George
McKeithen is Warned to ‘Lay Off’ Partin
“Gov. John J. McKeithen reportedly received suggestions last month during a trip to Washington not to press the state Labor-Management Commission’s investigation of Baton Rouge Teamster Boss Edward G. Partin.”
“McKeithen said he met with [Walter] Sheridan, who is now an investigator for the National Broadcasting Company, to allay any suspicion that his motives in pressing the Baton Rouge labor investigation were to get Hoffa Free.
The governor said that the meeting was pre-arranged on a mutual basis, with each desiring to talk with the other. He said that Sheridan was a focal point of persons in the Justice Department and “national magazines” interested in seeing that Hoffa is not released.”
“The governor said he felt the recent series of Life Magazine articles on organized crime in Louisiana and the alleged bribe offers to free Hoffa were promoted by Partin. Since then, he said, Life Magazine has placed full confidence in him.”
New Orleans State Times, 08 March 1968
My mind flowed in and out of contact with my body like waves crashing on and off a rocky shore. Every time thoughts surfaced about Wendy, I walked faster and faster until my rising heartbeat and breath demanded its attention.
My heartbeat was around 75 beats a minute, one and a half times resting, and my breath was around eight deep cycles a minute. I hiked from the thrift store through Normal Heights, mostly up and down a few canyon walking trails but sometimes following bike paths through the hipster neighborhoods. I passed at least a dozen dispensaries, a handful of micro-breweries, and possibly a thousand taco shops, but I did not stop. I wore my sunglasses and pushed through the waves, trying to fatigue my body and prepare for tomorrow’s flight to Baton Rouge.
Every time I paused to sip water or to look both ways before crossing a street, my mind lurched back to re-contextualizing conversations with Wendy and trying to predict the future. I knew, intellectually, there was nothing to do until I Wendy and spoke with her doctor, but I couldn’t control my mind from jumping from one speculation to the next. I blamed the Septiva, but I also knew it only amplified the waves from a deep source, it didn’t create them. I was beginning to see that I could have – should have – been a better son, called more, visited more, and forgave more.
I found myself hiking through City Heights and turned towards North Park and Hillcrest, with long lines of cars hurrying around, the sidewalks packed with mostly Hispanic and Asian carts selling cheap and unhealthy food, stacks of plastic wrapped clothing from China, trinkets from all over the world, and the ubiquitous Obama phones. Pinata and party supply stores showed pinatas catering to every culture and religion imaginable, from giant green four leaf clovers lingering from the recent Saint Patrick’s day parade in Balboa Park to dragons for the Chinese New Year. Plasma donor centers were spaced every three to four blocks, more common than the federally funded First Step child outreach centers that were every six to eight blocks.
There were no bicycle lanes yet, so I snaked my way along crowed sidewalks trying to avoid eye contact by keeping my sunglasses on and ostensibly looking where I was going. Without my heartbeat and breath calling to me, I steered my thoughts towards City Heights and tried to sense the vibe of people in my periphery.
It hadn’t gentrified yet, and was one of the last vestiges of urban poverty in San Diego. Though it was only six miles from downtown condo in America’s Finest City, it was San Diego’s murder and crime capital, and a densely packed neighborhood with around 90,000 residents studied by academics across the country. For decades, City Heighs had received refugees, including 26,000 Iraqi Chaldians – Christians in a Muslim country – who were settled in City Heights after the first gulf war, when Saddam Hussein was purging Iraq of anyone who did not fit his regime or may have helped the allied forces. After Mogodishu in 1993, 8,000 Somolis were granted asylum there. Ethiopia, Peru, El Salvador, and dozens of other war torn countries had settlers in City Heights. Despite the poverty, it was a destination for anyone in San Diego wanting authentic ethnic food, because dispersed between the plasma centers, First Step outreach signs, and multi-cultural pinata stores, there were dozens of small storefronts representing more than a hundred nationalities.
City Heights has the highest concentration of different languages spoken in America, 81 recognized languages within a mile and a half radius, with more than 160 dialects studied. And it had become America’s most densely packed region of sex trafficing, bringing in young girls and boys from all of those countries through the port of San Diego and border with Tijuana and Mexicali, and probably catering to the wealthy tourists who flocked to the convention center and downtown Gaslamp district of America’s Finest City, and the massive number of navy and marine bases with hundreds of thousands of kids with their first steady paychecks flowing in and out of San Diego each year. That demographic created Hillcrest, the first neighborhood I visited that day, with the world’s largest gay flag; it got its start after WWII, when the Pacific Fleet returned and hundreds of thousands of sailors were unleashed to celebrate; since then, San Diego’s been the major out processing center for every military conflict, and over the decades received millions of young people with pockets overflowing and energy to burn. Many stayed in the perfect weather of San Diego, and our homeless population was disproportionately veterans compared to other cities.
