Martha R. Thomas

Hidden away between bushes in Central Park, I gave myself permission to cry. The California July sun was bright, and no doubt I was visible to more people than I realized. Still, I couldn't stop crying. I must have been a curious sight: a 53-year-old woman with short gray hair, wearing blue jeans, fifty pounds overweight, trying to smoke a cigarette, in spite of the deep sobs racking her body.

I was scared, but eventually a stronger emotion won out. I was free!

I had moved in with a family of good friends five months earlier, shortly after having been forced into early stress disability retirement from the civil service job I had held for nine and a half years as Secretary to the Chief in a small Bay Area police department (Millbrae). The move to oust me began immediately upon my return to work following a three-week-stay in a psychiatric hospital, where I was diagnosed as being bi-polar with personality disorders, sleeping disorders, eating disorders. I was staggering behind the heavy medications used to control the mental and emotional symptoms of this physical illness, and could no longer perform my duties efficiently.

My four children were all adults now, living on their own in New Mexico, so it was just myself I had to worry about. The move seemed the perfect solution. My friends lived in Millbrae, a small city I loved, sixteen miles south of San Francisco. Katie was in poor health, following surgery which left her with a colostomy bag hidden under the tee shirts and slacks she always wore. In addition, she was on oxygen and tired easily. Lee worked long hours installing computer networks for the phone company, and their daughter, Shawna, had a job behind the registration counter of a fancy hotel. Their large two-story, well furnished home was always in total disarray. I had no money to pay rent, so we worked out a deal. I would do the household chores Katie wasn't able to and the gardening chores Lee was too busy to do. In return I would receive room and board.

And it had worked well at first. I lived downstairs; they lived upstairs. The large downstairs den had an adjacent bedroom and full bath. There was a fireplace, a huge color TV, a telephone, and two computers. Sliding glass doors opened out onto the patio and swimming pool. What more could I want?

The unused bedroom and den were filled with stacked boxes and loose junk thrown every where. It took several weeks to get things cleared out, sorted through, put away in the cellar or elsewhere. Underneath the boxes and debris, I discovered lovely, comfortable furniture. All my things were in a rented storage room, including my computer, so Lee cheerfully gave me free access to either of his computer setups.

I worked hard for this good home my friends gave me. Their upstairs area was in just as great a mess as the downstairs. Day after day I worked my way through it, organizing, storing away, sorting through, rearranging, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. I did all the drudgery work and never complained, daily cleaning up, both inside and outside, dog messes from their three dogs and cat hairs from the five cats. At Katie's insistence, I cheerfully (albeit unnecessarily) washed the dishes in sudsy water before putting them into the automatic dishwasher. I made their beds every morning and scrubbed the toilets too. Housework had never been a favorite thing of mine, but I wanted to give as good a deal as I was getting and I worked hard.

You've heard the old saying about never borrow money or do business with a friend . . . well, living with friends doesn't always work either. The friendship deteriorated over the five-month period to the point where Katie was treating me as her personal maid. Instead of suggesting things for me to do, or even asking, she was issuing orders. I was no longer included when mutual friends came to visit. We quarreled over food, so I no longer even ate there. I had stopped hanging out with them in the evening and stayed below in my own area, unless I was doing some task for them upstairs.

Everything had blown up that morning. Katie and I had argued bitterly. I was downstairs packing my things when Lee came home for lunch. He summoned me upstairs and said I would have to leave. I told him I was already packing. End of that story; end of that good, good friendship. Deep regrets, then and now.

My beautiful white Camero, after eleven years of faithful service, had thrown a rod through the engine block a month earlier and was useless to me. A friend responded to my frantic call and helped me load my stuff into her car and then helped me unload it into my rented storage room.

"Come stay with me until you get it together," Linda said. "You need more time to neutralize the stress of losing your job. You're not thinking clearly, your emotions are out of control, you need . . . " I shushed her gently, recognizing what she said was truth. I fully realized I was once again in a downward spiral.

Linda rented one room in a large community house in nearby San Bruno, sharing bathroom and kitchen with others. She went to bed at nine, got up for her job at five. I seldom got to sleep before one or two in the morning, even though I was always up and about by seven. She had one large bed and a man friend who visited frequently. It wouldn't work, I told Linda, although she insisted it would. She became upset when I told her I was going to the streets. Giving her a hug, I told her I loved her and would not risk losing another friendship by moving in.

