22

The Polk Inn stood out in the Tenderloin because of all the beige and glass, a contrast to junkies out front selling stolen bicycles and gizmos. Winos waved their lotto tickets in my face brushing past its elegant modern angles. Tranny hookers stopped to check their weaves in the windows as they strutted by. Everyone was holding.

I was hired as an RA, residential assistant, an entry-level counselor position that required no actual counseling, but my duties ran the gamut. I was a nurse, babysitter, DJ, watchdog, secretary, and cook. I distributed meds and dinner for a half-dozen seventeen to twenty-four-year-old HIV-positive, mentally unstable, drug addicted clients. Then, I encouraged them to dispose of their hypodermic needles in bright orange Sharps containers that were attached to the walls. During my shift, I recorded the clients’ notable behavior in a big black plastic binder that was kept in a locked drawer upstairs.

For the first couple of months at Polk Inn, I hardly recognized myself—the role, the people, even the small talk. But I grew with it and found myself looking forward to every day. I was helping people who needed it, and that felt good.

Our clients at Polk Inn participated in street economy, meaning most of them turned tricks, hustled drugs, or smoked dope with the ghetto blaster guy who bounced up and down the sidewalk, nodding his head to the rhythm of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” while singing “the ones we hurt are you and me.” Polk Street was their terrain. My job as an RA was to enforce the house rules. Clients weren’t allowed to bring their swag into Polk Inn and we reserved the right to rifle through their backpacks and purses. I never did. We buzzed clients into the front door and they willingly held out their hands to show the things they carried: a wrinkled brown paper sack from the liquor store full of cigarettes, candy, and beer. My manager said their world was small and that they stayed within a four-block radius of the Polk, but that wasn’t all true. Some clients wandered—like Charlie, a gorgeous, blonde, crack-smoking tranny. They had rules and they had chores; they had to keep their rooms clean and show up for their meetings with their case managers in order to remain there.

I sometimes helped write cover letters, or hung around in the reception area handing out sack lunches to clients and making sure they included a turkey sandwich, a Capri Sun, chocolate chip cookies, and a mealy red apple. When the clients were really good, I got to give them a movie pass.

At five, the case managers went home, the fog wiped away the sun, and we RAs took over the Polk Inn.

Armando was short and thin, a five-foot-tall Latino with loose khaki shorts and a studded black belt. He smeared grease on his slick black curls and wore a chunky silver rope chain around his fragile neck that seemed uncharacteristically butch. Armando had been a resident for a few months and was twenty-two.

“He’s a cutter,” Phil, the other RA, warned me. I’d already liked him. Now, I really wanted to help him.

One afternoon, Armando was sitting in a chair in the courtyard, slumped over a black journal with a set of skinny pens, drawing. Once in a while he wiped a shiny ringlet aside with his right hand, then picked up another pen and shaded.

“Want a snack?” I asked him. He shook his head and tore another piece of coarse white paper from his journal, drawing in loopy, magnificent detail. I looked over his shoulder at his drawing of a giant menacing orchid overtaking an angel wielding a sword.

“That is so good,” I said.

“I’m going to the Academy of Art.” He stood up, eyeing his work from another angle, then sat back down. His forehead was creased.

“Can you play some music? Phil always plays music.”

“Sure.” I saw a Radiohead and a Jill Scott CD that another RA left behind; I popped in the Jill Scott.

“Thanks,” he said.

I looked forward to my shift on Sundays because I cooked an early dinner and it was movie night. My usual dish was chicken smothered in olive oil and wild rice with almond slivers. A red key dangled by an elastic cord from my wrist. It opened every door in the building, and while I cooked it jangled against the refrigerator and pantry with a loud, tinny clank. I found garlic, butter, and carrots in the fridge. I rifled through the dishwasher for cooking pans. I chopped an onion and tossed chicken and vegetables in the oven. The smell of my cooking helped kill the antiseptic institutional smell of frozen French fries and stale fish sticks. The kitchen had sliding glass doors that opened onto a patio where clients smoked on aluminum chairs in the chilly, afternoon sun. White plastic ashtrays were filled with rainwater, butts afloat in the soot.

Miss Congeniality played loudly on the big flat-screened television in the community room—the movie they’d voted for unanimously.

A woman I didn’t recognize showed up on the security camera in the front office and rang the bell. She held what appeared to be hundreds of white lilies wrapped in Saran wrap and said they were from a wedding. Could she donate them?

Armando put down his pen and smiled huge.

“Lilies! My favorite!” he said. “Can we decorate?” We spent the next hour cutting the tops off of water bottles and filling them with water from the sink. I unlocked the case managers’ offices and Armando pranced into the room, cleared space on each desk, and placed the flowers. Then he sauntered off with jerky dance moves, threw his hands in the air as if to say, “Ta da!”

“Can I have some in my room?” he asked, knowing I would allow it, knowing that I was a pushover. He didn’t wait for my permission. I watched him carry two bottles of flowers up to his room on the second floor, right next to the RA office.

I didn’t see him for the rest of my shift, until I knocked on his door to give him meds. When I did, he showed me two small, framed pictures of his mother and sister. Their faces were round and hazy like from an eighties after-school special. They hadn’t spoken to him since finding out he was a gay hooker. My entry for him read: Armando was social, helpful, and productive. He worked on his beautiful drawings and helped me decorate.