It’s estimated that San Diego has four times the number of homeless vets as even Los Angeles or New York, and that the veteran population in America has four times the suicide rate as the general population. San Diego is a military town, made famous by the 1980’s pilot training program film with Tom Cruise, Top Gun, and of course SEAL Team 6, Camp Pendelton, and the Navy’s submarine base. 250,000 civilians work in the defense industry, and money and ostensible compassion abounds. But despite decades of grants and volunteering, City Heights hasn’t changed much. The widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s and owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team, pitched dozens of millions of dollars into the City Heights Kroc Center, and yet the population kept growing more dense and opportunites fewer. The median income of a family of four was only $24,000, less than the annual taxes on my condo, and most families I knew there crammed in with other families, each using one bedroom and sharing the kitchen and bath.
Those numbers bounced around my head and dominated my thoughts, allowing me to slow down and sip water. In my periphery, I saw more people laughing and exchanging commerce peacefully than I had in the more than 90 countries I had toured over the decades. Despite the crime, people in City Heights have always seemed to enjoy San Diego more than in the similarly dense but exceptionally more expensive areas near Hillcrest and Banker’s Hill, where I lived overlooking Balboa Park. It reminded me of New Orleans, my home away from home, where for most of my life I preferred the run down and untouristed parts of the city because they felt more alive, more awake, than the tourists who stumble through life as voyeurs.
I stopped under the shade of the I-15 overpass that separated City Heights from North Park. Like a lot of cities split by the interstates built in the 1950’s and 60’s, the same interstates that saw the rise of Teamster trucking dominance, San Diego became a mishmash of micro economies based on luck. The canyons compounded the difference between neighborhoods, and provided patches of nature and shade that would be peaceful if it weren’t for the roar and rumble of cars and trucks passing overhead. In New Orleans and Baton Rouge, those were Interstates I-10 and I-110, and the result was sprawling tent cities and drug deals in open view; but in the the canyons of San Diego, there were provided permanent pockets of palm trees and thick scrub brush that hid thousands of people from view of the millions who sped in the cars overhead.
I slowly walked through a small city of tents and cardboard homes. It rarely rains here, so a cardboard shack can last months, and some people decorate theirs more lovingly than my neighbors took care of their balconies. Of course, most were piles of trash and reeked of body odor and excrement. I used my nose to judge how much distance to keep; it had only been a year since San Diego was showcased nationally after a hepatitis C outbreak spread from homeless camps to Balboa Park and the tourist areas near the Gaslamp. The resulting police action pushed more density into the canyons away from my condo.
I stopped, frozen in mid step in front of one physically fit man, and sniffed. He didn’t reak. His face was clean shaven. I couldn’t smell soap or after shave or anything like that, but the lack of malodor was remarkable and yanked me into focus. He glanced up at me and grunted some form of acknowledgment. His eyes seemed alert and intelligent. He mumbled something about asking for a few dollars, but I didn’t believe him. I had recently learned of an outreach group started by San Diego’s SEALS, the same SEAL Team 6 famous for taking out Osama Bin Laden under President Obama’s orders in 2011. They infiltrate the canyons and protect the innocent and try to bring home fallen soldiers. Whether he was one or not, I didn’t want to linger because I didn’t sense he belonged. I wished him a good day, and walked on.
I reached the dip in the canyon and began the steep climb back up. I stopped by another man around fifteen years younger than I was. He hadn’t shaved in probably a week, and he smelled like he had just come back from a long camping trip without a shower. He saw me looking down, and nodded up and said something like “good day” or “how’s it going.” I couldn’t make out the exact words, but the tone was a simple greeting. I kneeled down and looked him in the eyes and asked if he needed anything.
“Naw, man,” he said. “I’m good. I’d take a few dollars if you had it, though.”
I lied and said I didn’t. I said I had a snack bar, if he’d like that. He said he was good.
“I’m looking for a friend,” I said. “Goes by JoJo or Giovani or Alvaro.”
The guy nodded his head no, and said he didn’t know a JoJo.
“A bit taller than I am,” I said. “About your age. Dark skinned, a mix of white and Mexican, with 858 tattooed on his neck,” I ran my two left fingers up and down the left side of my neck.
“And a baby’s face on his forearm,” I pointed to my right forearm, which is heavily tattooed. “With the name Victoria under it.”
