Short Story

http://www.brownstoner.com/408stuyfacade234.jpg

Homeless Across the Hall

The smell–somewhere between wet garbage and body odor in the next room usually kept me down stairs. For all I knew it probably was wet garbage. Two days out of work–the hours already seemed long. I’d leave in a few days to avoid paying next month’s rent. Outside I noticed the trees gaining new cherry blossoms but the monotony in my room or maybe the shift in my schedule dulled my interest in them. Or the window in the colonial house where I rented a room needed a rinse. I was lazing in my pajamas, legs tangled in the cotton sheets, my hair wilted from the night; it felt good compared to the normal grind. I awoke thinking about writing a letter to a missionary. His family disowned him for converting; apparently no one wrote him. Staring at no particular place in the room I crafted a story. I think it was about horses–the first of many weekly installments.

Somewhere on the racetrack I lost sense of reality. I picked Sara up off the streets a few days ago. She stayed in a room across the hall. She stuck her head in the door way looking me up and down and then slinked into my room and plopped herself down heavily, I might add, denting the bed. I asked her if she bathed.

“Every day,” she said.

Do I ask her how she’s doing? She’d talk for hours, but I did it anyway. Maybe I’d make it a research project, “What’s livin’ on the streets like?” I rested my back against the wall.

She began a tale. It wasn’t wholly bad. I had no place to go. She had no place to go. We were like two shabbily dressed vagrants run down in this relentless city. Where did I put that bacterial spray?

She coughed.

Most people thought it was a line; and so did I. I didn’t believe it until I demanded an investigation to be sure her stories of who she was and where she came from were true. Now I wish I would have listened more carefully.

Cough.

Thoughts of the letter kept creeping back into my head; I felt anxious listening to her.

This is what I picked up from her story. Singapore once placed Sara’s Pakistani diplomatic family on an entire floor of a grand hotel looking out over the city and coastline. Her uncle held the highest seat of power–the last chief judge under British rule in India. The family rubbed shoulders with the Ghandi’s–you know, the ones you read about.

As a young girl, Sara’s rich dark hair and adoring smile charmed her father. He saw that his only daughter earned certificates from cosmotology school, modeling school, and practically every other finishing school. For a hobby he avidly read Byron poetry which Sara grew up committing to impassioned memory.

The family then transferred to Washington, DC. Christianity attracted and probably sealed Sara’s future. She began attending several meetings located near her home in the district–and converted. Her Moslem family in Pakistan disinherited her immediately threatening her life if she returned. Her father, however, gave her any money she wanted. She used it to buy elaborate crosses to decorate her room.

Then unexpectedly her father became seriously ill. The tragedy was painful enough. Then just before her father died, her mother mysteriously died first. Her father’s wealth did not go to her mother who would have left it to Sara. Instead, the money went to family in Pakistan. Almost penniless in a few short months, Sara lived alone in her family home just outside the District. Not having worked much in her life, she barely had any practical skills and no formal degrees.

With the little work she found at a local department store she couldn’t keep up with house payments. Shortly thereafter she closed the door to her parents’ home and stepped into the streets. And then finally she lost the paper work even giving her the right to work at the department store.

Once a year or so later, a reporter overheard her masterfully reciting Byron poetry to a group of homeless people on the streets. He asked her to give a press conference near Georgetown University–thinking she could speak articulately and insightfully about the homeless condition. She still slept under bridges, though, panhandled at airports, and knew the schedules of all the local soup kitchens. She stopped sleeping in shelters–they were dangerous places. She watched the women there beat each other over drugs, steal things in the night, and lots of other things difficult for her to mention. Almost everything she took with her on the streets was stolen. Somehow, however, she managed to keep her crosses and a stack of finishing school certificates. She liked to tell the story about how a man walking past one night placed a ten dollar bill in her shoe while she slept near the metro. And she wrote poetry about it all.

Two years later some sister missionaries came across her. I’m sure Sara’s story and poise must have captivated them. They looked for someone from our congregation to help her. Senators, former governors, and government appointees attended church there, but the members welcomed her at church meetings with hesitation. There were those willing to give money but none who opened their doors for a night. At night instead, she placed her plastic sacks outside the chapel doors then made her way to her normal sleeping area under the awning of a shop a block away from the chapel. The owner gave her permission; it is illegal, I found out from her, otherwise.

Maybe a month or so went by.

About this time my perfect DC life started falling apart. A girl from church invited me for a dinner she was having for a couple of missionaries, young elders, in the area. When I got there I felt immediately uncomfortable. There were more people I didn’t know than I thought. I plopped myself down on a puffy yellow couch and tried to look focused on the bookshelves. I was generally distracted anyway. My wrists were hurting. My boss wanted to fire me because damaged wrists meant I couldn’t work and not working meant lost wages for him–I was a sign language interpreter.

Somewhat tousled, the two missionaries arrived at last. Both dressed well, in dark slacks, white shirts, and name tags. I was sort of friends with the one with blonde colored hair divided on the left side of his head by a three inch scar. The other elder following him was his companion with a darker complexion and warm smile. They entered scanning the room. In the kitchen enchiladas just came out of the oven bringing a smile to my lips and a pump in our handshakes.

A young single dermatologist in the corner chatted with several others. He half glanced at the elders then rotated to what seemed to be an investigation–a brunette in her second year of law school sat near him and garnering most of his glances. I noticed among the other guests a tall thin master’s student in family therapy standing near the kitchen talking about his studies.

