barton, but often heard about him from his wife.
"She's always saying how nice and pleasant he is, but a down-on-his-luck
type of guy," J.D. Grady said. "Over the months she's kind of giving me Carl
updates."
Recently, however, Christy Grady had been telling her husband that her
friend was missing.
"I asked about him about a month ago, probably first of November," Christy
Grady said. "His friends said he supposedly was going to get an apartment and has a place to stay now."
But on Tuesday the same two friends asked Christy Grady if she had seen
Barton. "They said, 'We haven't seen him in over a month. We know he hasn't come
over to pick up his money and we're worried about him,' " Christy Grady
recalled.
Christy Grady rode around the places where she normally spotted Barton but
to no avail. Two days later, J.D. Grady was reading the paper when he noticed a story about the unidentified man similar in description to Barton and called his wife.
"I started reading it and before I got halfway through, I thought, 'I wonder
if this is Carl?' " J.D. Grady said.
Word spread quickly around the Stockyards yesterday about the familiar face
that would no longer be around.
"Everybody knew him," Rees said. "He'll be missed by a lot of people."Deanna Boyd, (817) 390-7655 dboyd@star-telegram.com
--------------------------------------------------------
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material is distributed without charge or profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
this type of information for non-profit research and
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-------End of forward-------Morgan <norsehorse@NOSPAMhotmail.com>
Morgan W. Brown
Montpelier Vermont USA****************************************
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message has been sent in HTML format with inline graphics.Homeless in El Paso, Texas by Al Bliss
I knew it was a mistake but I knocked on the door anyway. Dressed in blue jeans, white tennis sneakers and checkerboard shirt, Walter invited me inside his apartment. After dinner, he had a fresh cup of coffee and a dish of Butter Pecan ice cream. I refrained. During desert is when the first argument started.
“Who are you this time?”
“What are you talking about? I’m your brother, Al!”
“Are you now! There are things about you that don’t jive.”
“Like what?”
“Every time I see you, you are a different person. First you were manic/depressive, then an alcoholic, then a hitchhiking poet.”
“Those were stages of my development, Walt.”
“Development! Give me a break! Now you are fasting? You never did that before!”
“I met this Hindu on the bus to New Jersey and he taught me the proper way to meditate.”
“So now you are a homeless Buddha? What about the money you owed the loan shark?”
“Walt, I was playing the role of a gambler. I told you that."
“It was more than just a role! Actors don’t borrow $5000, especially when hey can’t pay it back. Isn’t that why you went to Alaska, because you needed the money to pay off the dept?”
“I got a job on Arctic Enterprise, spent four months processing fish in Alaska because I wanted to play the role of the deep sea fisherman.”
“And now you are back here, still homeless and still poor.”
“Life is an adventure, Walt. I can’t be just one person! I would turn into a dope addict if I had to play the same role everyday, in every city I visit.”
“A homeless dope addict I can understand, you I do not understand!”
“I refuse to settle into one tight little cubbyhole role. What is so hard to understand about that? There is no national law that says if I’m homeless I must behave like a needle user or compulsive booster or lazy grubber!”
Eleven days later it was time for me leave. My backpack was stuffed when I walked out to the parlor.
“Where are you going, Al?”
“To a homeless shelter. I know I’ll find love and understanding among the poor and the alienated. Goodbye, Walter.”
Monday, November 7, the coach arrived in El Paso Texas. My first steps were eastbound, six blocks from the depot, till I got to the “Opportunity Center”. I walked in the door, stood in front of the contact counter and waited for
help. I was third in line but I could see the clerk. He was one of the homeless residents here, I’m sure of it, doubling as a shelter monitor. In lots of the ghettoes I’ve visited, homeless men often play this dual role.
“Next.”
A joint like this is called a “Day Center,” a spot where I can hole-up for the day. A place like this also doubles as homeless shelter, a serene locale where I can sleep and eat and shower.
“Next.”
The clerk sat on his chair, hands clasped behind his head, swiveling slightly as he answered questions. He had one of those horseshoe mustaches, over the lip and down to the chin. Bursting from his unbuttoned short sleeve shirt was curly tangled red hair. Behind the clerk was a blackboard with writing, announcing the schedule of this morning’s services. I noticed his half-heart shaped ears were streaked with the white chalky powder.
“Next.”
“Hey brother, I’m new in town and I’m sort of mixed up. Do you think I could stay here for a while till I pull myself together?”
“All you need to use our services is a picture identification card and a social security card. Do you have those, Al?”
I gave Corey the documentation and he filled out my application, photo copying my personal information and stapling it to the intake form. We talked about the offerings at Opportunity Center, stuff like food, clothing, meds, laundry and etceteras.