He shook his head no again, and said he’d keep a look out. He turned his back and futzed with the walls of his cardboard house, ostensibly making them stronger or more spacious, no differently than I would have focused my time on rearranging my balcony to be more comfortable for a mornign coffee or afternoon beer.
That was a social cue for me to leave. I thanked him and stood up and wished him well, and we parted with the same appreciation you’d get from a pleasant chat waiting in an airport line with someone, or a neighbor who was more interested in futzing with their balcony than engaging in chitchat.
I trudged up the hill, glancing around to see if someone else seemed approachable. A few did, but the smell was beginning to bother me and I decided to come back when I wasn’t high. Septiva seems to heighten my sense of smell, or at least my focus on it. That must be why my thoughts slowed, I thought. I breathed deeply; the idea was to lean into the smells that drew my attention.
That was a bad I idea.
My body wanted to hurl out the stench, as if something primal deep inside me knew that the smell of human feces carried disease and death. I exhaled in a chuckle, something equally deep inside of me laughing at my feeble attempt to be fully present in the moment, and I adjusted my pace and stride to walk uphill slowly enough to not breathe deeply, but quickly enough to require focus. I chuckled again: this is the middle way, I thought. Maybe this is why I spend so much time in City Heights, I pondered; what could I ever complain about?
I reached the crest and paused under I-805, the other interstate that split from I-15 and made a slice of pizza shaped pocket. I felt a breeze that didn’t make it down into the canyon, and took a breath that smelled like a combination of gas fumes and rubber skid marks of pavement.
“Hmm,” I said. That explains a lot, I thought.
I walked back down the way I came for a few steps, and the breeze vanished and the stench returned.
“Hmm,” I said again.
I walked back up and glanced left and right along the canyon under I-805.
“The” 805, I corrected myself; in California, they take The 805 to The 8 or The 163, unlike Louisiana with uses I-10 and I-110. The 10 stretches from Florida to New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and ends almost 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles, just before the Santa Monica pier. Like the canyon I was standing over, all of LA is a giant bowl that keeps the heat in.
“Hmm,” I said a third time; I wondered if there could be a way to build wind diverters along interstates, a way to circulate air the way fart fans clean up a bathroom. Smog had been mostly tamed by the catalytic converter, but the stagnant air bred disease. Maybe wind diverters could help everyone? How could it be tested? Who would pay for it and why?
I relished not thinking of anything else for a few minutes, then I began to feel hungry again. I was in North Park. There was bound to be a slice of pizza nearby; one of the oddest things I noticed about the micro-economies of San Diego was that small business owners tended to copy successful businesses in their pocket of town, so there were tacos in Normal Heights and pizza in North Park and Bottomless Mimosas in Hillcrest (which was hilarious when served by waiters in assless chaps). It’s not unlike California people calling I-10 The 10; we’re all conditioned by what we see and hear.
I finished my water and walked away from I-805 along University Avenue towards the edge of gentrification. A small camp was in front of a two story brick apartment with hardly any windows that was probably Section 8 housing. North Park resisted the gentrification of Normal Heights and other pockets because of a law passed in the 1960’s that allowed a lot of affordable housing, especially small, one-bedroom apartments that catered to Vietnam vets returning with a disability check to live there.
Small families and hipster couples wanted two bedrooms, so there were a lot of options for people to cram into one bedroom and live off of the plethora of cheap but good pizza slices that dominated University Avenue. Sometimes, it was hard to tell who was homeless versus who lived in the brick apartments. In this case, it was easy, because I saw an elderly man who was bone thin and around 5’5″ tall, and had about two weeks worth of gray scruff on his face was in ragged clothes; he was sitting and sunning himself on a two-foot tall reinforced concrete wall rising from the sidewalk to form a tiny patch of flat grass in front of the apartment, and was close enough to a shopping cart full of salvaged bric and brac that he could grab it if someone tried to run off with his things. About twenty feet behind him was an angry man around 35 years old, carrying aligning a row of similar bric and brac up and down steps leading to the apartment’s second floor. He had a hatchet strapped to his hip. I couldn’t tell if he lived there are was stopping to do inventory before continuing into the canyon. Regardless, he seemed focus on what he was doing and not a threat.
I walked over to the elderly man and smiled. He said “Howdy” in a Texas accent, and I said “Howdy” back, slightly exaggerating my lingering Louisiana drawl.
“Have a seat,” he said, tapping the wall.
