By Judy Gustafson
Monday
5 a.m.
I wake up because my heart is pounding, it feels like it’s beating against my rib cage. I’m taking short, rapid, shallow breaths as though I were running. I woke up so quickly that I’m still a little disoriented. I’m fighting the fog enveloping my brain to understand exactly what danger I am in. It feels like trying to punch my way out of a cloth sack. I vaguely remember that I felt my car move. I rapidly scan the parking area to see what is happening. It’s nothing. Someone parked too close to my car and bumped their door against mine. I take long, slow, deep breaths to calm myself. There’s sweat on my skin from my panic, but the frigid January air outside the car has seeped in so I feel clammy. I take off my blanket and turn on the engine for heat. I’m cold enough to justify wasting the gas.
The back seat would be much more comfortable; it’s softer and I could curl up with my head on a pillow. But I’ve watched people break into cars and I know it takes only seconds. If I’m sound asleep on the back seat and someone breaks in, the car could be driving down the highway before I wake up enough to realize what is happening. A woman in a moving car is called “bought and paid for.” So I sleep in the driver’s seat with my keys near my right hand and my cell phone in my bra. I pray that if someone considers stealing my car while I’m sleeping, they’d be put off knowing that they’d have to move me out of the driver’s seat before they could pull away.
5:30 a.m.
There’s no more sleep for me today, but I’m calmer and not cold anymore. I turn off my car and wander into the twenty-four-hour retail chain store to use their public restroom and stay safe and warm without burning gas. I like parking in their lot, but I’m careful not to do it every night; I don’t want to attract attention. They have the reputation for being very friendly to campers and others who sleep in vehicles, but every location is different because store-level managers may not approve of that company policy. Not all parking lots are safe. I’m trusting a judgment call with crossed fingers each time I stop for the night, but this location has been good so far.
6:00 a.m.
Back in my car. I don’t want to stay in the store too long. If I’m asked to leave, I’ll have to find another spot to stay at night. I eat a granola bar and an apple that I bought in the store. I try to purchase what I need from the places I stop for the night so no one can say that I’m not a customer. After I eat, I browse through my cell phone, catching up with social media and the news, killing time until my next location opens. I don’t want to linger long enough to be noticed.
7:00 a.m.
I leave the lot and drive to the gym about two miles away. The fitness center I belong to has a ten-dollar
monthly membership. I shove a clean change of clothes into my gym bag and walk in. They’ve just opened. I work out for a while and then use their shower. I sometimes wonder if the staff notices that I shower and change there daily, but if they do, they don’t mention it. I try not to interact with them; I don’t want them to remember me even though I’m probably not the only one using their facilities this way. I’m grateful to have somewhere to shower. I know people who don’t have that luxury. My heart breaks for them, but I don’t take them with me. The gym itself is average; the equipment is nothing to write home about. It doesn’t compare well to other fitness centers that I’ve belonged to in better times, but my self-esteem is already in the gutter. I am afraid of how I will feel if I can’t figure out a way to bathe daily, so I’m fiercely protective of my membership; I can’t risk losing it.
7:45 a.m.
I leave the gym feeling better and drive to the church where I volunteer, about thirty minutes away. I am very, very careful to separate my church and volunteer work from the communities where I sleep. I haven’t told anyone I volunteer with that I’m homeless. During the day I’m an advocate. On paper, a homeless person advocating for other homeless people makes a great story. In reality, I find that I have a terrible need to have one area of my life in which people see me as “normal” and I know that I contribute to the world. If I broke down and admitted what my life was like, I am certain that my church community wouldn’t love me any less. They would support me and comfort me. Being honest would help me to help others because we could identify with each other. But I used to be a professional. I can find support and comfort elsewhere; my work is the only place I have purpose, the only place I feel like I used to, competent and assured. So I smile and wear a mask out of desperation.
9:00 a.m.
I’m in my office; I hear loud voices in the driveway. I grab my cell phone and church keys and run outside. I don’t see my pastor on my way out the door, and, judging by what I just heard, I don’t have time to look for him. Eddy is standing in the church driveway, telling another one of our flock to put up his fists. The other guy looks scared. I take a deep breath and step in between them. It’s something I’m cautious about doing. All my attention is fixed on Eddy, who I’m facing. But I feel other community members gather close. Someone tries to pull me away. I turn my head, look in their eyes, and say “NO!” Then snap my attention back to Eddy. He looks a little surprised. He has reason to be. I’m female. I’m half his height, and I’m clearly out of shape. As an ex-boxer he could kill me before I could land a punch.