“How did you find out about this place, Al?”
“I travel around the country, Cor. I rap with lots of homeless travelers
and we share information. This dude from the Kansas City Rescue Mission had
good vibes about this place and recommended it to me. The folks here treated the brother with kindness and respect. Right now, I can use a hefty dose of that treatment.”
“So, Opportunity Center got a five star review?”
“Yeah.”
“Are American homeless shelters that different from one another?”
“One location is pretty much like another, mostly. The poor people at LA’s Midnight Mission are as homeless as the poor people at New York City’s Bowery Mission. It’s the folks running the shelters that make the difference, dig?”
“A bunch of train hoppers stop off here and then take off. I’m curious, Al. If one spot is like another, why do you guys travel?”
“I don’t know who I am. I travel to find myself.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know who you are?”
“An alcoholic know who he is. A day worker knows who he is, too. As I stand here now, I have a body and I have a name and a social security number but I don’t know who the fuck I am.”
“Hook up with Steve Mills, Al.”
“Who is he?”
“One of the caseworkers at Opportunity Center. He’s about six feet tall, has a full beard and short grayish brown hair.” Corey looks around the day room. “He’s often down here rapping with the brothers and sisters. You’ll spot him easily.”
“Do you have your GED?
“Yeah.”
“Steve can you into get into El Paso Community College. And once in there, you can be whatever you want to be.”
“College ain’t for me, bro.”
“Cool. We have classes here, right inside the Opportunity Center.”
“What kind of classes?”
“Want to be a cook? We have classes here and Steve can get you in. Want to learn to use computers? He can get you in that class. Want to learn how to speak Spanish? He can get you into the English as Second Language class.”
“I already speak English.”
“So! You can learn to speak Spanish by helping the Mexican Americans speak English! You have to belong to be. Think about it, Al.”
A line had formed behind me, so we had to cut the conversation short.
Tired and sweaty from the two-day bus trip, I needed to clean up. I put my name on the shower list and waited in the “Day Room,” a huge open space with tables and chairs. A bunch of dudes and dudesses were puffing on cigarettes. I heard an exhaust fan spinning, sucking the tobacco smoke out of the room. The more sociable residents played five-card stud. The loners read the El Paso Times or talked to themselves, while others snored.
My knapsack was on the floor, between my legs. The sack was heavy, forty
pounds of clothes and whatnots. When at the counter, I asked Corey about getting a locker but none were available. I asked him about a storage closet but, according to house rules, I needed a handbag or a backpack to store my excess stuff. I don’t have to tell you how heavy a pack can get.
“Albert Bliss! Shower!”
Volunteers provided towel, soap and shaving cream. I got fifteen minutes under the nozzle and man did that feel good. After the shower and shave I meditated inside the dayroom. I looked mysterious to the other residents, I suppose, sitting on the floor with legs and eyes crossed, like a homeless Siddhartha.
At twelve o’clock I had a bowl of veg soup, a pepper salami sandwich on white bread with mustard, a piece of fruit and a cup of orange Tang.
After the meal I toured the area. From the bus depot I walked along Santa Fe Street and then turned right on El Paso. Outside the storefronts I saw product in cardboard boxes, Mexican cupie dolls, Indian-made belts and kiddy toys that made weird sounds. The strip was sunny and tranquil, reminding me of quality time I spent slacking on Los Angeles Avenue, Los Angeles California. A solo male was up ahead, singing a song and strumming his guitar. I listened to a couple of numbers and then dropped two dimes into his guitar case.
A retailer stood outside an electronic shop, smiling at the passersby.
He called me, waving me over. “Senor! Senor!”
As I crossed the street I saw he was fifty years old and stout. His mahogany cowboy boots were spit shined and his pants were creased, like his bronze facial skin. The boots made him look taller than his five foot four inches. His brown suede Stetson brim provided shade from the harsh sunny glare.
“You need a job, senor?”
“For today?”
“No. I need a strong man like you to work six and half days per week. I will pay you $6 per hour.”
“I quit working full time jobs, senor.”
“Que?”
“Five years ago, I worked for General Motors. I started out as a stockman and moved up to selling auto parts over the counter. Eventually I became the Parts Manager. The money was excellent. I got paid sick days and four weeks vacation time. I got tired of the job, though. I needed to be more. I needed more intensity from my life senor, so I became a homeless wanderer.”
We stood under the hot Texas sun. He twirled the cigar in his mouth and I adjusted the straps of my backpack.
“As a young man, I did traveled all over America. I picked apples in the State of Washington; I worked on cattle farms in Texas and I picked grapes in California. I was looking for meaning to my life, senor.”
“Did you find meaning?”
