Skuldudgery

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT
by Street Talker
Please read the following story:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/14/one-billion-rising-an-end-to-violence-against-women/



November 12th, Monday

When I last left off of this tale of my fall to the streets, I believe that Mrs. Brightcastle was beginning to play a prominent role in my life. We had bagged up roughly 8 bags of food from the local food bank to give out to some needy homeless folks who couldn't get to the food warehouse.  We had visited the food bank on Thursday morning. There was no way we could possibly consume the amount of bread we were given before it turned moldy, or eat the bundles of broccoli, and dozens of tomatoes, before they rotted without refrigeration. My Scottish soul would never have recovered from the waste of it. Our slapdash form of distribution of those supplies was in full swing by late afternoon, and we were about ready to think about finding a safe location to set up our little camp for the night. It isn't wise to wear out one's welcome when you are homeless and most especially if your truck tags are out of date, so we did not want to impose on our previous days’ benefactor so soon after the last time.
During the previous evening we had avoided getting wet by parking under an overhang at a deserted strip mall. While we sipped warm coffee and appreciated being sheltered from the rain, a couple of my new companions’ friends had stopped by for a chat or to grab some grub. One fellow mentioned that he had a friend who wanted to get rid of an old camper that might fit my truck. For free. Of course my interest was immediate and we knocked out the directions to find where this haven from the outdoors was stored. We then met up with three young friends the following early evening. who were all looking forward to working on the antique truck that currently housed the camper.
The overhead camper was fully self-contained, and in need of some intermediate repairs. During the process of repositioning the camper onto my truck’s bed, the hydraulic lifts that supported the camper when not sitting atop the truck, had been damaged, but I felt that I could tackle those problems with some help from Mrs. B’s friend at some point in the future. But, right now, this very large and unwieldy box was weighing my truck down, and I would have to put air in the tires come daylight. The running lights were not working and I could not take the chance of driving after dark, which could lead to being pulled over by one of our local Peace Officers. With limited options we decided to find a back road and park for the remainder of the night. But I had my new home, a staging ground I could now use to find a job from, safety from the elements in, and it even had a shower! Once I fixed it. I was, if not perfectly content, as close to it as is possible to be.



By Street Talker

November 13th, 2012

Mrs. Brightcastle’s not so little problem came home to roost the following night, November 2nd.

Through mornings’ light that brought with it Winter’s first warning - a cold thick fog- the sound of a three-wheeler awoke us from the first really deep night’s slumber that either of us had experienced in quite a while.   The man on the cycle stopped by to invite us over to his home for coffee and to do our laundry. Without a single word or look from us, he just knew that we were homeless. This generous soul told us that he had once been homeless himself, and he knew that our needs were great, and that he could at least give us some coffee and even a place to shower if we wanted. We were happy to sip coffee with him in his luxuriously warm little home. Knowing that she and I had a busy schedule mapped out for the day, we turned any other offers of aid down, and hit the road to collect the things we needed to get the camper street legal.  On the 'to do' list was for us to go to the Social Security office to apply for Mrs. B’s Social Security card, and driver's license replacements, which had been stolen from her previous to our teaming up. Mrs. B., with new I.D. in hand would then able to collect her GA assistance cash and get a library card.  Each of our SNAP accounts now held food stamps, too. We shopped for groceries and did general errands.

That evening after a very successful day full of accomplishments we settled in at the old parking lot that I had been using for the past month. Only this time, with the camper on the truck we attracted more attention than I was comfortable with, and so I chose a new spot farther back in deeper shadow. The camper had been tidied earlier and I began dinner preparations on the camp stove. We had not had time during the busy day to get any propane for the regular stove that came with the camper. Mrs B. freshened up and decided to go out for the evening. I ate dinner and finally cleaned up, myself, and then got comfortable for the night.