When I had ended up in the winter streets of Denver, twelve years earlier, it had been a shock of unimaginable proportions. This time I realized that I was just one step away from the streets, given the growing tension between myself and Katie, so I was a little better prepared. When I had stopped eating my evening meal at their house, several months previously, I had begun eating at a soup kitchen in San Mateo. So eating, at least one meal a day, was a problem already resolved. I received my mail at a post office box, so no problem there. With Lee's kind permission, I left my recorder on my private telephone line in the downstairs bedroom, so my kids wouldn't realize I was no longer living there.

I thought I had the sleeping problem pretty well resolved as well. I had checked out lots of places, including underneath the Highway 101 overpass in Millbrae. In bright daylight I had walked down the slope and peered under the bridge. Under the closest end a tarp was spread out, with two bedrolls spread out in an orderly fashion on it, side by side, close together. Several cardboard boxes were neatly stacked on each side of the tarp. Across the way, as far as possible from this neat arrangement, laid a tumbled up sleeping roll, surrounded by crushed and dirty, half-filled, brown grocery bags. I tried to picture myself spreading my sleeping roll under that bridge. Where would I put it? How far away from the others could I get and still not be seen from the bridge above? Most important of all, who were these people? Would they resent someone else moving into their space? Would they hurt me? I felt I was trespassing. I had wandered down into the shade of the overpass. What if one of these people returned and found me standing there? I felt I had walked into their living room, uninvited. Quickly I turned and left that place, knowing I would be too frightened to ever sleep there. Besides, it would have been awkward for the local police officers (with whom I had worked for over nine years) and humiliating for me if they had to roust me from Millbrae as being a homeless "undesirable". No, my sleeping spot had to be outside of Millbrae.

On my daily bus ride to the soup kitchen in San Mateo, the bus passed what I gradually realized was the perfect sleeping hide-out - a bus stop. It had long sturdy brick walls, enclosing two wooden benches. It was located in front of the Peninsula Hospital. A quick walk during the night would take me to the emergency room waiting area, where water fountains and rest rooms were available. Perfect!

Thinking of that safe spot made me feel better on that July afternoon. My crying finally ceased. It was the first time I had cried in the past twelve years, and it would be the last. I blew my nose for a final time, lit another cigarette, and pulled a stenographers note pad and pencil from my pack. I had maintained a daily journal for many years, recording every thought and feeling as though they were precious jewels. I wrote now of eyes aching from crying, of the need to be brave, of how this was just a temporary situation, of shoulders already hurting from carrying the heavy back pack and the bedroll which was necessary for the cool Bay Area evenings.

But most of all, I wrote about freedom. I was free! No more demanding Katie ordering me about. I was free! No more feeling like an unwanted relative. Freedom!

I was first in the long line at the Good Samaritan soup kitchen that afternoon, having waited patiently for over an hour. A young woman, standing to the side, tried to break in front of me as the doors opened. I shoved her roughly aside, jerking my thumb to indicate the end of the line. The meal was simple, but balanced. I refused the limp salad and green vegetable, filling my plate with pasta, which was laced with some kind of mystery meat, and day-old bread smeared with margarine. I stood in line for seconds, keeping a careful eye on my pack propped at the end of one of the long tables.

Following the meal, I sat on the curb outside and smoked a cigarette, talking with several of the other regulars. They all knew, from the sleeping roll on my back, that I had finally slid into the streets, as they had been predicting. Tactfully, it wasn't mentioned. These homeless people were not friends of mine. I did not know where they spent their nights, and it would have been impolite of them to ask where I was going to spend mine.

Flashing my disabled bus pass, I boarded and sat staring moronically at the familiar sights flashing by. I felt a bit lost. Normally I would have returned home at this time, to the lower floor at Lee's house. Instead, I stayed on the bus long after it passed my regular stop in Millbrae. My exuberance at being free disappeared and was replaced with deep depression. Abruptly I pressed the buzzer strip and got off the bus. In front of me was the Tanforan Shopping Mall. Years ago it had been a famous race track. Now it housed, among it's many stores and specialty shops, a six-screen movie theater. One buck, one movie. The sun had yet to go down, but already the cold wind was blowing in from the ocean. I paid my dollar and rode the long escalator down to the lobby of the theaters, buying a large carton of popcorn before taking my seat.