He wore a dusty but unstained button down long sleeve shirt that fit his frame loosely and covered his arms, probably keeping the harsh sun off while allowing breezes to flow and keep him cool. He smelled like he hadn’t bathed since the last time he shaved, but I couldn’t smell excrement and, I noticed, his hands were remarkably clean. Like I did, I assumed he used hand wipes or something similar. I felt it was safe to sit. Ever since my time as a paramedic, even before the San Diego hepititus C outbreak and the global Covid-19 pandemic that would begin in less than a year, I’ve been cautious about communicable diseases. Intellectually, I knew that anyone was just as likely to be a carrier of something, but my biases viewed hygiene and mannerisms as relative terms, not absolute; anyone can get lucky or mimic their surroundings, but I tend to feel most comfortable around someone who rises above their surroundings, like how a lotus flower blooms above the same mud and muck that stymies other flowers.
We chatted a bit and I repeated the questions about JoJo. He said he hadn’t seen anyone with both an 858 tattoo and as tall as JoJo. I added that JoJo was part Native American, and had sharper nose and facial features than typical Hispanics. The man allowed that to sink in, nodded, and said he’d keep an eye out.
I thanked him, and said: “I used to work with kids in the foster system. They call it a CASA, a court appointed special advocate. I’ve known JoJo since he was a kid. He’s a good guy. A meth addict, like a lot of the guys around here,” I waved towards the canyon, “but mostly harmless. He just looses his temper quickly, and doesn’t do well when police try to manhandle him.”
“If you see him,” I asked, “please tell him people care about him, and wish him well no matter how long it’s been.”
“Will do,” the elderly man said (though, in hindsight, he was probably the same age as I was).
“I’m George, by the way,” he said, extending his hand as if to shake.
I made a fist and reached towards his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, George. I’m Jason, but a lot of friends call me Magik.”
He made a fist and bumped mine without a pause, a litmus test I use to test adaptability.
He went back to reclining and said: “Magic?”
“Yes, with a K.”
“If I see JoJo,’ he said, “I’ll tell him Magik was looking for him.”
I thanked him, and we chitchated about life under the interstates, and chuckled about the patterns on either side, saying people are predictable. He, too, had noticed the division with tacos on one side and pizza on the other.
“I was about to get a slice,” I told him. “Would you like me to bring some back?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you. That’s kind of you.”
I returned with a box of New York style vegetarian pizza. The man with the hatcheted was still arranging and rearranging his stuff along the steps. He was clean shaven, or at least less than two days away from a razor. I couldn’t smell him from that far away. I decided to play a game and figure out his story while I chatted with George.
I set the box on two foot concrete wall as if it were a picnic table, and tucked a handfull of napkins under the box so they wouldn’t blow away in the breeze. George rolled up his sleeves, and it was impossible to not notice his skin was scared and stretched tightly around his bones and across obvious outlines of trauma plates and screws over the radius and ulna of both forearms.
Though I couldn’t be sure, they looked like Sythese fragment kits, the most common steel plates and screws in the world, thick and strong and cheap to mass produce, and ubiquitous in charity hospitals and Veterans hospitals across America. I had three 7.5mm Synthese compression screws holding my right ankle together; it was stiff and swollen from hiking all day, and I could feel inflamation from bone being abraded away by the more rigid steel resisting bone’s flexibility, causing tiny motion in the screws that crushed a bit of bone with every step. The bone would heal with a few days of rest, so I wasn’t worried, but it hurt. Seeing George’s arms kept my mind from focusing on my ankle.
I sat cross legged atop the wall, with the pizza box between us. I used a hand wipe from my backpack, and offered one to George. He thanked me and cleaned his hands and tucked the used wipe in a grocery bag tied to his shopping cart that served as his trash can. There was no trash on the street within probably 20 feet of where we sat. I tucked mine in a small Ziploc I kept in my backpack as my trash bag.
George ate his slice of pizza gracefully. If I hadn’t been with someone, I probably would have wolfed mine down in a few bites. I was used to fasting after having wrestled on and off for 16 years, always at a weight a few pounds lower than my body wanted to be, but when I’m high I have no will power unless the shame of eating like an undisciplined animal overrides my instinct.
We finished a slice with only a few comments about the tasty pizza, the pleasant breeze, and how good it felt to not be in a hurry like all the people passing over The 805 seemed to be.
I wanted a second slice, so I offered one to George first. He thanked me then declined, but encouraged me to go ahead.
He lowered his sleeves and leaned back nodded towards the Rite Aide pharmacy towards North Park and across from the pizza shop, and said: “I was hit by a car pulling into that parking lot two years ago.”
He paused, as lost in thought as I had been since hearing about Wendy. I held a slice in my hand without nibbling, and leaned into what he was saying; no, not saying, I leaned into what he was feeling. Empathy isn’t just about the words, it’s about a sense of something shared at a level deeper than words, from a time when we were inarticulate animals, but more aware than dogs and adding words to feelings.