“No. And what you seek does not exist, senor. Life is what it is, más o menos.” He paused a moment. “I see that you are wearing a “Big Easy” baseball cap. I’ve always wanted to visit the French Quarter.”
“Why don’t you go? Louisiana is not far from here.”
“No time, senor. I have a business to run and a family to feed.”
“I spent two months in New Orleans. When I first got there I slept on the banks of the Mississippi River. I caught two catfish and cooked them over a fire. Most nights I had beans and beer. What a life! I felt like Huckleberry Finn.”
“What happened, senor?”
“It started to rain a lot so I moved.”
“To a hotel?”
“To a place called Ozanam Inn. It’s homeless hotel where the rent and food are free.”
“How did you get the money to buy beer?”
“I earned my money on Bourbon Street, playing the role of the panhandling moocher. I made mucho coin senor, drank mucho beer and had a mother fucking pisser but after three months of doing the same routine, I had enough. The role got old, understand?”
“Sí.”
“I kept playing the poor beggar man part, even though I didn’t like what I was doing.”
“Why did you beg if you did not like to beg?”
“Because it was easy pickings and because that was all I knew how to do. You should have seen me! I played my gig to a prime tourist audience, hand out, legs bent, tears falling down my cheeks, next to tap dancers and trumpet players and blues singers.”
I left the proprietor there, smiling at the pedestrians who passed in front of his store. What else was there to talk about? That I love the bohemian life? That I change roles in order to squeeze more intensity into my existence? He had his life down pat. He knew who he was and I did not.
Meandering about the streets, I walked down a narrow alley and saw an abandoned handbag. I crouched down, unzipped my pack and took half of my belongings out, dividing the contents between the knapsack and the handbag.
Up ahead two homeless dudes, a Black and a Mexican, were passing a quart of vodka. I sat next to Chocolate on the asphalt, between two dumpsters, in a spot where pedestrians couldn’t see us. Both vagrants were in their late forties, like me. Chocolate had conky hair, small ears and a square jaw. Pedro had light brown skin. Apparently he had fallen because there were dried blood scabs on his hands and nose and cheek. Pedro hardly spoke English and was nearly blacked-out. When the vodka was killed, I went into a bodega, bought a six of beer and a bag of pretzels. My head was right so they split the suds.
“Ever been to Seattle, bro. I hear it’s a bum’s nirvana!”
“I spent quality time in Emerald City, bro. Of all the American slums that I have visited, there is nothing that matches Seattle’s services for the poor.”
“What about LA?”
“Los Angeles is a close second.”
“Man, Seattle is way up in the left corner of the map.” He turned and pointed to a spot on the dumpster. “Here’s El Paso, way down here. Seattle is way up here. When I go to the library I always look at maps. What did you do way up there, man?”
“I kept searching for the new me?”
“Say what?”
“The slums that I visit are my stage. Whenever I visit a fresh slum I play-out a new character. I’ve been a chronic alcoholic, a tin can and plastic bottle collector, a boardwalk harmonica playing bum, a street man’s writer and more.”
“Sounds like you are an actor!”
“All of us play a role.”
“Innerestin’”
“Anyway, when I rolled into Seattle I did not know who I was. I walked till my legs pained me, day and night, till I could walk no more. I had no part to play so I returned to the role of the hapless drunkard. I woke from my stupor early one morning and found myself inside the pit of a construction site, beneath a pile of bent rebar and wood slats. I cleaned myself up at a joint called “Urban Rest Stop,” where Seattle’s vagrant population shower, wash clothes and use rest rooms without hassle. I returned to the construction site, hid three forty ounce bottles of Cobra Beer under my bed of wood planks. Through half drunk eyes I observed the work force. They were sitting under a makeshift roof eating lunch, backs against a brick wall, invisible to pedestrians but not to me. What struck me between the eyes was that the workers were mostly middle aged male Caucasians. I saw Blacks, Vietnamese and women but they were just tokens, dig?”
“I dig!”
“I got clean and sober and spoke to caseworkers about getting me a construction job. Not that I really wanted the job but I wanted to see where my questions would lead.
"You don’t know how to operate machinery,” is what I was told.
I spoke to homeless activists about getting my butt into a school that could teach me how to operate bulldozers and forklifts and other pieces of heavy equipment.
“I called the union hall Al, and the business manager said that your name is on the waiting list.”
It seemed that whoever I spoke with stonewalled me. A couple more interviews yielded a whole lot of nothing, until I had an insight. I wasn’t doing this to get a job for me. I was doing this to open doors for the homeless brothers and poor sisters that I slept with, that I ate with, that fornicated with.”
Pedro was now unconscious. He leaned his head on my shoulder. Chocolate and I laughed.