I wore a dusty blue collared shirt, blue jeans, and glasses. I participated in the conversation at times answering questions about what I was doing in the District and chatting about various subjects people brought up. I brought the law student. Seeing the elders was a relief because I knew them already.

The elders both took a seat at a table set up in the living room. The younger companion stood a little behind his senior companion. People that I knew were generally affected by the elder’s conversion story. The hostess, direct and in command welcomed her guests with smiles and brief questions. With her sister, she laughed more heartily and I noticed she diverted the dermatologist’s attention. Finally she called everyone into the kitchen to pick up, buffet style, homemade enchiladas and salad. I wondered if she planned to set up the dermatologist with the law student I brought.

At dinner the dermatologist laid out his medical education, his business, the habbits of pimple poppers, future business ventures, and how he planned to attract women. Conversation flowed from these subjects. At one point a lawyer at the table agreed with him that knowing too much can be dangerous. The law student looked engaged. I wondered what the missionaries were thinking.

The elder elder finally said, “After I graduate I’m going to law school.” Hmmm. Siting at the elder’s side, no one seemed to question the companion.

At the time I was thinking a lot about a medical student who had a girl friend and a little known dream to scalpel the brain. “So,” I said, “Tell us about brain surgeons.” The dermatologist answered. And somewhere between the description of brain surgeon’s long hours, their families living in one city for the rest of their lives…I soon grew ambivalent to brain surgeons.

The dermatologist dispensed and returned his dishes to the kitchen. The lawyer followed and then I did. People slowly circled into conversations.

“Uh, what was your major?” the elder said.

“International Law,” I said. “It was my master’s program.”

“Where?” he said.

“Reading University.” I said, “Forty five minutes outside of London by train.”

I cleared my place and got into one of the conversations in the room. The elder missionary sat down next to his companion. Conversation died and I slipped into a chair across from the elder. Head in hand staring at the wall across the room I asked him where he had lived.

“What is happening with Sara?” he said.

What is happening with Sara, I wondered. I could feel my insides tighten.

This was his story. For months sister missionaries tried to find a place for Sara, a new convert, to live and a job–but were put off. Finally someone agreed to pay her rent for a room–at the place I lived. The missionaries thought everything was arranged. But Sara was still on the streets. Now I was part of the problem.

But I originally met Sara reciting a Byron poem with a low measured rhythmic voice. She stood inches shorter than those standing around her. Thick charcoal make-up circled her eyes and peach blush powered her olive skin. Her hair cascaded bleach-yellow out of a shimmering scrunchie on top of her head. No one listening could interupt–she had a masterful way of holding attention. After five or six stanzas I glanced around desperately for a replacement to endure the rest of the poem.

One morning I was driving to a hair appointment. The landlords called.

“Would you be willing to share the house with a new tenant? She is from Pakistan.”

“Who is she?”

“We’re not exactly sure except she belongs to our congregation.”

“Sure.” I said, “I don’t know about the other girl but yeah.”

At church the next Sunday it suddenly dawned on me that Sara was from Pakistan. Ikes. I didn’t have a lock on my door. Was she mental? or lying? I demanded substantiated information about her. I didn’t even consider at the time she might be sick or suppose I would be like the maids she had as a child. Finally, though reluctant, I agreed to let the woman in, on the condition that people be on call for help.

Sara attended church every Sunday and came to activities for the next weeks but still lived on the streets. My own personal situation became more desperate–my wrists hurt, my boss threatened to fire me, and I couldn’t help but laugh that in my condition I would be taking in a homeless woman.

The elder leaned back in his chair. I remembered he was there and turned toward him now. What must he think of me. He’d been through a lot to become a missionary.

“How do I pick her up?”

Later that night I drove slowly past the chapel. I saw her walking her shopping cart up the street in the rain. She coughed. It was a little surreal thinking that my world was about to collide with the world of a homeless person. Tonight she would have been sleeping under a torrent. My headlights illuminated her. I was mid-conversation on my cell phone with a friend about a job in the FBI when I pulled up in the parking lot. Didn’t she realize I was here for her? She was the only person in sight. Sara kept walking. What was I expecting? A tearful embrace–thanks for picking me up off the streets? I don’t know what. I never picked up a homeless woman before.

I parked the car, popped the trunk and then rushed into the pour. Sara looked up. She seemed to slowly recognize me but didn’t hurry. She set each white grocery sack into the car one carefully at a time. I watched afraid to touch the saturated bags. Then I started to worry they might permanently stink up my trunk.

“Is that everything?” I said.

“Yes.”

I shut the trunk.

Sara got into the car after me. Our bodies dampened the seats. That was the first time I smelled her. Picking Sara up wasn’t the ordeal I thought it would be, though. No one applauded. The guy on the cell phone didn’t even know what just happened.

“I’ll call you back later.”

Slowly I backed out of the parking lot and headed home. Sara was distant and quiet. Turning another corner, we arrived at the rented colonial house. The elder called. I took the phone call on the porch watching Sara carry her plastic sacks into the house. He was easier to talk to than at dinner.

Why did she walk so slowly?

The elder didn’t think Sara remembered him. I said to Sara, glad that he called, “He thinks you don’t remember him.”

“Oh, I remember him.” She kept walking.

I went back to the phone. “I’m going to miss you when you leave.” I wasn’t thinking. But I was the one to leave and that was it. That was the last time I heard from him–not even after I wrote the story about the horse or any of the other installments. I gained a roommate instead.