“It broke both my arms,” he said, holding up his sleeved arms.
“And my clavicle,” he said, pointing to his left clavicle, which was coved by his shirt and poked up higher on that side, probably because of a curved plate screwed across the fracture.
“And ruptured a disc,” he said, pointing to his neck. I saw a thin scar along his throat, and assumed he had an anterior plate I couldn’t see because his windpipe and bulging Adam’s apple were in the way.
“And I think something happened to my lower back; I can’t sit straight any more without the pain becoming too bad.”
I nodded and said, “It could be a compression fracture, or a herniation pressing against nerves. I have something similar from degeneration and bone spurs. That’s why I walk a lot and sit like this.”
He looked at how I was sitting and nodded and chuckled and said: “I wish I could sit like that. My ankle is fused from an old accident. I fell off a dump truck.”
“I used to own a construction company,” he said.
“Hmm,” I said to show I was interested. I took a large bite of pizza to open the opportunity for him to talk freely; it could have been my imagination, but I think he sensed the window and walked through. The man with the hatchet was repeating the same pattern again and again, lining up his things and walking away, only to return and rearrange them. I guessed he was homeless, not a resident, and that whoever lived in the apartments probably accepted that their steps and small patch of grass above the two foot concrete wall would be treated like public space. George didn’t give him any attention.
“We had a fleet of trucks and cranes,” he said. “35 full time employees, and a lot of temps for big projects. We were pulling in three to four million a year on average.”
George sighed and kept staring at the Rite Aide parking lot.
“I don’t know what happened. When the housing market crashed in 2009, we had no work. I kept people on payroll out of habit, and the company’s savings dried up. I started doing more of the labor myself, which is when this happened,” he said as he held up his right foot and pointed towards his ankle. I could see that it was rigidly locked at a right angle compared to his other ankle, which was more limp and relaxed. He let it fall back with a thud of his heel on the sidewalk.
“I lost everything. I became depressed. My wife and I had long since divorced. She had moved here, and my daughter and I never got that close with visits being so far apart. After my accident I moved here, too, but I couldn’t get another business going. I was 50 and had run my own business all of my life; no one would hire me. I woke up one day and I had been living on the streets for six months. Four years passed.”
He nodded towards the Rite Aide, and said: “Then that happened. My daughter’s number doesn’t work any more. She may have changed it. I don’t know if she’s even still here, or still alive. Even if she were, I don’t know if she’d want to see me. I can’t blame her. No one did anything wrong, that’s just the way life works out some times.”
“The car drove off,” he said, still staring at the Rite Aide. “Two employees saw the accident and gave a description to the police, but even if they found them I doubt they’d have insurance. I’m not interested in punishing anyone, but if they had insurance I could use the money.”
He sighed in a way that didn’t convey sadness, but was more like a habit or way to communicate it is what it is, then he said: “I was in Scripps Hospital for a few weeks, then released back on the street. They had a few programs for temporary housing but with long waiting times. Even if I got one, I’ll probably never be able to work again. The shelters are full of bugs and people are packed in there like cattle. At least here I can sit and enjoy the breeze.”
I finished my slice and we sat in silence for a while.
But my mind wouldn’t relax. The man with the hatchet was gone, so I excused myself and pulled out my camera and told George I had just bought it at a thrift store and didn’t have any film, but I wanted to practice lining up photos through its lens. He kept his gaze on my eyes while I spoke, and when I stood up he returned to staring at the Rite Aide.
I walked to the steps. All of the eight apartment doors were shut, and the single window of each was covered by curtains, aluminum foil, or a few layers of sheets to block out the blaring sun. I didn’t hear anyone, but it was obvious that some people were inside simply because the walkways were clear of debris and no one was sleeping there. I felt the layout of possessions outside created an artistic statement that contrasted the brick walls and shuttered windows, and I framed the man’s arrangement trying to convey what I saw.
With just a 50mm lens and no zoom, I had to move my body to get the shot I wanted, which was my intent when I bought it. I wanted a new hobby that kept me in motion, that used my body instead of technology. I kneeled down so the lower steps in my frame would be parallel with the photo I envisioned.