“Where was I?”
“You said you were tying to get a union hard hat job to open doors for other homeless.”
“I began instigating people of color to take a stand, to fight for the right to work on a construction job site. Wherever I went, soup kitchens and rescue shelters and day centers, I incited vagrants out of their slumber. I visited newspaper joints and prompted journalists to interview homeless people, about working for chump change at temporary job agencies; about working on hazardous jobs without proper equipment (boots, rain gear, dust masks); about being excluded from union jobs because we were homeless. Overnight I became a homeless activist. I found the new me.”
“Right on!”
“I graduated to the next stage of my development as a homeless man.”
“I’m still at stage one, trying to get beyond this bottle.” Chocolate picked up the liquor bottle and threw it against the wall.
“What happened, bro? How come you ain’t up there doing the activist thing?” “As soon as I got the role down pat, I felt the urge to self-destruct.”
“Man! Too bad! You were on a roll.”
I looked at my wristwatch. “Wow! It’s six o’clock! It’s time for me to split.”
“Taste this, bro.” Inside his cupped hand were seven or eight tiny pills. “Extasy, bro. I sell’em for two dollars a hit.”
“I’ve had enough, man.”
“Enough? We just fucking started!”
“I practice self control. If I do any more I’ll be breaking my rules.”
“Oh! Listen to this shit, Pedro.” He shook his buddy awake. “Take that control shit and stick it up your fucking ass!”
“Sí!” Pedro added, shaking his fist and spraying me with saliva. “Get fuck outta here!”
I reached the Opportunity Center, walked right through the front door and sat down. Most homeless shelters have basic rules for reentry and especially for those guests who are staying the night. Generally they’ll ask me to do a breathalizer test (check my breath for alcohol content) before they let me inside. Some shelter bosses do a shakedown upon entry, checking my person for weapons. I’m not a child. I know that if I’m soused I’m out. Here, they did not check my breath and they did not "bottle me," (make me take a piss test).
“Chow time!”
All the tenants marked their chairs with a book or a bag and took a spot in the line. I did the same. The line inched along, following the shape of the wall. When we reached a long wooden picnic table, we had to print and sign our names to a roster. When I got to the top of the ramp, the cafeteria volunteer gave me a plate of spaghetti with meat balls and red gravy. I took my tray, nodded to the volunteer server and found a seat.
“Seconds!”
The beggars and the maimed, the addicted and the dejected formed a line that looped around the hall. An ancient human rite, for sure. The hungry homeless approached the food window for a second helping, with disposable plate and plastic fork in hand. Each gave gratitude by means of a smile or a nod and returned to their seats.
I’ve been here for only one day and I’m no closer to finding out just who I am but there is something that is bedrock human about this place. I know that you know what I’m talking about vagrant brother/homeless sister but I gots to say it anyway, if only to enlighten the non homeless. At Opportunity Center, like other homeless monasteries around the United States of America, I see no racism, hear no rich folk exploiting poor folk, smell no effort to keep up with the Jones’, feel no pressure to behave the "correct" way and taste no malice for my fellow vagrants.
For a bum like me, who sheds old roles and adopts new personas, the homeless shelter is the perfect place to evolve into an authentic human being.
While volunteers folded the tables and mopped the floor, guys and gals watched television. Others chewed the gift out of earshot, displaying respect for the people who watched the tube. Around eight o’clock tenants found a premium space and lay down. I was stone tired and followed suit. I grabbed a blue mat and a gray blanket from an open closet. I saw spot on the floor; squeezed between a Black and a Mexican and fell asleep.
The next morning, Tuesday, November 8, I was up at four o’clock meditating. My thought was fixed on the image of a wandering homeless monk. At five I pulled on my socks and tied my bootlaces. After returning the blanket and mat to the closet, I got on the breakfast line. Because I’m fasting, I ate one donut and drank one cup of coffee. A couple of hours later three fellows walked into the Center grabbed as many “barber chairs” and started cutting hair. I put my name on the haircut list. I learned that every Tuesday at nine o’clock, Elders (student-ministers) from the Church of Later Day Saints gave free cuts. At fifteen minutes to ten Elder Davies, a twenty something blond with light complexion and pink puss pimples did me good. He gave me what I asked for, a cut to the skin, with only bristles on top.
At ten-thirty I got a tuberculosis test. Anna Luisa pricked the soft sideof my forearm with a point. I held the sterilized cotton ball over the needle hole while she dated my file. In most shelters the TB test is mandatory; here it was voluntary. That’s another thing I dig homeless cloisters, they respected my right to choose.
I left the nurse’s office, returned to the day room and sat cross-legged on the
floor.
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