Some days I like to see if I can do the whole mail room shift sitting in my chair, rolling from the desk to the file cabinet and back again. I just like to play a little game with myself, to keep things interesting, since there usually isn’t a lot of action in the mail room.
But I have never been able to win at this game because during every shift at least one man whose last name starts with the letter A, B, C, or D comes to check his mail. Mail starting with those letters fills the top drawer of the file cabinet. That’s beyond my reach sitting in the chair. So I have to stand up: game over.
I know some men play a game too. But it’s a different game, played for different reasons, with a lot more on the line than simple amusement. Some check their mail expecting a long-awaited birth certificate, Social Security card, or some other vital document that was lost on the street, stolen, or trashed when the police cleared a camp.
Other men check their mail even when they are not expecting any because doing so is a small routine that gives shape and order to their day. Either version, checking the mail helps hold down a life shredded by not having a home, like planting a tent stake in a flaying wind. Score.
When my mail room shift ends I join Annette at the front desk. Annette is handling the phone and handing out bottles of water and socks to men when they come by asking.
In the downtime she is making toilet paper bundles for men to take to the bathroom, rolling off five sheets at a time, doing that again, laying that strip on the first, rolling off five more sheets, laying that one on the first two, folding the layered sheets into fours, and then adding the bundle to small towers of toilet paper bundles in plastic bins by the phone. It’s a little hypnotic watching her. She’s so precise and methodical, exact and systematic, with her domestic origami.
But I appreciate the quieting effect. Earlier things were a little rowdy. Rainbow Warrior was orbiting the front desk for a while demanding to talk to the Treasury Department about changing the spelling of the word God on our currency. Eventually Annette gave him a handset with a dial tone. That appeased him. Peace.
Next to the sign-in roster on the other side of the front desk there’s a small plastic bin of individually wrapped condoms in gold foil and a box of chocolate cupcakes with thick, bright green icing. It’s an unexpected combination of amenities that my mind can't reconcile. Who put these items together? But then, well, why not?
Deena has been floating around the floor keeping an eye on the men and checking in with them. Deena is big, buoyant. She's dyed her burred black hair gold and green and just landed herself in a chair by the front door. She tugs down on the brim of her baseball cap and draws her phone from her back pocket to check the scores of the games she’s got on the money line today.
A skinny man comes around the front desk near where Annette and I are sitting, across from Deena. Deena looks up from her phone. “I gotta ask you,” Deena says to the man, “is that a five or a six on your head?” “It’s a six,” he says, stopping in his circuit. “I was having a bad day a while ago,” he goes on, “you know, all this crap in my head! And instead of getting a gun and shooting up a mall I just got this.”
He points to the number six tattooed by his right temple. Deena blinks. She sits back in her chair. She puts her phone down on her knee. Hmm. The man continues with his circuit. Deena watches him round the front desk and then turns back to her phone. “That’s a story I didn’t need to hear,” I say to Annette. “Me neither!” she says. She tidies another bundle and adds it to the bin.
“You have a blessed day,” Mr. Thomas says as he passes by the front desk toward the door. He’s wearing a sleeveless denim vest, work boots, sweatpants. A few weeks ago his camp was cleared. That afternoon he came by to check his mail.
“Cop was gonna arrest me,” he said, “for trespassin’. And take me to jail. And I said, ‘Oh, so three hot meals a day and a bed at night?’ Cop changed his mind. Uncuffed me. People don’t understand people like us, you know? We got nothin’ to lose. Trauma in our lives. Can’t hold a job. I saw my son get killed in front of me. Messed me up.”
Mr. Marshall has come in to get a bus pass. “How are the angels today?” I ask him. “They’re busy!” he says. “I’m sure,” I say, “the world is a mess.” “Oh, I know it!” he says.
When I met Mr. Marshall a few weeks ago he told me he talked to angels. “You must have a special connection,” I said. “I do!” he said. “I been through fire, and when you been through fire you can talk to angels!”
Mr. Marshall has also told me he worked for the Army doing military intelligence. “You know, where you are, what you doin’. That kinda stuff!” he said. That could be for real. Or that could be the angels. Sometimes it’s hard to know. Most times it doesn’t matter.
Now here is Daniel. Daniel. I often see Daniel in my neighborhood. I saw him often before I started coming here to help out. But like Johnny One Love and Mr. Richards and Sean Malone I now know his name. I don’t know his story. But I know he has one.
He’s very thin, very effeminate, very mentally elsewhere—wearing scanty women’s clothing, garish makeup, talking to himself, sometimes walking with purpose, other times weaving, dazed, in an alley by the movie theater, on the sidewalk in flip-flops and a kilt and a parka in front of the coffee shop. Always he’s dirty, everywhere—his face, his hair, his hands, his feet. Angels, fire here.
To learn more about my experiences at the shelter, please see Angels, Fire Everywhere and It's Cold Outside and Crowded in the Shelter.
You may also support my work at Buy Me a Coffee.
Brilliant piece. These all need to be presented publically
Really like your writing style; moving, yet not overly so; perfect combination of observer-not-judger. It totally puts me in that place.