Traffic from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles wasn’t much better on Saturdays than during the work week, but at least it was (mostly) moving.
The first Saturday of the month, Will and his First Contact volunteers cleaned up a homeless camp. He brought in the supplies, worked with the city as best he could to provide extra trash receptacles. There were two goals of the monthly program: First was of course to pick up the garbage and drug paraphernalia. The second was to work one-on-one with each homeless person to get them into the right program. Will always picked a location where he’d already spent many months getting to know the individuals, so they would be more apt to listen to him.
The city should be running programs like Will’s, but they had their own way of doing things—and most of their programs failed. It made me angry, but I could do nothing except vent to Will, and he’d heard it all before. I wanted something to change; Will said he was making change and it had to be good enough. I looked at the billions of wasted dollars—yes, billions—and Will looked at the people he could save, and not who he couldn’t.
As Will always told me, the person needed to say yes. Some were homeless by circumstance; they were the easiest to assist. Some were homeless by choice. Some had tried to get clean before only to fail. Some had tried to get help, only to have hurdle after hurdle placed in front of them. Some had given up all hope and were just waiting to die.
Will was already there when I arrived at eight in the morning. He’d helped set up a table for juice and coffee, doughnuts and fruit—for both the volunteers and for the homeless. Will’s strategy was to enlist the help of the homeless community, and most were happy to have something productive to do. It enabled Will to continue building relationships, to listen to their stories.
Will was my height—five foot nine inches—with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore an army green T-shirt, the USMC tattoo on his bicep partly showing. He was talking to a small group of people, including Gina. I didn’t see her partner, Fletch.
“I don’t know what time the city will be here to replace the porta-potties,” Will was saying as I walked up, “but they assured me it would be this morning. Hi, Violet. Glad you could make it.”
I almost hadn’t come, and Will would have understood if I’d bailed. I’d seen my mother only a few times in the last two months. She recognized me, but she was still angry about our last conversation and refused to speak to me. For a drug addict who had killed half her brain cells, she could hold a grudge.
Toby was watching from his spot, his shopping cart still tied to his waist. I picked up a chocolate-glazed doughnut and a bottle of water and walked over to him, squatted in front of him so we were eye to eye. “Hi, Toby, it’s Violet. Remember me?”
He stared at me blankly.
“I brought you a chocolate doughnut. Do you want it?”
He stared at me, then slowly turned his head to look at the doughnut. He held out his hand and I placed the napkin on it, then the doughnut. I put the bottle of water on the ground next to him.
Toby didn’t look well. He was a serious alcoholic and seemed to be withering in front of my eyes.
“We’re cleaning up the park. We’d like you to help. Maybe I can help you organize your cart?” Mostly, I wanted to see if I could get Toby to talk to me, to tell me how he was really feeling. He needed a doctor. He needed to stop drinking. I feared he was going to die, that I was going to walk by one morning and see the coroner driving off with his body, just like Bobby and so many others.
Alone. Lost. Forgotten.
Toby leaned back against his cart and closed his eyes, clutching the doughnut.
I got up and went back to where Will was giving volunteers instructions. Everyone wore gloves and had garbage bags. Two people wore thick work gloves: one had long tongs to pick up needles, the other carried a biohazard box. Gina had engaged several people to help, though many ignored us. We worked around them. I avoided looking at my mom’s tent.
“Something’s wrong with Toby,” I told Will. “I think he’s really sick.”
“I’ll check on him. He’s difficult.”
By that, Will meant that he wouldn’t accept any help or services, even a shelter.
Three men walked over to where we were standing. Two had been here on and off for the last year. They were veterans, but only talked to Will. I knew them as Dev and Jake, but that was it. Will told me that he’d get them to come around, but the VA had failed them and they were distrustful. Dev was addicted to painkillers, Jake an alcoholic, and both were dealing with severe PTSD.
A guy I had never seen before was with them this morning. He wore an army jacket over dirty tactical pants and three layers of shirts. His dog tags were around his neck. He was a vet, like Dev and Jake. But he was also different. He fit with them...but didn’t quite belong. Most likely he was new to the streets, but there was something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I stood aside, admittedly a little intimidated. Will handed out garbage bags and asked the three to help. Dev and Jake took a bag and went to the far corner, but the stranger said he’d join them in a minute. Then he and Will talked quietly.
Will obviously knew the new guy. I gave them space, walked over to Gina as she slowly—very slowly—picked up litter. “Where’s Fletch?”
“Talking to his brother,” Gina said. “They haven’t talked in years. But it’s his brother’s birthday and Fletch wanted to talk to him. They used to be close.”
This was a positive sign. If Gina and Fletch could reconnect with family, that was one big step to getting them off the streets.
“Are you happy about that?”