I look in his eyes to hold his attention. I say as calmly and quietly as I can, “This is church property, you can’t do this. What you do elsewhere is your business, but fighting isn’t allowed here.” It feels like everyone around me (myself included) is holding their breath. There’s complete silence for a few seconds. Then Eddy inhales deeply and starts yelling. He doesn’t restrict himself to shouting—his arms flail around, his feet stomp, and spit flies out of his mouth (though not in my direction). I feel the guy behind me slink away. I want him to. I’ve been thinking intensely “walk off, walk off,” as though the thought could transfer without sound from my brain to his. I’m wondering what took him so long. I stand there watching Eddy, waiting for him to quiet down enough to hear me. Strangely, I’m not afraid. In the middle of all the drama I have no fear that he will hurt me, although logically I should be terrified. He eventually runs out of breath, and I start to talk to him, repeating some of what he’s just said to show I’ve been listening. His eyes widen and his face relaxes, just a little.
We end up having a conversation. Most people wouldn’t do what I’ve just done, but I’m homeless too and I understand that at least half of Eddy’s anger comes from frustration. Another quarter probably comes from helplessness, and none of it is directed at me. Eddy is a powerful man who can’t solve his problems. In his heart, he feels unmanned, neutered. Hitting someone his size helps a little, and I can understand why. Stepping in between was dangerous, but I’m wearing partial armor. Everyone in our mission’s city, homeless and housed, knows who we are and what we do, and many of our flock are profoundly grateful. I knew I wasn’t safe, but I also knew I was safer than most people would have been.
12:00 p.m.
I take a break and head upstairs to the sanctuary to pray. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated by the magnitude of problems I’m trying to help solve. Sometimes I identify so strongly with the people I’m working with that I can almost feel their pain on my skin, like a physical presence. The vast majority of our guests are homeless. Some stay in shelters, some live outside, some couch surf, some live in cars or abandoned buildings or even worse situations. All feel traumatized, most have been violated by the painful loss of the illusory bubble of safety that most of us believe exists around us. Some never had that false security. They are the sex trafficked, abused children, survivors of domestic violence, people who have fled from one unimaginable situation only to tumble into another one. Most have severe mental health issues, sometimes exclusively from trauma (it’s said that if you don’t have a mental health issue before you come to the street, wait a minute). None of them will ever truly feel that security bubble again because the knowledge that safety is a temporal chimera has been beaten into them.
The homeless are not who I thought they were in my previous life. I’ve learned firsthand they are not failures—they are doctors, nurses, psychologists, artists, musicians, moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers. Many are smart, talented, and funny. They had lives before catastrophe hit, and every single one wants to get back to living that life. Some never will. They will die on the streets dreaming of normalcy. It’s so tempting to blame people for the disaster that wrecks them. When I was more secure I know I said things like “if he didn’t do drugs, he wouldn’t be homeless,” “if she was a better daughter, her mother would have let her stay at home.” Now I know those statements came from fear and ignorance. Because if the disaster isn’t the fault of the homeless person, it can happen to anyone. It happened to me. I kneel and pray for a while, then I sit and enjoy the quiet and solitude. I will eventually go downstairs and dive back in, but it’s so nice to just sit in peace and breathe.
3:30 p.m.
I’ve worked all day feeding and helping other people. I feel like myself. I took some time to use the mission’s phones and computer equipment to work on my own situation, and I think maybe I’ve made a little progress. When I’m at the church I feel safe, happy, and comfortable, but the church closes at 4 p.m., so now I’m thinking about tonight. I’ve taken food from the kitchen (with the pastor’s permission), so I won’t have to buy anything for dinner. The pastor knows I’m poor and why—that
doesn’t bother me. It’s homelessness that I think of as shameful. He doesn’t think that way; he ministers to homeless people all day long without public or private judgment. I know him well and I know that I can trust him. But somehow homelessness feels like failure, more than poverty.
It’s bizarre, it doesn’t make sense, but some irrational part of me seems to believe that if I’d tried harder or done things better, I wouldn’t have gotten sick, I would have been able to succeed at one of the twenty jobs I tried on my downward slide. I would have figured out something. I understand that it’s not rational to think that way, but it doesn’t matter. It’s what I feel on a visceral level; logic and experience have had absolutely zero impact thus far. I am a passionate advocate for others. I fight, I rail against racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and more. But somewhere in the depths of my soul, when I
think about my own situation only, I’m classist. When I stop to think about myself, a quiet voice inside of me repeats relentlessly, “I don’t belong here, I don’t deserve this, it’s not fair. I had a home, I went to college, I didn’t do anything to deserve this, IT’S NOT FAIR.” If I think professionally about those statements, I can easily acknowledge that no one deserves to be here, no one belongs here, none of this is fair for anyone. I teach and believe that most Americans are a paycheck or two away from joining me, irrespective of income. But I know where I came from, and there’s a little tiny piece of me always screaming in pain. So, I try to think as little as possible about my current life unless I’m actively working on changing it.
