Below the Waterline

Below the Waterline

I vowed to eat my lunch with the residents. This vow naturally meant I had to eat shelter food. No Subway bags or burgers from Wendy’s. I’m not sure if I can swallow today’s offering which resembles spaghetti. Pasty noodles glued together by gray chunks of what is probably meat.

My skin is pale and most of the residents at the shelter are people of color, but it doesn’t matter. I listen. That’s what I’m here to do. I change light bulbs, process donations, and I listen.

When I asked residents about the race riots after Floyd, they all shared freely. The key is to never interrupt unless you’re asking for clarity.

Darnell said when he reads things like “All lives matter” and “Baby’s Lives Matter” it grates on him.  “I can read between the lines if you know what I mean.”

“What’s it say?” I ask. “What do you see between the lines?”

Darnell is a light skinned brown thirty something with no teeth. Most meth users lose their teeth. Darnell smiles all the time, but it’s not a joyful smile. His grin says “I know things, and I wish I could give those things away,­ but no one wants them.”

“Last week I saw ‘All lives matter’ tacked on a tree downtown. What it’s really saying is ‘You don’t get your time now boy. I refuse to focus on your business.’ That’s what those signs mean. They just shovin‘ us back again.”     

I had a good conversation with Alfonzo my first day at the mission. Alf was a heavyset black man who’d never had drug or alcohol problems. He was all over the place and couldn’t hold a job for more than a few weeks. I remember Alf complaining that every time he walked out of Walmart, they checked his bag and receipt while white men his age walked on past.

“How’d that make you feel?”

He shrugged. “It feels sorta‘ criminal. I fought for my country in Iraq and they treatin‘ me with no respect. That kinda‘ stuff changes you, man.”

When the residents have nothing left to say they usually ask my opinion. They want to know what old gray-beard thinks. Because their words have value to me, my thoughts have value to them.

I remembered that first day talking to Alf, the vet who always wore a Dolphins ballcap. And I remembered four-year-old Maranda.

It was hot that day and there were a dozen flies buzzing around in the cafeteria. Miranda sat at the center table in the middle of the lunchroom. She was wailing like a drowning child. Her older sister Alyssia, stared over her bowl of mac and cheese, with glazed eyes numb to the world.

The man beside their mother was the latest flavor of the month. Probably neither of the girls knew his name, but he was asserting his newfound authority by forcing Miranda to stay in her chair until she finished her food.

Miranda’s mother pushed green beans with her fork, but never took a bite. To the detriment of her daughter, she gave into the man. For some reason she thought she needed him, so she let the bully have his way.

I wanted to say to the stand-in father, “Take some time with Miranda, learn about this girl. Gain her trust before you try to change her.” But I knew he wouldn’t hear. It probably wasn’t about the girl anyway.

If momma told him to stop, I’d be on him in a heartbeat. But she’d already pushed the start button. The film had to play.

And Miranda cried. Reaching for her momma who wouldn’t look at her, she cried buckets.

The culture in a traditional shelter is like an oozing wound that won’t heal. The first thing you compromise is your dignity. You sleep with cockroaches, you’re forced to compromise any standards you might have once had for relationships, and you lose your personal space—all your privacy. Those who give up compromise the most valuable things they have. Miranda’s mother put her daughter’s heart in the hands of a man who didn’t know the first thing about the four-year-old. He didn’t know what food she liked, or that her favorite color is green. All he knew how to do was push.

Before their twentieth birthday most shelter residents have felony convictions, and babies to house and feed. Without a high-school education, and a bad police record, they have little hope of getting a decent job. It’s better for the men if they’re willing to work construction. They can dig their way out with a hard life of labor, but women with children face higher hurdles.

When they finally mature and realize they have no future, they struggle to find peace. Many become delusional. Some blame others. Most self-medicate and spend any extra cash on the lottery. At the 7-11 they purchase scratch-off dreams, their only hope for an easy future.

  One employee at the shelter sported a bumper sticker that said ‘The lottery is a tax on people who’re bad at math.’

To residents, it’s not only about winning or losing. Microscopically slim hopes are better than no hope at all. They have to have something to look forward too.   

Residents stared at their plates. Miranda’s screams forced another compromise. You erected walls to box out the anguish. You mashed the screams into one small section of your mind and then tried to look away.

Michelle finished her phone call and left the front desk. She walked down the hall and went straight to Miranda. And then she dropped to her knees. The flavor of the month took his hand off Miranda’s shoulder.

  Michelle held out her arms, “Do you need a hug?”

Miranda nodded and dove into Michelle’s hug. She never left the chair.

Eventually Miranda’s sobs eased. Finally, she closed her eyes and relaxed. Michelle never moved. Ten, twelve, fifteen minutes passed and she held that little girl. All the hot air left the room.

What had I learned on my first day at the shelter? It’s hard to pin it with a label. I can fix washers and dryers. And I know how to unplug toilets. But there are some things a woman can do better than a man. That’s what I learned.

Eight months have passed and four-year-old Miranda is long gone. Maybe to another shelter, maybe to a government assisted apartment, who knows. She’ll probably be back, but I hoped her mother would somehow get her nose above the waterline.    

Four little ones have passed through the shelter since I started volunteering. I’d have taken each one home to my family if they’d let me. It never gets easier.

Darnell pops open his second soda and takes a swig. Lots of businesses donate food and drinks to the shelter. Most of the resident’s drink sodas like their life depended on it.

“When you gonna move on?” asks Darnell. His ironic smile creeps back into his face. “You comin‘ here three, four days a week now. You must be outta your mind.”

I put my fork on the tray.  The spaghetti was barely edible. Not half as good as my wife’s. “I guess I could go today—go anytime when it suits me.” The question made me think. Am I ready to park myself in our driveway for good? The work at the shelter weighs hard on my old bones.

Darnell broke a cookie and popped a chunk in his mouth. “Tim told me you got a state pension.” He chuckled. “You could kick back and sip margaritas by the pool.”

“Sure.” I scraped my tray into the trashcan. “But if I stopped coming, I wouldn’t see you.”

Darnell leaned forward. With his head between his knees, he broke into a long laugh and rubbed his face. He raised up and looked me square, shaking his head.

“Most volunteers trynna fix the world, Mister Rick. Makes ‘em feel better ‘bout their own sins, I guess. You trynna change the world?”

“Changing light bulbs is hard enough for me.”

Darnell nodded, and the irony washed out of his smile. “It’s tuff to figure you, Mister Rick.”

“Do you mind if I rest my hand on your shoulder?”

“It’s fine,” he said.

I put my hand on him. You must learn who you can touch at the shelter. Some residents go berserk if you lay a hand on them. They have memories of being touched. “I may not change anything Darnell, but I’m learning about the world I live in. And you’re helping me.”

His eyes opened wide.

I walked toward the entrance hall; my half-day was over. I repeated my usual farewell, “See you on the other side my friend.”

He held up his soda can and smiled.

At ten that night, when they lock the doors, Darnell had been drinking and blew positive on the breath test. It was a warm night so they wouldn’t let him sleep in the shelter, and it was also his third strike. The next morning, when he came for his backpack, I wasn’t there. I never saw him again.