June 7, 2012
One week from today, Ted and I will take a plane to Atlanta for Grace and
Ryan’s wedding. I won’t be returning to New York until July 8,
after Ted and I too are married.
Beneath the trees in Tompkins Square
Park
This morning I woke to the loud clear voice of a police
officer speaking firmly but gently to a woman on the sidewalk beneath my
window, which is three floors above the front door.
“Is that Katie?” I wondered.
There are not many other young women with that distinctive mop of matted
gray hair that seems loosely set on the scalp.
I heard the officer describing her condition, “lacerations,” I heard,
and before long, an ambulance arrived.
By the time I was downstairs, ready to assume my “on house”
duties, the woman was packed away in the ambulance while officers continued to
linger outside, increasing in rank and numbers.
Then the news cameras came. All
the while, poor Dee (a long-time resident who
struggles with hoarding and emotional outbursts and has had 911 called for her
before against her will) clung to the door, watching every move, asking me if I
was going to do anything about them taking pictures of the house.
I went about my work in the kitchen – occasionally peeking
out the window, getting updates from Dee and Eugene – trying to pull out and
utilize as much of the abundance of donated food I had strategically packed
into the refrigerator the previous night, and prepare it for today’s open
lunch.
When the ambulance left, I put a crate of cellophane wrapped
sandwich triangles (a gift of leftovers from a middle school after their last
day of school) on a folding chair on the stoop with a sign that read, “Good
morning! Please help yourself to a sandwich!”
and while doing so noticed a police car still present, hours after the
initial incident. We all speculated as
to why this incident was being drawn out through the morning – were the Hell’s
Angels, whose clubhouse is only a few buildings down, involved? Is there an investigation underway? A search
for the assailant?
As soon as I’d ducked back into the house a tall, broad
young man approached the door. He spoke
in broken English with a thick eastern European (?) accent, asking if he might volunteer
for us. Trying to make sense of what
exactly he was offering and explain in brief our houses function, I was
interrupted by another woman, with a large dog on a leash and a sweaty red face
who quickly approached the door, “I need a plastic bag or paper or something –
my dog pooped!” Excusing myself and
returning with the requested bag, I suggested to “Oz” that if he is interested
in learning more about volunteering at a house with more of a soup line perhaps
he ought to go a few blocks over and give St. Joe’s a try.
A few minutes later, when I’d resumed preparing a salad and
re-inventing last night’s dinner into a new soup, someone called out from the
dining room, “Amy, someone’s at the door!”
By the time I’d wiped my hand and walked into the dining room (just
adjacent to the kitchen) someone was pointing, wide-eyed to the hallway that
led from the foyer. From there a man in
a suit entered the dining room, introducing himself as detective so-and-so and
proceeding as polite as can be with his questions. I responded to the best of my knowledge:
“Yes, I know her [it was Katie!] – no, she’s not a resident
– she comes for lunch – yes, it’s quite likely she was planning to shower here
today…”
“And what is your title, miss?”
“Um…resident?”
Back to making lunch, soon with Jane perched on her stool,
asking questions and making comments, “Sounds like a vintage Catholic Worker
day!” she said, and I somehow felt gratified.
Angie, a frequent visitor who always comes with a compendium
of garbled requests, began banging on the door.
Initially turning her away until lunch at noon I conceded to finding her
a sweater and t-shirt when she began unbuttoning her jacket and revealing her
stark naked bosom beneath. She came back on hour later for lunch smelling
heavily of excrement, which she was covered in from her waist to her toes.
Elizabeth, our new summer volunteer, had kindly stationed
herself at the sink and was steadily washing dishes and filling in my gaps in
serving as I ushered Angie into the bathroom with a change of clothes, wash rag
and soap and responded to the other women’s requests for clothes, toiletries
and attention.
As the lunch hours were winding down, women kept trickling
in. I temporarily left the kitchen in
Ellen’s capable hands so that I could clean the bathroom after Angie had left
the floor and toilet lid smeared with feces, keeping all others who wanted to
use the sink or toilet at bay. A
community member began offering suggestions about how to manage the clothing room
(which has somehow, unofficially, come under my jurisdiction) while I scurried
back and forth from the broken-wheeled mop bucket, down the few stairs to the
bathroom. “What do you think?” she
asked. “I think I can’t respond to that
right now,” I said, as politely as possible.
Someone handed me the phone and I tried to explain to the
woman on the other end that no, we do not have 501C3 status, or any other
non-profit identification with the IRS but yes, we run on donations and are so
non-profit that, in fact, none of us get paid money for working here. Cathy returned with a report on the recovery
of a 74 year old resident (who has lived her for several years and speaks only
Mandarin, which no one else in the house understands) who had fallen on the stairs
recently and needed hip surgery. Martha
returned from Vermont
with a friend of the community who would be staying a few days. Bev, another frequent and usually intoxicated
visitor, returned after lunch and invited herself to more sandwiches because
the ones outside were “too hot.”
A quarter after two I hung up my apron, packed a backpack
with books and pens and headed outside where I could listen to the wind in the
trees and be around people I could comfortably ignore and be ignored by.
The sky is darkening, wind picking up, setting the trees
into a mournful sway; the dampness of the earth is seeping through my clothes,
all this suggesting to me that perhaps it’s time to return. After all, the clothing room is in dire need
of organizing and there are heaps of overripe bananas yet to be mashed and
frozen.