4 p.m.
Time to go. I’ve put it off as long as possible, but I have to slowly get back in my car and drive away until tomorrow. I drive to a little pond that I like about halfway to my sleeping community and park. I read a book, call my daughter, pray, take a walk, and eventually eat my dinner. The entire time I’m trying to pretend that I just happened to stop here on my way home because I like the scenery. No one is watching me, no one cares what I am doing, there’s no one here in the middle of a New England winter except me. I’m trying to lie to myself because the thought of my homelessness during these moments is unbearably painful to me. I wonder, is it a transitional thing because I’m leaving the church where I can pretend to be me and heading to the reality of a parking lot?
6 p.m.
I start my car and drive away from my little park. It’s January so it’s dark, and the lights are coming on in the houses I’m driving past. It hurts to see how warm and homey they look lit up from the inside, to see families sitting down to dinner, talking, watching TV. I am so aware that I am outside looking in. I try to remind myself that someday I will have another home, that I’m driving over a speed bump and I’m not at the end of my journey. I tell myself all the comforting things I say to other people. I know those statements are true, but right now, in this moment, a normal life seems impossibly far away, and I’m sitting in the car that I’ll sleep in tonight. When I get to the town where I’ve decided to stay it’s still too early to pick a location, so I go to a mall and walk around.
9 p.m.
I leave the mall and try to figure out the safest place to sleep. I parse through my five or six regular places and come up with what I think is the best option. I can’t go to the retail store again; I never stay at the same place two nights in a row. There’s a rest area on the highway nearby that’s well-lit and well frequented by others, with a bathroom and fast-food restaurant that are open all night. It’s not my favorite spot but it seems reasonably safe. When I get there, I look for an available space that is more inconspicuous than all the others. I’m always afraid I’ll be “found out” and told to leave. I’m not sure why I’m afraid; worse things have happened to me and I’d just drive somewhere else. Maybe it’s because it feels like it would be shameful, like whoever told me to go would do it because they knew I wasn’t even good enough to take a parking space away from a real customer. I’m always teetering on the edge of the chasm of severe depression. I know if I let go and allow myself to fall I won’t get out of homelessness for a long time, so I’ve developed lots of mental tricks to keep my fingers hanging on to the edge. Potential rejection, yet another blow to my self-esteem, terrifies me, and I avoid it as much as possible. I use the restroom, go back to my car, unfold my blankets, lay my seat back, kick off my shoes, and try to get as comfortable as possible. I pull out my phone because I can’t run the car battery down by putting on a light to read a book, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to attract attention to the fact that I’m a woman sitting in a car alone, all night. I kid myself that I can hide the light of my cell phone with the blanket so no one will know I’m there. I know better, but if I don’t have something to focus on I’ll obsess about my situation. I won’t sleep for a long time, until the parking lot is almost empty. Another long night.
Church—Three Years Later
I’m standing at the back of the church leaning on the wall helping the ushers when the man runs in. He’s clearly, visibly upset. He grabs my arm and pulls it, saying “Judy, Judy, you gotta come!” I grab my Narcan out of the drawer of the desk near the wall and run out with him. He hasn’t said it’s an overdose, but I already see the signs in him and his panic. We go through the front doors and the heat of the day slaps me in the face. As I jog after him, I’m sifting through the faces of the people I’ve seen that day wondering who it could be. I see a little group in the hardware store parking lot next to the church and as we run over to them, I’m clutching the medicine. I’m not in good shape and by the time I get there I’m already out of breath.
There’s a large man sitting in a little blue car with the door open, and people are clustered around him. He’s nonresponsive. There’s a used needle by his feet, where it fell when his hand went limp. Someone snatches the Narcan out of my hand, rips the package open, shoves it up the man’s nostril, and squirts out the medicine. Nothing happens. There’s someone in a panic trying to do CPR while the man is sitting upright. I shove him out of the way and tell people to grab the man, take him out of the car, and lay him down, and they do it. I scan my eyes over his body, evaluating his condition. He’s tall, he’s white, his lips and nails are turning blue, his skin is gray, and he’s not breathing. He has no pulse that I can feel. I don’t know him, and I feel grateful that he’s not one of our flock. I drop to my knees and start doing chest compressions. He’s not moving, not responding, but his body temperature is still warm. I don’t know how long he’s been there. I yell to one of the bystanders, “Has 911 been called?” and someone calls back, “Yes!” I keep pumping and debate rescue breathing. There don’t seem to be any substances or bodily fluids around his nose or his mouth. I don’t know what his medical history is, what diseases he may have contracted from using IV drugs, but I’m afraid if I don’t start helping him to breathe, he’ll die. Someone else jumps in, Narcans him again, and starts breathing with him. I’m relieved. I can feel the sweat pouring down my body, my shoulders hurt, I’m out of breath, and I keep going. Suddenly, his whole body convulses, and I can feel and hear him violently trying to suck air into his lungs. I stop chest compressions to see what happens next and someone misunderstands and,
thinking I’m tired, pushes me out of the way and continues the compressions. I can see that he hasn’t come back to us yet, but I’m breathing so hard I’m panting so I don’t stop the person, though I watch him for a few seconds to make sure he’s doing compressions correctly. I’m half the size of the person doing the CPR, but if I tell him he’ll move out of respect. I don’t complain, I’m exhausted. I slowly stand up and look around.