She shrugged. “Sure. I met Jerry a couple times. He seems to be an okay guy. A mechanic. Fletch worked for him for a while, but...” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t look me in the eye.
She didn’t have to explain. Drugs. It was the common theme.
“Will has someone from the city coming here today to help people get their IDs updated, apply for transitional housing,” I said. “Do you think you and Fletch might be ready?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Fletch is still really depressed about Bobby.”
It had been three months since Bobby had overdosed. “Talk to him. It’s not easy, but it’s better than this.” Anything was better than living on the street. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say what I really wanted to: that she didn’t want to end up like Bobby. That she didn’t want to wake up to find Fletch dead like Bobby.
Gina looked around as if seeing the filthy park for the first time.
“Maybe.” She smiled at me, but her eyes were dull. “I’ll see what Fletch thinks. It’s just—I don’t know if I can.”
“I have faith in you,” I said. “We’ll help you every step of the way.”
“Yeah.” Gina nodded, then frowned. “We’ve tried before, but it just doesn’t seem worth it.”
I wanted to scream. What wasn’t worth it? To have a home? To stop killing your brain cells? To not worry about being robbed, raped or beaten every night? Being homeless was dangerous. They were preyed on by other homeless people, those under the influence or so far gone they didn’t know what they were doing or who they were hurting. This wasn’t living—this was barely existing. It wasn’t humane to let human beings live worse than a pack of animals.
“I think you’re worth it, Gina,” I said.
That was all I could do.
As I picked up trash, I looked over to the dirty blue tent with the zebra duct tape. It was still closed. My mom hadn’t gotten up yet. Gina worked parallel to me, not wanting to talk, but fine with just hanging out with someone. “Have you seen Jane lately?” I asked.
She might know that Jane was my mother. Gina and Fletch hadn’t been here when my mom and I got in a loud—on her part—fight a few months ago. But word travels.
Gina shook her head. “She keeps to herself, mostly. Saw her maybe Thursday night? Fletch and I tried to get into a shelter because it was raining, but it was women-only, don’t matter that we’re practically married, and I wasn’t going to leave Fletch alone. And they weren’t women-only last time we went there, so I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t do good when I’m not around.”
Will had helped Gina and Fletch register as domestic partners so they could apply for benefits reserved for married people.
“I’m going to check on her,” I said.
“I’ll go with you.”
Every step was filled with trepidation. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to see how my mother lived. But I had to. What if she was sick? What if she needed help?
What if she’s dead?
I stood outside the flaps. They had zippers, but they’d long ago broken and the tent was now tied closed from the inside. I couldn’t get my voice to work.
“Jane? It’s Gina. You okay? There’s juice and coffee out here. Can I bring you something?”
I should have done that; I should have brought coffee and a doughnut. A peace offering.
The last time you brought her food she threw it in your face.
Silence. Maybe she wasn’t in there.
Maybe she’s dead.
It was frowned upon for anyone to enter another person’s home. And this six-foot-square tent was my mother’s home.
I almost turned away, but something in the back of my mind told me to check on her.
I pulled apart the flaps. Like many women who lived on the streets, she had a second tent on the inside, a means of protection, as weak as that was. Protection from sexual predators, drug addicts who didn’t know what they were doing, thieves who would steal drugs or valuables. It was far more dangerous to live on the streets than most people were willing to acknowledge. Because no one wanted to look at the humanitarian crisis in their backyard.
There were pie tins around the secondary entrance, so my mom could hear if anyone was coming in. I intentionally stepped on one, hoping to just hear her shout, swear, tell me to go to hell.
Silence.
“Mom?” I said, my voice cracking. “Mom, are you okay?”
A moan.
I tore open the second flap and the smell of urine and rotten food and marijuana and body odor hit me. And I saw her in the semidark, naked, her eyes unfocused, her body shaking. I gagged, stepped out, breathed.
“Will,” I said, trying to get his attention. My voice was raw. I couldn’t shout. I tried again. “Will, I need you.”
Gina saw the look on my face and ran over to where Will was working.
I had to go in. Get my mom out, do something! But I stood there frozen, tears burning, and all the training I had disappeared.
I heard the pie plates crunch and then my mother crawled out of her tent. Her long blond hair was tangled and matted, her body bruised.
“Ah fa fuck fo.”
“Mom,” I said, squatting next to her.
She stared at me, but didn’t see me. Her eyes were wild and bloodshot.
I looked around for a blanket, for anything. I reached inside and pulled out an old red wool coat I’d seen her wear. I put it over her shoulders. She screamed and threw it off as if it burned her.
Will ran up to us. “Jane, it’s Will Lattimer. Remember me? Jane, can you hear me?”
“Fo ro aga fo!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, though I knew. She was overdosing. I’d seen it before, but not like this.
Not when I loved the person who suffered.
Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to convulse.
Will opened his backpack and pulled out a vial of naloxone. I watched helplessly as my mom’s body convulsed. I saw the scar on her stomach from the cesarean she’d had to deliver me. She was my mother and she was dying and I could do nothing to stop it.
“Call 911,” Will said.
I pulled out my phone and called.
Will administered three doses of Narcan before my mom started to respond. Narcan is short-lived, but needs to be spaced apart to be effective. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was stable, but hot, agitated and slurring her words.
She fought the paramedics, wouldn’t let them touch her. I had to fix this.
“Mom,” I said forcefully.
She blinked rapidly, then recognized me.
“Violet, what do you want? Go away. I told you over and over and over! Go away! Go away! Go away!”
I stepped forward, squatted in front of her, looked her in the eye. Her hazel eyes were pale and watery, but they focused on me.
“You need to go to the hospital. There’s something wrong. They can help you.”
“No. Don’t wanna. You can’t make me. Can’t make me. Can’t make me.”
Completely ignorant that she was naked, she tried to get up, then fell down hard. She started to cry.
It took all my strength not to break down and cry with her.
I crawled back into the tent and found the backpack that I had given her two years ago, to keep her important papers. I had a copy of everything in case she lost her identification and Medi-Cal card. I had to make her copies three times already. Fortunately, everything was there in the front pocket, along with a large baggie of fentanyl, a baggie of marijuana and several rolled joints.
I handed the drugs to Will. He couldn’t take her legal marijuana, but the fentanyl was illegal and he would destroy it.
I gave her ID and cards to the paramedics. They looked at me with pity, but I ignored them.
“Can you 5150 her?” I asked.
A seventy-two-hour psych hold might get her dry enough to comprehend what was happening in her life. If I could talk to her when she was sober—no drugs, no alcohol in her system—maybe I could convince her to go to a clinic. I would pay for it. I’d take out a second mortgage on my house to help my mother get clean.
She was going to kill herself if she didn’t get off these damn drugs.
When I opened the tent, she could have already been dead. Luck, God, I didn’t know what or who intervened, but she was alive and I wanted to save her. I didn’t know if I could do this again. I didn’t know if I could open the tent next time.
“We can’t force her to come with us,” one of the paramedics said.
“Bullshit,” I said. “Can’t you see she’s dying?”
Will put his hand on my arm and said, “Let me try.” He squatted next to my sobbing, naked mother. I walked away. Maybe seeing me had set her off. Did she hate me so much that she would rather die than get the help she needed?
I walked over to the food table, though I wasn’t hungry. I felt dirty and angry and so deeply sad. I had done everything I could think of—and things I didn’t think of but Will had—to get my mother off the streets. An apartment. ID. Drug rehab. Medical attention. I got her disability benefits and that just blew up in my face because she used the money for drugs. I didn’t know what else to do.
But she was my mom. How could I just turn my back on her when she’d raised me? It wasn’t perfect, but I had a house, food, school, clothes. She and my father fought all the time until he was killed. He was drunk, drove into a wall—thank God he hadn’t killed anyone else. I’d been thirteen, thought without the fighting and drinking that everything would get better.
I was wrong. I just didn’t know how bad things had gotten until my mom lost her job because of her addiction, then our house.
I lived my life, went to community college, got a good job. All that time I tried to help her, even let her live with me for a time, until I caught her stealing from me and using drugs. I thought I had to kick her out, that it would wake her up.
It didn’t.
Then I found her living on the streets. Lost, alone, drugged out.
I should have stayed. I should have fixed her.
The new homeless vet came over to me. “Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of water.
I took it, mumbled a thanks, drank.
This guy wasn’t like so many of the other homeless people. His clothes were dirty and he looked like he had slept on the street for a few weeks—his hair shaggy under a knit cap, layered shirts, boots old and scuffed. But I could tell his shoes were heavy-duty, durable work boots. Could have been name-brand. Maybe he’d picked them up at a thrift store.
But what stood out most was his eyes. They were very green, very sharp. He wasn’t on drugs, at least not now, and he didn’t seem to be drunk or coming down off a high. After working with the homeless for a few years, I could tell when someone was an addict—whether they were high, coming down or going through the early stages of withdrawal.
“How do you know Dev and Jake?” I asked, trying to forget about my mother. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as she finally allowed the paramedics to check her blood pressure and vitals. Will had worked his magic.
He shrugged. Didn’t answer. He, too, was watching Will and my mom.
I finished the water. I didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t leave.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“Then whose fault is it?” I didn’t mean to sound so angry, so aggressive. I bit my lip, but didn’t apologize.
He shrugged again. “No one’s? Everyone’s? Your mom’s?”
How did he know Jane was my mom? Had Will told him? Or had he heard everything?
