Behind Dumpsters

You were born in Bakersfield, California not long after the end of the second World War, when peace was meant to be suddenly available to all. You never heard that story because your father kept most of the control of the tv, and wasn't a big current events buff, to start with. His pastimes included being chronically drunk, beating your mother, and once in a while raping your younger sister. He beat you too when he was feeling more bold.

You listened to music a lot: country, folk, and some bluegrass, and kept friendships only with those you'd never meet.

For some inexplicable reason you chose to endure this and call it life, and smile when other people told you about their lives, and wonder, and be confused, and forget, and accept. And then one day, the sound of your mother screaming was too much to take, and the soft blankness that had taken over your sister's once beaming young face drove into you an argument that was so clear it became an action before it was called up for review. And though you never actually fired your father's gun at him, you did stir in him a fear that you would, and those who were meant to protect and serve you, once again failed.

Jail proved to be a tougher-than-expected experience, and you rarely spoke about it to anyone. As a more mature young man you still cherished the gifts of support music had offered you and like a baton needing to be passed you learned how to play the guitar so that you could comfort your selves in the warmth of others and excuse yourself from stopping the flow of what had come your way.

Music helped you find joy, and then calm, and then eventually love in the arms of a woman. You had food, and pleasure and protection, and most of all hope. You lived together for the years that you would later reflect on as the best of your life.

Today you live behind two dumpsters in the alley between an apartment building and the back of a strip mall. Once in a while someone pours a bottle of bleach all over your spot to make it tougher for you to live there. Your eyes burn. You're not sure if it's the bleach.

You feel dirty most of the time. You are dirty. Water is hard to come by, and your own waste follows you around unless you can think of what to do with it. You are ashamed to urinate on the street, or anywhere in public for that matter, but most establishments with public restrooms don't even let you in their parking lots, let alone their facilities. You cringe when you think about your bowels.

You're dirty and you wish you could get clean. And as you consider this, you are embarrassed by the choking odor of your own sweat and the layers of grime you've absorbed from the street on which you spend most of your time. And you wonder why people sneer at you, as though you've chosen this condition. Sometimes you want to shout, "I'll get clean if you can give me some water, or at least give me somewhere to put my dirt!" But you don't shout. You sit quietly, eyes low, avoiding a connection with everyone, especially yourself.

You try to remember the moment when people began to look down at you. You can't. You try to forget the moment that you agreed with them. You can't. You plan to stand up, get a job, and go back to a life of stability and peace that you once imagined. You can't.

You have grown children, but they come looking for you only when they fear you might be at your worst, and even then their alms prove contrived and short-lived. Love is not a word you use in common parlance, though a part of you hangs motionless, too frozen to adjust. You're 50. You're sick. Your skin is rough and weather beaten. You get beaten up for no reason. Stabbed even. Sometimes people give you blankets or money. Both are gone before it's over, stolen or spent, you aren't sure what you're paying for.

And then one day, you see a young man in a business suit walking by your spot to get to his garage. And he looks at you as though you could teach him something. And you do, and he learns. And when for the first time in so long, someone asks you what you have to say. This is what comes to your mind:

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