Just like I had imagined the camera as a rifle or pistol, I decided to cock it by rotating an imaginary blank piece of film into the ready position. The camera had a shutter block that was exactly like a pistol’s safety; I lowered it, reframed the hatchet man’s things with a blur in the brick wall behind them, watched my breath rise and fall, and timed the squeezing of the trigger as if I were a sniper waiting for the slight pause during a peak or valley of my breath to take the shot. The roar of The 805 vanished; all I could see was my target, and all I could feel was the subtle rise and fall of my aim with every breath. Like with shooting a rifle, I squeezed the shutter release with the smoothness of the ticking second hand on Uncle Bob’s perpetual motion Rolex, concentrating so much on my aim and moving my finger methodically that even I wouldn’t know when the shot would fire.
Click!
At that moment I heard the man with the hatchet shout at me; though I didn’t see him at first, his voice sounded like he had looked and I knew it had to be him. My head jerked up, and I saw him rushing at me with his hatchet in his hand and held high as if to come down on my head.
I spread my hands apart with the camera held in my left, clearly a camera, and slowly stood up as he continued to rush at me. I kept my gaze on him and walked backwards with my hands raised. He stopped at the steps and glanced at his things as if taking inventory.
“Why are you taking photos of my shit,” he demanded. He had lowered the hatchet, but it was held by his hips and angled from his body, ready for action.
“Are you planning on taking it?” he shouted. “This is my shit! Stay away from it!”
He took a step towards me and I kept slowly backing up.
It was a Coleman camping hatchet, the one in almost every campground store in America, with cheap, dull steel that wouldn’t take an edge and was only useful only for splitting seasoned campground firewood, and with a notch under the blade for hooking tent spikes and pulling them out of the ground. It was more like a caveman’s axe, the evolution from whacking things with a stick to learning that a stick whacks harder with a heavy rock strapped on the end.
One of the first lessons I learned from Big Daddy was an old adage about dealing with mafia hitmen: rush a man with a gun, but walk away from a man with a knife. In my experience, that’s a decent default; you can’t outrun a bullet, and a man charging you with a knife or anything has momentum going forward and is therefore easier to disarm. There’s not an equivalent with a hatchet, but over the years I’ve learned that they aren’t as threatening as they seem, especially the one that was in front of me then.
Movies show Vikings chopping though armor with axes, which was probably true and a useful tool back then, and films like Braveheart with epic battle scenes dominated by axe-wielding strongmen keep it in our lore, but it’s not a useful weapon for someone who is agile and not sitting in a suit of armor that would require a hefty swing with an axe to penetrate. That swing is its weakness. You have to swing your arm in an arc, which carries so much momentum that a nimble person can dodge it, step in and use your momentum against you, or simply take out a knee or eye while the you’re lunging forward.
The man with a hatchet wasn’t a threat, but I didn’t want to hurt him. Though he wasn’t charging any more, he kept walking towards me and wouldn’t take his eyes off mine. My mind bounced around, knowing I’d be fine if sober, and trying to see if I was alert enough to fend off an attacker without either of us getting hurt.
I felt a hand on my arm and was startled to see George beside me, and also upset at myself for being so focused on what was in front of me that I was unaware of my surroundings. That would have never happened when I was completely sober; I shouldn’t have walked through the canyons high. I berated myself while I watched George step between me and the hatchet man and take control.
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” George told him. “We were just talking about how nice it was here, how we could all sit around peacefully.”
“Why’s he taking pictures of my shit?” the man demanded again. “He plannin’ to steal somethin’ later? Get some evidence so the police can haul me away and take my shit?
He took another step towards me, and George held his hands up like I held mine.
“It’s empty,” I said in the softest voice I could without seeming condescending. “No film.”
“Let me see,” he demanded.
I opened the case and let the lid dangle and showed him it was empty inside.
“Why the fuck you takin’ photos with nothin’ inside,” he demanded.
“I’m practicing,” I said.
He seemed to relax at that; perhaps he practiced his hatchet skills, and could relate.
He said, “Just stay away from my shit,” and turned away from us and reholstered his hatchet and began inspecting and counting his things. That seemed to calm him. One of the things I learned from working with wide ranges of mental abilities and PTSD in kids, was that they needing things to be in order and remain unchanged to remain calm. That must be a horrible thing to experience, because in my experience things change constantly; I’m sure if George and I talked about that, he’d agree.
George limped back to his perch on the wall. I followed, returned my camera to my backpack, and sat sat cross legged again.
“He’s mostly harmless, too,” George said. He laughed a genuine laugh that moved his thin rib cage up and down under his loose fitting shirt, and said, “Just don’t touch his shit.”
I laughed with him; at some point in our evolution, shared laughter was how we relaxed and trusted. One of the things people who haven’t seen combat may not understand is how much time we spend in the middle of things, laughing about what seems overwhelming to someone less experienced.
