One night, rambling downtown, headed foggily and roughly for the Mission, before the dead car interludes, I was passing what I abruptly realized was a wall of glass, the windows of an apparently defunct department store building, the showcase windows all empty and dark. The windows reflecting the occasional street light, and to my amazement my own updated image.
I had realized I wasn't taking care of myself, but in my perpetual fog, I didn't care. Not so much a fog as a numbed indifference. With my head full of Vodka, oddly enough, I read with better concentration (no longer). Relieved of all earthly considerations I dwelt on what was before me on the table. I could sit barely aware of my shallow breathing and simply imbibe the printed page. I read weird things: “Working Assets,” “The Nation,” Seamus Heaney and Basil Bunting and of course such mandatory things as Malcolm Lowry and John Berryman. Ol’ Bones like me. It was deep in squandered time and I don't remember much but the skeleton. In other words, authors and a few titles, but little else. But at the time I was absorbed in it. Every wonderful word held me. And that was the gift that was needed back then. To be held by something as simple as a word or handful of words. Even if just for a moment and then forgotten.
The window one night I stared into didn't lie. I hadn't had any way to see what had happened over the past several years, not in its entirety. The figure was not me at first. The knit hat was not tilted rakishly. It covered my head to my broken glasses, making me anonymous, even mean. And the beard beneath made no sense anymore. My eyes were obscured by the thick lenses. The lenses held secure with gritty Scotch tape and a rubber band, its manipulation the sole clever thing I'd managed in what seemed like eons. Looking back. I stood before the mirror of the dark department store window, a pile of discarded ill-fitting clothes worn out from long use, and there was nothing cool about it. And the streets were all empty and dark. I stood there slowly digesting what was in front of me, the sight of me, refracted through my brain addled by years (already) of booze. I was mesmerized by this creature I couldn't take my eyes off. And it was myself. A new discovery and I couldn't release myself from the staring. It was no mere drunken hallucination but where my progress had me.
Suddenly, from my right, came someone. I could sense the silent peripheral approach then saw the woman. I recognized her from the feed lines. Specifically, the St Luke's line. She stood out. Amid well over 400 in the daily line, she was unique. She was tall and her skin was tight and high up on her cheekbones. She was a clear dark beauty. How she got here I have little idea. But reason was never what it was about back then. Headed for the Mission, I suppose she was. She entered the field of my reflection, emerging from the blank background then gradually, predictably, disappearing. An apt quantifier of that time.
She came into view and went. That's all. Always impassive, her face fixed and devoid of expression. Stoney, robotic, indelible. She apparently had her dependable routine, automatic. Not to say autistic. I gathered she had been so severely hurt, that her requests of life were simplified to a rutted procedure for every single day the same. And to be left alone, at least. And I could respect that to the point where I didn't presume to bother her with 'hello'. If I had had something truly to offer her, it would have been different. But as I've made clear, back then, I was a reactive mutt, usually just wanting to be left alone myself. Usually just a thing that walked, talking only if I needed money for more Vodka. My affect was flat, as they say. I was merely a passive observer, like a zoo creature. And I had nothing. The 'competition for the toys', ambition in other words, wasn't the only thing that seemed childish at that end. But at least I knew that however 'good' or simply impassive my intentions, this unexpected silent image of a woman wasn't glad to run across me on those dumb memory-driven streets, and the best I could offer, and for myself as well, was to say nothing, not even move. And let her move on, as desired.
But when she left, I left. Making my crab way to the Mission eventually. A signature moment, emblematic of an era and my era. A person, this unknown woman, passing through my self-absorption without a word. Both of us heading toward the Mission. Reluctant to see ourselves or others for what it was. And not caring anymore one whit. The energy simply wasn't there anymore. Something somewhere had drained it dry. The Mission was drear. Two stories high. A matchbox. Literally. If a flame had been set, the poverty problem would have been significantly diminished. The exits was poorly placed, the doors secured against sneaky sleepers spiriting in during the night.
You came in and dealt with the desk. You entered a door lit with a huge neon sign informing you of God's purpose in saving your worthless ass and then you dealt with the desk. Another desk. Another small person without reason for living before he had the desk, the impacted object you had to deal with to get some sleep. I love it when people romanticize or somehow magnify the “homeless.” Especially homeless who speak for the homeless. And they're considered by the ignorant as authorities and spokesmen because they're the ones who are always there hanging around. Because they're never anywhere else. They're considered qualified to speak for those too busy to be just 'hangin' around'.
But no matter. The Mission had a desk. And you had to deal with this dull tool to get a bed. And then up the stairs which seemed to extend the full length of the building at a very low angle, reached the top with two doors, one each side, very simple. The left one went into the lounge where the regulars sat and seemed always to be watching 'Dallas'. The TV provided the only light, the only light many would ever see, day after day. And all you would see of them was their dark profiles. Motionless, faces glued to the tube, an occasional coughing complaint the only sign of life.
The right door fed into the maw of the overnight dorm. All I ever saw was a cavernous lightless dorm of double bunks which extended once again the length of the half-block occupied by the Mission building. All you heard was coughing and mumbled complaints. There wasn't anything worth noting about it. It was an overhang that followed you as you found your bunk. “No. 43, here it is.” You climbed on top with predictable complaints about jostling the frame. “Sorry, my bruvvah.” “Fuck you,” both as predictable as the guy who every night, EVERY night, jacked off in the bunk, two bunks over, and EVERY night someone complained. 'Take that thing to the bathroom, mu'fuckuh!' Some things you remember. You knew if you let the guy at the desk know you'd be back the next night each morning as you left, and were able to get drunk enough to weather the day and remember to bum enough to pay the $2.50 each night, that that same bunk would be yours (and nobody else's!).
And you could climb up knowing that within seconds you would relax your frame and let yourself exhale for the day, shut your eyes and slack their muscles and try to fix that yellow point in the center and listen to your breathing, laugh momentarily at the bullshit murmurs around you, and be grateful that you were warm and sound. And ignore that fella jackin' it next door. I actually loved it in the early quiet damp-aired morning leaving the place. I'd smile (as I recall) more or less, say good morning (as is my wont, I was raised to be polite), reserve the bed for the night and walk out into fresh air and the pre-dawn solitude. (My odd courtesy, as I'd learned, had value; and those consistent 'good mornings' eventually drew a smile and guaranteed that I didn't anymore have to worry about coming in and finding no room in the Mission. I had learned that familiarity can dissipate as well as breed contempt.)
It would be a nice meditative half hour to the Law School building where the hygienic place was, available at that hour when most students were too serious to be questioning of some bum coming in to cleanup. They might even have found it an interesting aside to their studious focus.
And the mural on the wall out Key Road, its well-ordered rays of light, to whatever small purpose, seemed so righteous at the time, whatever image, whatever icon, it never once mattered to me who the artist adored but that he once again had found something to adore. Because quite simply that meant I could as well.