There’s a small crowd of people pushing in to see what is happening and I try to back them up so they don’t block the resuscitation. There’s a little scuffle between two guys about how the man was taken out of the car, and I step in between them and try to calm everybody down. We are all drunk on our adrenaline, sky high from stress. A police officer arrives at the scene, a young one. He doesn’t do much, just tells us paramedics are coming and stands and watches. He’s chewing gum. After far too long the ambulance finally shows up and the EMTs take over. Nobody moves. We all want to find out if he makes it, even though he’s not known in the neighborhood. He must have come in just to buy his drugs from one of the local dealers. I walk over to the EMTs, and they ask me the usual questions: how many Narcans did we give, how long has he been out, do I know his name, date of birth, and next-of-kin. I answer as many as I can, and other bystanders try to answer the rest. I see him move; he isn’t dead. There’s nothing I can do now, and I start to walk away.
There’s an EMT standing to the side watching. I don’t like his stance and
I don’t like his attitude, but as I walk by, I say, “Thank you.” He responds,
“I don’t know why we bother, we’re gonna be back here three times today
for the same guy.” For some reason, the comment that I’ve heard so many
times before enrages me, probably because of the stray adrenaline still floating
around in my veins. I say to him as sweetly as possible, “Gee, I’m sorry,
that’s really annoying. You know what I call that?” He looks at me in a barely
interested way and says, “What?” I say slowly and sarcastically, drawing each
word out, “Job security” and turn on my heel and walk away.
I’m tired. I walk slowly back to the church, up the stairs, and through the front door. I pause in the foyer to take some deep breaths and calm down. I want to cry because I’m so touched that they trusted me enough to run to me for help, and because I’m frightened by how little I know. My blouse was so cool and silky in the morning when I put it on, now it’s wet and sticking to my skin. I smell sweat, and my nice slacks have dirt and little tears on the knees from kneeling on the pavement. There’s a blister on my foot from running in heels. I walk upstairs into the sanctuary, trying not to limp. It’s a large room, full of our varied congregation. Some members of the homeless community that surrounds our church are present. They always sit in the back of the church. They’re invited weekly to come closer, but they don’t feel worthy to sit near the altar. They feel dirty and alien, and they choose to hang together in the pews furthest from the front. Some of them are asleep during the service, curled up like hedgehogs. We openly allow this because the two hours that the service lasts could be the only safety they have during the day and the pew cushions are soft.
There’s a little rustle and stir among them as I walk in. They saw me run out because they watch everything, constantly alert for danger, and they knew what was happening. It’s easy for them to recognize the signs of an event that occurs more than daily in their community. They don’t want to interrupt the service to ask, but I can see them looking and hear them moving restlessly in the seats. As I walk by, I give them a thumbs up to let them know that the person made it, and they settle down again. There will be lots of questions later, but for now they can focus.
I stay in the back of the church with my people, but I look up the center aisle to those who have more “normal” lives. Many of them are in nice suits or nice dresses, all of them have no idea that someone almost died; they are focused on what the pastor is preaching. The pastor sees me come back in and nods at me without pausing or missing a beat. Most of the people in nice clothes would care very much about the man in the car, but the signs of his crisis weren’t relevant to their lives. They feel safe and secure in their lives and their pews, calmly listening to the pastor preaching an impassioned speech about salvation and redemption. A small minority wouldn’t care about the man in the car. Those people would ask me questions like, “Why did you bother? He’s just gonna do it again tomorrow,” or “Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch some disease if you touch him?” forgetting that some of our church leadership came out of that community. I find an empty pew, sink down into it, put my head on my arms on the wooden seat back in front of me, and pray. I pray for our community, I pray for the man who overdosed, I pray for the police and the EMTs, not forgetting to include the gum chewer and the jackass who didn’t care. I pray for our church and all its members, and I add prayers of thanksgiving with gratitude that I’m no longer homeless. This is my ministry, this is my community, this is my life and I passionately love what I do.