I wasn't broke you see, although I had quickly gone through my savings before moving in with Katie and Lee. I was collecting State Disability Insurance (SDI). A tiny amount for the insurance had been deducted from my paycheck all those years I worked in California. I didn't realized what it was, and when it was finally explained to me, I certainly never thought I would actually use it someday. The $462 a month I received was enough to pay for my storage room and the telephone line and it covered monthly payments on my credit cards, with chump change left over. At this point in my life, I still had integrity, and chose to continue the payments on the credit card debts, even though the accounts had now been closed, rather than rent a sleaze-bag room in the Tenderloin area of downtown San Francisco.

It was dark and cold when I left the shelter of the mall hours later, having snuck into a second movie, needing to wait until dark to seek out my sleeping spot. After a long shivering wait for the bus I made it back up the peninsula. I got off the bus one stop before the one at which I intended to sleep, thinking I was being clever in case someone was paying attention to me and the bed roll I carried. Filled with firm resolve, and even a little excitement, I walked up El Camino Real to my chosen hide-out.

As I rounded a faint curve and saw the bus stop, I sank to my knees in dismay. Long fluorescent lamps in the ceiling ran the entire length of the brick structure. The benches were fully lit, even at this late hour. I would be in full view of every passing motorist, including police vehicles. How could I not have thought of that? Of course the bus shelter would be lighted. I felt totally stupid, and worse, I felt deep fear. Where would I go? What would I do? I walked around to the back of the bus stop, It was dark there, private, a bit scary. Perhaps I could spread my bed roll along the brick wall. As I walked along it, a strong odor of urine wafted past my nose. I kept walking . . .

Then, completely unbidden, from some unknown source of wisdom, a ribbon of words ran through my mind: San Francisco International Airport. It was only a few miles away. It would be populated (meaning safe), warm, with rest rooms and snack shops and water fountains and vending machines. People are always sitting around airport waiting lounges, sleeping. I'd fit right in. Perfect!

Elated, I nearly ran the few blocks to the only bus stop in town where buses stopped on the way to the airport. An hour-long wait in the cold dark convinced me no more buses were running to the airport that night. A walk to a nearby hotel, where I asked for a ride on their next van trip, was met with a polite, but firm no.

Resigned to a long walk, I stashed my bedroll in thick bushes. It was too heavy to carry, and far too obvious to haul around the airport. In the middle of the Highway 101 overpass, the hotel van passed me on its way to the airport. It was totally empty. There had been no guests to transport, only ones to pick up. I felt frustrated and angry at their refusal to give me a ride. (And no, I did not even consider going underneath that bridge to see who might be "home".)

I had just reached the far side of the overpass when a pick-up truck pulled off to the side. Oh, oh, I thought, tightening my grip on the small canister of mace held tightly in my hand. The driver turned on the dome light inside his truck and I recognized him as one of the young people who had been standing behind the counter at the hotel where I had earlier asked for the van ride. He had just gotten off duty at eleven and was on his way home. He dropped me off at the airport, saving me the long, dark, risky walk. His kindness dampened the anger and hurt I felt at the sight of the empty van passing by me.

As soon as I found a water fountain, I took my lithium and amitriptyline medications, in preparation for sleep. I knew from years of working with the police not to go beyond the security gates. When a plane was boarded and the waiting room emptied of people, a lone person dozing in the corner was all too conspicuous. I walked through one of the three large terminals until I found a small waiting lounge which suited me. A dozen people were there, most of them in one state or the other of sleep or near sleep.

Curling up in a comfortable chair, I pulled out my note pad and with fingers stiff from cold, wrote a journal entry. I feel strange, I wrote, but safe. I missed Smoozer, the big white cat which had always slept with me at Lee and Katie's house. The final note in the entry was: This spot is chilly; am going to look for a warmer place to sleep in one of the other terminals.

Was up and out of there early the next morning, feeling sleep-deprived. Retrieved my bed roll from the bushes and put it into my storage room. Spent an hour or so straightening up the mess I had thrown in there so hurriedly the day before. Put a set of clean clothes into my back pack. Spent most of the day taking care of business, normal business, as if I had a home to go to that night, as if I were a normal person. I picked up a pair of shoes which had been reheeled at the repair shop, picked up my mail at the post office, phoned my recorder for messages, made a few phone calls, browsed through a thrift shop looking for a heavy sweater, since mine were buried in the storage room. Laid in the park and read and dozed in the warm sun that afternoon while waiting for the soup kitchen to open.