“I sleep near him,” George explained. “Just behind the apartment. I don’t bother him, and he keeps people away from me. I couldn’t defend myself. A lot of people steal and kill here. It’s probably always been like that, but you think about it differently when you’re old and weak and alone.”
He sighed a sad sigh and said: “Thank you for stopping to talk. I don’t talk to anyone any more.” He nodded towards the hatchet man, who had taken everything off the steps and was meticulously replacing them in an order that made sense to him.
“We don’t talk,” George said, then nodded towards the canyon. “And most of them are transient and on meth. Not that I care, but there’s nothing to talk about.”
He looked at my eyes and had the same pools of tears I had wiped away when I bought the camera.
“Thank you,” he said with a feeble voice. “It feels good to feel human again.”
I slid a napkin from under the box and held it out to him as if it were a plate, and asked if he wanted another slice. He used one hand to wipe his eyes with the baggy sleeve of his other hand and said no thank you. I took a third slice. Half of the pizza remained. I nodded towards it and said: “Would you like to keep this and share it with your friend?”
“That’s nice of you. I’ll do that.”
I finished a couple of bites of pizza, then said: “I grew up in and out of the foster system. Before I walked over here, I learned my mom was dying. I’m about to fly home to see her the last time. I just wanted to go for a walk and not think about things for a while.”
George nodded as if he understood that on a deep, personal level, as if his tears were the tip of an iceberg of feelings I wouldn’t understand.
“I don’t know,” I said, the tip of my iceberg slowing starting to show. “it’s as if I volunteer here just to remind myself how lucky I am. The Dali Lama calls that selfishness, but the good type of selfishness, like realizing how interconnected we are and how compassion towards others only helps you be happier. But I don’t see it, or at least I don’t feel it.”
I glanced at my partially eaten slice of pizza and said: “Like this. It’s a gift compared to what’s around us, but I don’t see it that way. It’s like in the new testament, where all Jesus says to pray for is gratitude for food and forgiveness for yourself and others. That’s it. It’s that simple. Yet here we are.”
“And of all the talk about honoring your mother and father, there’s not a single example of what that means. I tried…”
I clamped my mouth shut and averted my gaze away from George’s.
“Your mom knows you’ve done your best,” George said, softly but with the same strength he had when we began speaking.
“I don’t know her,” he said. “But you’re a good person. That’s all you need to do.”
He reached out and rested a small gnarled and weathered hand on my knee; he just rested it there, didn’t pat or make it more than it was, and with that moment of human contact I began to sob. My shoulders heaved up and down, and my breath came and when in clumps I couldn’t control Tears dripped down the valley between my cheeks and nose, and rested on the stubble of my upper lip. I wiped them away with the napkin I had offered George only a few minutes before. He kept his hand still, and his soft gaze never faltered.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. George removed his hand but remained seated at 90 degrees; attentive, but probably suffering because of it. I set my slice back in the box, remained cross legged, and reclined back on my hands and tried to convey a relaxed atmosphere again. George followed suit.
I said: “Anyway, I’m in City Heights a lot. JoJo’s around 32 or 33 now. His older brother is probably around here, too. Their mom had seven kids, each with a different man. JoJo came when she was so addicted to drugs that she holed up in one of those shitty little hotels and sold his asshole for drugs until he was five years old. Laws require trying to reunite a kid with the biologic parents no matter what. It even says to prioritize the mom, even a mom that pimps out her infant son to pedaphiles. It wouldn’t matter, because we never found his dad. His mom named him after three names that could have been the father, but his facial features led some social worker to saying the Native American was likely, and that got the tribe involved in added years to the process. He had 29 social workers in 13 years. By the time they removed him from the adoption pool, he was 14 and a 6’1″ tattooed meth dealer. They call that unadoptable. He didn’t want to stay locked up in a halfway house. I get that, and I was asked to help him emancipate and transition into adulthood. Now that he’s an adult, no one cares that he was ass raped for the first five years of his life.”
My jaw clenched and I said: “He was raped his first time in adult jail. He let it happen. He said fighting made things worse.”
My lips quivered and I said: “He said he listened to me about Buddha and nonviolence, and didn’t want to hurt anyone…”
I took a gulp of air and vomited it out and glanced at my half eaten pizza and said: “And he thanks me for helping him and I can’t even feel gratitude for a pizza on a sunny San Diego day.”
I laughed and said: “When church volunteers reach out to him in jail, he jokes with me after about honoring your mother and father. What can you say to that?”
George nodded and said: “If I see him, I’ll tell him you’ve been looking for him, and that you care.”
I picked up the slice of pizza and took another bite to keep myself from talking for a minute.
