Some things work to take your mind off of others.
Deference, it’s sometimes called. But that
is not what I am talking about. I am Jack Spicer
drinking Purity organic coconut water (not from
concentrate) in my SRO transitional home on one
of the seediest blocks in the city. A block I have
come to love. I have been here a month shy of a
year and soon I will be somewhere else. As I
move ever so slowly back up the human ladder.
Despite some pretty amazing sightseeing along
the way. Friends falling along the wayside until
none exist anymore in the city in which you chose
to survive. Your family. A cat you half-owned be-
ing taken from you, along with several iPhones and
your laptop, sleeping less than two blocks from
where you lived for 13 years, but only that night
on the sidewalk, improperly putting the bag with
the cat, the laptop, and everything else you prized
as most important to have at your side after 50
years of living between yourself (myself) and
the cold wind rather than between you and the
building next to which you slept. Next to which
I slept; on the third night I was officially homeless.
Being asked to pay for a milkshake at the Grubstake
before even receiving it, after having been to the
Grubstake dozens of times before and never once
being asked to pay before being served my meal,
never once being asked to leave. Losing a job
to get an apartment after living in a shelter for
two years (well, 6 months of that on the streets,
while working for the City and County govern-
ment, no less!), because your appointments to
finally get your own place to live happen to
coincide with your first day of work, which takes
two hours instead of 30 minutes. And this before
being told you have to come back the next day
for another two hours. Then being told you could
not move into the unit because of your eviction.
After living in a shelter where the only incentive,
the only carrot in front of your nose constantly
was that if you stayed there a year or so solid,
you would get a place to live that was your own.
But here I am, sitting in my lovely little SRO on
the seediest street in San Francisco, as I love to
exaggerate. Writing this poem to you, a bit per-
turbed about someone I knew before I was kicked
out and assaulted by my apartment manager be-
cause I needed to go to the emergency room (panic
attack). He tried to choke me in the U-haul truck
that was only full of 1/3 of the items from my
apartment, over 1/2 of which were not mine
but the asshole’s who left with no explanation,
who had cosigned for the apartment with you
some 13 years earlier, who promised just a month
or two before that I would never have to worry about
leaving our apartment, as long as he was around (why
should I take that as foreshadowing?). He also took the
telephone bill to pay, since it was half his anyway. Or
at least until he disappeared some 5 years ago (without
one word to me since! I had interviews lined up all week
and my phone went dead at the beginning of
that week and come to find out, he had stopped
paying the bills months previous. I like the
week I have had of reflecting on these things,
also having many interviews lined up the next
couple of weeks, looking at everything with a
much different perspective and hopefully just
the right amount of focus. How different
the thoughts are now, how clear and mid-
coherent they are compared with the
past several years. The ability to make
humor out of it. Then one small thing
can set me off again. Someone else
disappearing into the sunset, perhaps
never to be heard from again. Wanting
to be dead to me. And presumably vice
versa. After years of work in a different
direction. This becomes familiar. The
answers elude me. How to unclog that
pipe? How to successfully cover every
leak that spouts? Impossible. One only
does what one does. Which sometimes
is what one can. All that one can. All
I can do seems to be growing exponen-
tially as I write this. That is new. That
is joy. That is an extenuation of life, a
real life, or the expectation that it will
occur, will be extended, life as maybe
I had never known it before, but not
sheer poverty, not homelessness, I
still have time to go someplace for
a vacation. There are trips to wine
country I can make, getting out
of the city for the first time in
around 4 and and a half years.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Many things are nice now.
But how would I have be-
lieved what a lifetime this
last five years has been?
How is one to ever real-
ize that the 11 years you
woke up with the one person
who you ever knew you want-
ed to every day just wanted
out for most of the time he
was waking up right next to
you? To me? And who’d
not even have the guts
to say a word before simply
disappearing? Life is odd.
I have said I can do this be-
fore. I seem to be ... doing
it. But there is so much more
to do. Especially now that
I’ve seen what I have seen.
Where does one go from that, really?
Up, up, and up. Until you are high
enough to have a voice. Hey, my
voice is back, it will say, and it
has something to tell you.
Yes, it will. Most likely.
Stay tuned, if you will.
The suspense nearly
killed me. Not anymore,
two words that instinctually
I almost bow my head
and say as if it were a prayer.