At sometime after midnight furtive sounds awakened me. Whispering and giggling coming from outside the truck filtered in through the porthole windows. Mrs. B had brought the friend who had given us the information about the camper - back to the camper - with plans for him to spend the night, it appeared. Though not comfortable with the idea, I felt obliged to him for his help. So, I decided to just go back to sleep. But they, it seemed, had other things on their minds to do, and I soon detected a noxious smell that made me cough. The glint of a small hand-held propane cylinder sparkled in the reflection from the window opposite to where I now lay in a state of apprehension. The shooshing noise of gas being converted to flame whispered out over the quiet of the night. They quickly checked on me to see if I remained asleep through the slight disturbance they had caused, and they started to go through my belongings. At that point I just knew I had inadvertently become involved in something that I had no intention of staying involved in. They were obviously doing something that they knew I would not agree to, or approve of, and they were trying to accomplish this task before I awoke. Not knowing if there was a clear danger to me or not, made making a decision about what to do even more difficult. While laying there listening to the tinkle of what I imagined to be glass flasks, and the tension in the air during one long process they were involved in, I ascertained that they must be doing something I had only ever heard of, not seen. I believed them to be cooking methamphetamine in my camper. I came to believe, over the course of the next four hours, while I lay upon my upper bunk bed, the ‘sleep-over’ part of the camper, that they believed me to have realized that there is nothing free in this world. That by accepting their gift of the camper, that I was also acquiescing to their production of illegal drugs. Now I faced a conundrum. To keep things quiet and their suspicions unaroused I needed a sneaky way of leaving this newest home of mine and making a clean getaway. Earlier in the evening the camper had been raised up on it’s supports, and I believed that since the trailer was not resting on my truck, that if I could just get into the truck, then I could simply drive away and leave them in the stranded camper, with their stupid drugs. I thought I might come back to the camper for the rest of my things some time later, but those things really did not matter to me right then. After all it was only clothes and toiletries, really. I would miss the blankets and my friend’s camp stove, though.  As I made my move, and alerted them gradually that I was waking up, I surreptitiously gathered a few things and stuck them in my purse. Climbing down from the bunk area I told them that I was going to go to an early job interview, of which I had spoken to Mrs. B about earlier. Exiting the camper I then quickly climbed into the cab of my truck and locked the doors. Picking up my little pay-as-you-go phone, that lacked any minutes or calling time for that matter, I dialed the first two numbers of the emergency number “911,” then started the truck and began to pull away. Unfortunately, the camper was still resting on the truck just enough to be dragged behind by the forward motion of the wheels. The supports cracked even more, and began to tear away from the camper shell. I was forced to stop the truck. My clean getaway was not so clean after all. Of course this sudden movement jarred the two occupants of the camper, and I watched in the side-view mirrors as Mrs. B. scampered out the rear door and away into the night carrying an armful of what looked like small metal canisters. I also watched as her friend came around to the driver side door and blearily glared in at me. He mimed to me a "What's up?" sort of shrug with his arms, and  I held up the phone so that he could clearly see  I need only dial one more number to be in touch with help. He did not know that I had no air time left, that I was bluffing. The cold fact of life right then, was that I was stuck in a dark parking lot with a 2,300 pound weight holding my truck in place, facing down who I now believed to be a dangerous person. I was armed with little but my wits and a crowbar I had stashed in the back seat. Well, with the crowbar anyway. My wits seemed to have deserted me. Making a lot of noise and attracting the police was not an option. As a homeless person I have had to learn to deal with the fact that we do not receive the same respect as a working citizen of the USA. The cops now equal hassle and trouble to me, and who is to say whether or not I will come out ahead of this in the end? Who is to say that those two who had no second thoughts about using the camper as a possible meth lab would not turn around and say that it was my property,  that I was the one doing the illegal work inside of it? I could not chance it. So when he offered to go get another jack to lever up the camper I speedily agreed. He assured me that he would be back soon. "Oh joy," I thought to myself. I told him through the small opening of my cracked window that if he did not get the camper off of my truck that I would finish the call to 911. I did not care if he came back with a jack or not. I was determined to get what had turned into my nightmare, instead of my dream, off of my truck any way that I could. After he left to supposedly get the jack, I left the security of my truck and began to jack up the damaged hydraulic lifts as far as I could get them to go, without causing the camper to tip over and land on my truck. I just needed to get the cursed thing lifted up about an an inch to then be able to leave it in my dust. Finally it would go no further up. I had to chance it. The sun was coming up and people would be arriving at the lonely little bakery located not very far down from where this stand-off was occurring. Between the pressure of waiting for him to come back, and being seen in this predicament, I was about ready to explode with desperation. With much trepidation I started the truck once again and put it in drive. I had intended to slowly ease out from under the camper, but, when I started to move forward the creaking and swaying motion above my head grew alarmingly, and my foot just jammed itself onto the accelerator as far down as it would go. My truck has a very strong engine. The truck tires burned rubber and I was out and away just as the camper crashed down behind me. It was like some action movie stunt. I actually cleared it nanoseconds before my truck would have been trapped underneath it!
Whew. I drove slowly away down the back alley into the sunny day that had suddenly become threatening and very dark. Where to go now? I had to be in the area to vote on Tuesday and to pick up my mail. I still had food to deliver to some people who were hungry. Now I also had a very pissed off alleged drug dealer looking for me too. Time to find a hidey hole, hunker down and think about things while I licked my newest wounds. Losing my second home in less than a month was a devastating blow. Losing it the way I had was just overwhelming. I just wanted to sleep.

