SOMEONE took my life away.
As you may know, I’m homeless, living in my car. All the belongings that I had no room for I left with an individual in Chino Valley, in his storage shed, obviously with his consent — in fact, on his offer. These were the things that made up my life.
My books (300 or so, including out-of-print collectibles and gifts), DVDs, clothes, tools, camping gear, cookware, a briefcase (containing autographed records, a 1928 Amazing Stories, my personal photographs, letters and journals), my arrowhead collection, and a box of papers containing my birth certificate, car title and a knife inherited from my father (anything I couldn’t carry or risk losing), are gone. All I own in this world now is my car and its contents.
This person — a former co-worker, I won't use the word ‘friend’ — sent me a text on January 10 telling me he’d disposed of my property. It was hard to make sense of the conversation, because he’s barely literate and usually chemically impaired. He claimed to have given most of it to Goodwill or acquaintances, and to have sold some of it. Doubtless he kept anything that appealed to him. He gave no explanation for this, or for why he didn’t simply call and request I retrieve it. We’d exchanged texts two days before Christmas while I was in the hospital (I was discharged on December 30), and he made no mention of this at all. This person is a dullard, but normally not malicious. His motive is beyond me, and irrelevant; there can be no valid reason for his actions. No excuse. He could have simply picked up the phone.
So a huge portion of my life has vanished, in my estimation stolen. The police do not agree; since I didn’t live there (though I once did, in a trailer I owned then, paying rent), he supposedly had the right to dispose of my belongings. If this is so, they speak only of legal right, not moral right. He should have notified me, period. He did wrong, and I will entertain no argument to the contrary.
The goal of enduring this current homeless, car-dwelling existence is to rise above it, and someday resume my normal life. But now, having lost everything, can I still do that? Can I ever buy another book, knowing it will sit on the shelf alone? Will I ever stop thinking ‘whatever happened to . . .?’ before remembering with a sick feeling all the things I no longer have? Will I ever rise above this loss? I don't know. Will I ever forgive this person? No, I will not. I’m more brokenhearted over this than angry, and have never been more hurt or as significantly betrayed by anyone in my 61 years.
Not on the bright side in any way, but with this loss of treasured personal effects the remains of my life are more streamlined. I can up and go without looking back. Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club (a DVD I no longer own) rightly said, “Things you own end up owning you.” This is a fairly Taoist take, and one that I apparently must now adopt.
Do you think you know what it means to be homeless? Unless you are or have been, you don’t. I thought I did, but this one blindsided me. It’s a losing game, and I can’t lose much else and have anything to go back to. I’m still looking for whatever work an aging homeless man with a bad leg can do. I’m down as far as I’m willing to go, and as Jim Carroll once sang, “It ain't hip to sink that low unless you’re gonna make a resurrection.” It’s time for me to rise again.
That may be the lesson to be learned. To eradicate the problem of the homeless and generally disenfranchised, action must be expedient and meaningful. People in trouble need help, before their options erode to dust and the damage is irreversible. How can a country that can afford to build monumental arches and gold-plate the president’s office have people living in tents on city streets? If not for compassion’s sake alone, isn’t it to the greater good of our nation that each of her citizens be secure, whole and productive? This was once an ideal. Has the notion of elevating the least of our countrymen leached entirely from our national character?
