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Christmas Eve at the Mission 11/30/2016 12:52:17 PM
“This way, gentlemen, in the far corner,” said a male employee, taking a ticket from each.
Most of the men had beards or several days’ growth and were bundled in a big coat, or a jacket and a coat, or a sweater and a jacket and a big coat. Almost all wore caps or hoods or both, and lots were walking slowly on crutches or leaning on canes. Quite a few others moved unaided but in the painful, uneven way of the infirmed.
“That’s right, gentlemen,” said a volunteer. “Just have a seat right here.”
The groups began to enter apace, and they didn’t wait long until pizza and spaghetti and salad had been scooped onto paper plates by volunteers and whisked by more volunteers to their tables.
After standing at one end of the big gray room made longer by open partitions and brighter by Christmas decorations, I stopped taking notes and walked to the ticket taker and said, “Did you pass those out earlier in the day?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That way everyone gets to eat once. Otherwise, some would come through twice and some wouldn’t get to eat.”
Almost four hundred were expected this Christmas Eve, and the pizzas were stacked high in boxes, donated every year by Little Caesar’s. No one had to worry I’d snatch a plate, not at this party. I was looking for someone to write about. I watched a man point his TV camera at a table of diners. A female volunteer told me a newspaper reporter had been there awhile ago and departed after interviewing the director of the event. Evidently, the scribe hadn’t known the best stories churned inside those cleaning their plates.
A few of the guests entering now were women. They ultimately comprised less than ten percent of the party. I studied the groups of rather somber diners, waiting for people to finish before I approached. Who looked like an intriguing character? Rather, who sounded like one? A difficult choice was soon made easy by a woman at a table with another woman and a teenage boy. The first woman was complaining loudly about treatment she’d received this night and in the past.
“Excuse me, ma’am, may I please speak to you?”
She looked at me but didn’t answer.
“I’d like to talk to you for an article I’m writing.”
“You gonna use my name?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“I’m Evelyn, but don’t write it.”
“Thanks.” I pulled back a chair and joined them at the round table with a white paper tablecloth. “Have you been homeless long?”
“I’ve been back and back the last nineteen years. I’ve got no resources, no money. I’ve been income-less the last nine years. I’ve been punched, mugged, hit in the head with bottles, raped. I never know where I’m gonna sleep at night. I don’t know where I’m gonna sleep tonight. I walk around cold and tired and try to find a safe place, even if it’s not. I sleep in abandoned houses, buildings, alleys, parks. They’re not safe. I don’t have nowhere to go. There’s so much violence in the streets.”
The boy and his mother finished dinner and departed.
“Evelyn, don’t you have family to stay with?”
“No. Two of my sisters are taking care of five of my six kids. I signed them over. The other’s twenty-one now, and I just became a grandmother.”
“Can’t the children’s father help you?”
“No, my second husband’s the father of the first five kids, and he’s helping them with child support. I don’t want anything from him. He was the worst of my three husbands. I married one right after the other and never bothered divorcing. I was a bigamist. I’m still married to the first and third husbands, but I divorced the second. He was a violent alcoholic and a black belt in karate.”
“Jesus, did he hurt you?”
“Yeah, but I learned karate, too.”
“Still, he’s a man.”
“I got quicker and he got slower. He had crippling arthritis in addition to being an alcoholic. And he started getting fat.”
“Are you going to see your kids tomorrow for Christmas?”
“No.”
“They live far away?”
“They live right here in Bakersfield.”
“Then why not?”
“Look how I look. I’m ashamed of my appearance. I have no self-esteem. These are the only clothes I have, what I’m wearing. I can’t carry anything. But I have everything I need for hygiene in my purse – toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, and deodorant.”
A number of Evelyn’s teeth were missing and most of the others had rotted down to darkened nubs. With a shaking hand, she picked up her tea and almost spilled it.
“Why don’t you stay here at the Bakersfield Rescue Mission?”
Crying now, she said, “They used to be co-ed but they’ve put women out on the street.”
“They have a residential program for women,” I said. “I talked to them about it. It sounds pretty good.”
“I don’t want to be in a program. They tell you you can’t this, can’t that, can’t eat or sleep but when they tell you. I don’t want that.”
“Why don’t you stay at the Bakersfield Homeless Center?”
“They 86ed me.”
“What happened?”
“About nine years ago I had my five kids and was pregnant. I was pushing my shopping cart that had everything I owned in it, and the security guard said, ‘You can’t bring that on the premises.’ I went upside his head, and they called the police. I’ve tried to get back in but my name’s in their computer and they won’t let me in.”
“What about work? Can you get a job to get off the streets?”
“I have a poor work history. I can’t deal with people. I hate crowds and stress. And I don’t have any ID. I’ve worked in some big retail stores but never made it more than a couple of months.”
“What about high school?”
“I went to South High. I was a Rebel. I ran on the track team and was one of the fastest girls in the state in the hundred yard dash.”
“Did you graduate?”
“They kicked me out. I was working in the student store and a white girl called me a nigger and spit on me. I beat her till she bled in the face. Then I had to go to two continuation schools. I got my GED at Bakersfield Adult School in 1984.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Okay, there you were at age twenty-two, young, with a high school diploma. What happened?”
“I’ve been abused all my life,” she said, crying again. “I’ve always had a lot of anxieties and stress. I can’t sleep. I’ve got bad nerves. I can’t sit still. I’m fidgety.”
“So what happened?”
“I started soliciting, loitering, using drugs.”
“Which drugs?”
“Alcohol, pot, cocaine. I went to prison twice for selling rock cocaine. I was in prison a total of four years. I was also in jail here. They gave me elavil and other medications that helped me sleep. But when I got out I couldn’t pay for pills. I haven’t been back to jail in six years, and I’ve had the worst problems of my life. But I’m clean now.”
“How long have you been clean?”
“Two weeks.”
“Listen, you’ve got to get some medical help.”
“I’ve been in two recovery homes. When I left I used drugs as much as I could when they came at me. Street people offer anything bad before something good. They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. They prey on people.”
“You’ve got to get medical treatment, and you’ve got to have a plan.”
“I’m gonna try to get SSI disability again. They turned me down the first time because I was on drugs. They won’t take you anymore if you’re on drugs. I’m gonna keep bothering SSI. I need the help. I’m scared of being on the streets. I’m scared of somebody doing something to me. I want to live and let live. Sometimes I victimize people, too. My wrist is still sore from two weeks ago when I beat a lady.
“Last New Year’s Eve I was sitting in another lady’s house. She wasn’t home but she’d told me I could stay there. And her friend – they must’ve been lesbians – told me to leave. I said I just wanted to wait and ask her if I could stay. And this lady beat me in the head with an ashtray. Blood was everywhere. They took me away in an ambulance. It’s one year coming up and it’s haunting me again. It’s hard to let go. Then I lash out.”
Tears again rolled down Evelyn’s once-attractive face.
“I heard they’re having a party for you guys tonight,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s next door,” she said, standing. “Remember, don’t use my name or I’ll kill you.”
“I promise I’ll use another name.”
“God bless you,” she said, and walked through an almost empty room toward the exit.
Note: This story is part of “In Other Hands,” a collection about poverty, prostitution, and human trafficking.