I finished the bite and sipped some water and said: “I saw a couple of guys in the canyon that looked out of place. I think they were volunteers. Former soldiers still serving as best they can. I didn’t talk to those, but I met two others over the years. One said it was his therapy. He asked me to join. He even called it something, like an order or a brotherhood or something like that – I wasn’t really listening.”
I laughed out loud and said, “I’ve never been into anything organized.”
George said, “I don’t know about the soldiers, but I’ve see a few guys from some Catholic group that does something similar. They have a name I can’t remember, but it’s based on something like being soldiers for God’s kindness. Like you said, they don’t quite fit in, but they sleep outside some times and have food to share. They talk about finding God to anyone who listens. Maybe that helps some people. I’d rather be able to work and have a place to live, even if it’s just an apartment here.”
“It’s the lack of smell,” I said. “They don’t smell homeless.”
George chewed on that for a few moments.
“I never noticed,” he said. “But I keep my distance. I hear the Catholic guys, though. They sound like they’re on a mission. And they’re always clean shaven – that’s a giveaway. At least they’re doing something. No one likes a hypocrite.”
I nodded in agreement and said: “I respect that. In the new testament, Jesus answered the rich guy that all he had to do to be perfect was obey the commandments – though Jesus reduced them to something like six, the most obvious of not killing or stealing, and including honor your mother and father – and said that if you need to do more give away your wealth to the poor. That’s extreme. Buddha said the middle way was the path to liberation, so maybe those guys are giving a bit now and then instead of either overreacting or doing nothing.”
He mimicked my “hmm” sound, glanced at the canyon, then stared at the Rite Aide parking lot again without speaking. I was glad, because I was surprised by what I had and wanted to think about it for a while and let it sink in. Like Moe using my joke about Times New Roman and an Oyster Perpetual watch, I wanted to use that version of the parable again; but, I had read that strong cannabis reduces short term memory, so I was repeating the conversation with George while I nibbled on the pizza, hoping the idea would take root and let me look at it again one day.
I finished the slice and said I had to go. As I began to stand up, George grew talkative.
“Those two employees gave me their phone numbers,” he said, glancing at the Rite Aide. “And the police took mine.” He patted his pocket, which probably had an Obama phone.
I wondered how long the numbers lasted, but didn’t ask. JoJo used to call me once every few months from a different number, saying the prepaid minutes were out, but he was never disciplined about using it. George said he never talked to anyone, and I assumed he wanted a constant number in case his daughter called.
“Maybe one day I’ll get a call and find a way to get off the street,” he said in a rapid pace that stood out against how he had been speaking. “It’s been two years. I filed paperwork to sue Rite Aide and the city for an unsafe parking lot among all of this,” he waved his hand around, probably meaning all of the pedestrians who lived in the canyons and alleys.
“It’s been two years,” he repeated, “But you never know. I call the police station every few months and give them my case number, just in case.”
He looked up at me, hungry, and said: “Could I get your number and call you if I get good news?”
My jaw trembled and I wanted to say yes, but I said: “I’m sorry, George; I don’t have any bandwidth right now. I’m sorry…”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a wave of his gnarled hand and false cheerfulness. “I just thought I’d ask. It gets lonely out here. This is the first conversation I’ve had in probably six months.”
“I just have a lot on my mind,” I over-explained. “But I’ll bring a pizza when I get back.”
George nodded that he heard me, but he didn’t look at me and kept his eyes on the Rite Aide parking lot. His jaw looked tight, and he seemed to be concentrating on pushing his iceberg back down.
“Thank you, again,” he said, finally looking back up at me. “You’re a good person. Thank you for talking. And for the pizza. I’ll share it later tonight.”
If I were a good person, I thought, I would have given you my phone number, and I would have called Wendy more often.
I stretched and said goodbye. The man with the hatchet was gone, but his things were back to being aligned along the stairs and, except for the pizza box, nothing had changed since I first saw George sitting there alone. I walked towards home. My ankle hurt and I limped at first. It loosened as the inflammation slowly pumped out with the pressure each stride, and soon I was walking at a brisk pace and not feeling any pain. I felt grateful for my health and having met George, but I knew that would fade. Change is inevitable.
It really was a beautiful sunny afternoon in San Diego, with the sun getting low in the sky and a soft amber hue forming. I turned my attention to the cool breeze and the smells of pizza and beer that grew more dense the closer I came to the gentrified heart of North Park. A wave from the weed peaked, and I began to imagine making it to Hillcrest for a Pearl Necklace Pale Ale during happy hour. My time with George had already began to fade like the setting sun.
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