Feeling Dirty

Wednesday, 24 October, 2012

I began a story yesterday telling you about my beginnings of life on the street.  Today I want to tell you of my struggles to stay clean and civilized, which the cities don't make it easy to do.  At the moment I am situated in a small farming community about 15 miles outside of Sacto.  I must travel to the 'city' to get any social services, be it Roseville, Citrus Heights, or the big one ... Sacto.  Social Services include filing for General Assistance, which is a small stipend loaned to a person with no money  who meets certain qualifications set by the County of Sacramento. I will talk later about struggles with obtaining that in another story.
During my first week as a homeless person I was determined to remain clean above all other matters in my life.  I was not a cleanliness freak, I just like to be clean in the normal way that people generally do.  Thus, I prepared a little kit in a net bag that included things like; shampoo, hand soap, and a razor, and kept the bag handy for those occasions when I might find a desirable location to occupy while I cleaned up.  For the first three days I was satisfied with keeping my hands, face and nails clean, with a quick wash-up inside my truck, where I felt safe and ignored behind the lightly-smoked glass.  Sitting there in the driver's seat I would look around the area for anyone who may remark upon my actions while I surreptitiously performed my ablutions.  By the fifth day with no shower to be had, I found a set of bushes that quite nicely blocked the view of anyone who might chance by my hide-away on a busy street in Citrus Heights, and cleaned up a bit more thoroughly.  But, there is always someone around, even if you don't see them.  Other people like me, who are homeless, find bushes to be a safety magnet.  Abandoned buildings and the recesses behind them are ideal for a safe spot to stash belongings or to sleep the dark away while hidden from harm.  Suddenly, a man appeared from one of those unexpected recesses that I had so diligently looked for before I began the long process of washing from my water jug, while I hid behind the truck door and between the bushes.  He was a gentleman enough to turn around and go back the way he came when he realized what I was doing.  Even though I had been caught, and was mortified, the fact that I was once again CLEAN mattered more to me, and the day was brighter for it.  I realized that when people are in hospitals that they lose all privacy as well, and I tried to compare my situation with  theirs so that I may cope emotionally with what I had just done.  But, that afternoon, I decided that I must pick and choose my cleaning times and places more carefully in the future.  You are probably asking yourself why I, a civilized and sober woman would choose to clean herself up out in public versus using a shelter to do so.  That is a good question, and my answer to you is what I was told on the phone by an over-worked volunteer at a local women's shelter:  "Please call back tomorrow and we may have an opening for you, our showers are for residents only, I'm sorry and good luck." Click.  Yes, I called back, and I called other shelters too, with the same reply as the first exhausted volunteer.  Please remember that my resources are very limited, and gas prices were sky-rocketing for some unknown reason at that time so driving around to local shelters was out of the question.  Phone minutes are like gold to me, so wasting them feels like a crime.  I wasted many of those minutes in my desperation, anyway. 
The culmination of this sordid search for cleanliness was at a local public park on Antelope Drive, in Citrus Heights.  It was a quiet afternoon before children were released from their schools, and there were not many individuals about at this time, so I took it to mean that now was a golden opportunity to use the restroom for my bathing time.  I happily, and with much anticipation grabbed my cleaning kit and a towel and headed on in to a restroom stall where I made my self to home and hung a hook on the side partition, then situated my kit so that it was available and began to get really, really, clean. Damn it felt incredibly terrific.  I had a plastic container that I sat upon the toilet to use as a water basin and joyfully splashed and hummed while wiping the grime from my body.  Until a small girl came in to use the facilities.  I knew that she must wonder at the splashes of water on the floor. She could sense me hiding behind the partition, while I quietly paused in my actions, hoping that she would leave quickly.  But, little girls are a curious species.  Little girls are easily spooked.  Little girls usually do what their mommies and daddies tell them to do when they find an unusual situation in a public restroom in a public park.  Little girls go get their mommies and tell them about the stranger in the bathroom who was not acting normally.  Which, of course, is what happened.  By the time that Mommy arrived, with pit bull in tow ( I kid you not) I had washed my hair and was readying myself to depart the restroom.  What could I do at that moment but casually wave while I dried my hair with the towel and tell her what a beautiful dog she had. This mother, this surprised and protective mother proudly informed me that her dog was a "Blue Nose."  I could only agree.  It has now been 22 days since that wonderful and oh so cleansing 'tub' bath and I have yet to bathe again.  I could not face frightening another parent or child like that again. It was right, what the little girl did, and she made her mama proud by following directions she no doubt hears daily in kindergarten class.  But I am not a danger, even though I am a stranger.  I am just a woman who wanted to be clean for the first time in two weeks.