“You don’t live on the streets,” I said suddenly. “Not regularly.”
He slowly smiled. His teeth—they were clean and white. That was it, that’s why I’d thought he looked different than everyone else, why he didn’t quite fit in. He looked homeless on the surface. Clothes, attitude, walk. He smelled like stale beer.
But he didn’t regularly use drugs, his teeth were too clean. His eyes were too bright and alert for him to be a serious drunk. Maybe something had happened, like he lost his house or was going through a divorce. Maybe he was suffering PTSD like Dev and Jake.
He was definitely different.
Will came over and said, “They’re taking her to the public hospital. Her blood pressure is high, her pupils are nonresponsive, she has a fever and is acting erratic.”
“So they’ll get a 5150 hold?” I asked, optimistic.
“Doubtful,” Will said. “I’ll work on it, call a couple people, but chances are once she stabilizes they’ll let her go.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Do you expect a different outcome?” Will asked quietly.
I’d been through this with my mother over and over since I found her four years ago. Trying to help, only to have her reject my help every step of the way. I thought when I got her the apartment two years ago that it was a turning point...but she’d gotten worse since she’d lost the place.
“I have to try,” I said.
He nodded. “We’ll go this afternoon. I’ll do everything I can.”
Fletch walked down the sidewalk, watching the ambulance pull away. Gina went to him, pointing toward my mom’s tent. The stranger walked over to where Dev and Jake were working. “Who is that guy?” I asked Will. “He seems too clean, and not just his appearance.”
“I don’t know his story yet,” Will said, but didn’t look at me. Was he lying? Did he know him?
“What’s his name?”
“Gunny. It’s not his name, though. He was a gunnery sergeant in the Marines.”
“So you do know his story.”
“Some of it. You’re right, he’s not going to be around here long, will probably clean up his act pretty quick. If you want to go home, or take a break, I understand.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to do this.” I told him what Gina said about Fletch talking to his brother. “They’re almost ready.”
“I think I have a place for them. It’s a halfway house, a lot of rules, no drugs, but they can come and go as they please from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Good counseling program—I know the people who run it. It’s charity, not government. The best thing is they have a process to help them integrate back into society where they aren’t just thrown back to sink or swim. If Gina and Fletch can quit the fentanyl, they’ll make it. They are the perfect candidates.”
Six hours later, the city swapped out the disgusting porta-potties and replaced them with clean units. Will argued with the city employee that they needed to do this weekly, but the employee said to take it up with his boss, he was just the delivery guy. The three veterans had left, and I wondered where they had gone—if they were going to return here, or if they had a place. Legally, we couldn’t touch my mother’s tent without her permission, but I aired it out and removed the garbage and rotting food. Some people would argue that I couldn’t even do that, but the people in this park knew me and Jane, and left me alone.
Over the course of the morning, Will had talked to everyone one-on-one, helped with paperwork as needed, passed out lists of nearby shelters and when they opened. And he had a long, private talk with Gina and Fletch. I crossed my fingers that they would take the help.
Then Will drove me to the hospital.
My mom wasn’t there.
“We couldn’t force her to stay,” the nurse said, clearly annoyed that we pressed her for information. “We suggested she stay overnight, get fluids, have us run blood work, but she declined.”
Will said, “I was working on getting a 5150.”
“But you didn’t get it,” the nurse said bluntly. “They’re rarely approved, and unless Ms. Halliday was showing signs of suicide, we aren’t allowed to keep her.”
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“She walked out.”
“Can I talk to her doctor? I’m her daughter.”
“Not unless she signed a HIPAA statement allowing us to share her private medical information with you, which she didn’t.”
I wanted to pull my hair out. “You allowed a sick woman recovering from a drug overdose to just walk away?”
The nurse bristled at my tone, but I didn’t care. I knew her hands were tied, but that was always the problem. Everyone’s hands were tied. Everyone passed the buck.
“Do I need to call security?” the nurse said.
“No.” Will gripped my arm. “We’ll leave.”
“Can you at least tell me when you let her leave?” I asked, barely keeping the anger out of my voice.
“Please,” Will added. “It would be helpful.”
The nurse frowned, typed on her computer and said, “She left at 14:30 this afternoon.”
That was only an hour ago. I looked at Will.
He nodded, understanding what I wanted without me even saying it, and we left.
We drove in ever widening circles around the hospital, but didn’t see her. An hour later, we were back at the camp. Her tent was exactly as I had left it. Gina and Fletch said she hadn’t returned. We looked until the sun went down, then Will drove me to my car. “Let me take you to dinner.”
I shook my head. “I want to go home and take a hot shower.”
He reached out and touched me. Gently. Kindly. Rubbed my arm with understanding and compassion.
He said, “She’ll come back. She always does.”
I wanted to believe him, but deep inside I knew he was wrong.