After the meal, several of us walked to a distant fast food restaurant. We drank cup after cup of decaffeinated tea and coffee (refills were free) while we smoked cigarettes and discussed philosophy, politics, and sociology, in an effort to make ourselves feel less like the scuz-bags we were. Over a few days, we had become friends, bonded in our common plight.

I left in time to catch the last bus of the evening to the airport. As I walked along the front of the brightly lit South Terminal building, I noticed a flurry of excited people around a car parked there. They gradually drifted off as I approached and curious, I glanced inside. One man was sitting in the car, behind the steering wheel. He was talking into a little portable radio, which belonged, obviously, to the airport maintenance man standing there. My depression fled, to be replaced by high excitement. It was Jerry Rice! I'd seen that handsome face too many times on television not to recognize the famous 49er wide receiver. With a courteous nod, Mr. Rice handed the radio back to the airport employee as I approached and the maintenance man grinned as he backed away, thanking Jerry for talking to his friends.

I approached the shiny black Porsche hesitantly, and knelt down near the opened window. I stammered out something obtuse, about having lived in the Bay Area for the past eleven years, of being a Niner fan all those years. Mr. Rice, dressed in a three-piece suit and tie, smiled politely. I told him of my two young nephews who lived near Perth, Australia. I was on a six-week visit there when we had watched with elation as the Niners had trounced the Broncos in the 1990 Super Bowl. (We had watched the game live on Monday morning in Australia.) He said, in a soft voice, that he would be happy to give me autographs for the two boys. I scrambled through my back pack for tablet and pen and spelled out my nephew's names for him, thanking him profusely when he handed the notebook back to me. As I turned to leave, I asked him, "Are we going to win the Super Bowl again this year?"

In that same soft voice, he replied, "Sure. Why not? It was fun last year." I gave him the thumbs up sign in response. Inside, everyone was buzzing about Jerry Rice being outside.

Feeling good, feeling free, no longer depressed, I found a place to settle for the night, a wide window seat at the foot of a window wall overlooking the airfield. The other half-a-dozen or so window spots were already filled, so I felt fortunate to have gotten the last one. The ladies rest room was just a dozen steps away. I filled my cup with hot water and carried it out to my spot, heating it to boiling with the little heater I had bought at the thrift shop that morning, as I thought back to the Denver homeless days so long ago when I had done that same thing. No one seemed to notice or care as I prepared my cup of tea. I sat on the window sill and leaned against the wall, balancing the tea on my updrawn knees, warming my hands around the hot cup.

Digging into my back pack, I pulled out several stale breakfast rolls given to me at the soup kitchen, eating them with enthusiasm. I watched with interest the scurry of movement outside and below me. Large trucks drove slowly by, filled with meals for some flight about to take off. Small tractors pulled long lines of little cars filled to overflowing with luggage. Nearly everyone out there wore ear protection gear. Inside, it was very quiet.

Pulling my notebook out, I filled page after page in my journal. As I had the night before, I wrote on the top line where I was (South Terminal, SFIA), the date and day of week, and the time. The words flowed, my fingers flew. I wrote about my day in exacting detail, ending with pages of how I felt emotionally, physically. I wrote of small victories - no extra tranquilizers (Klonopin) had been required that day. I wrote of major defeats - failure to get my Camero towed from in front of Lee's house. I wrote of trivia - a new cook at the soup kitchen had produced an extraordinarily fine lasagna. I wrote of important matters - a telephone call I had made to my daughter in Albuquerque. She heard the public address system in the background, which I explained away by saying I was picking up some incoming guests for Lee and Katie.

I put my notebook away and was preparing a third cup of tea when I noticed an impeccably groomed woman sitting in one of the comfortable chairs. It struck me that this same woman had been in the airport last night. She had several expensive looking suitcases stacked around her legs; her purse was clutched tightly in her hands. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, hiding part of her face, but I figured she was close to my age. From the way her head would nod and jerk, I knew she sleeping in that stiff, upright position, just as she had been last night when I noticed her. I marveled at her control. An airline ticket envelope was stuck casually through a strap of one of her suitcases, but I realized it did not contain a valid ticket. Like me, this woman was going no where.

The room was reflected on the wall of glass next to me. I could observe the hustle and bustle outside on the field as well as the more leisurely activity in the small waiting lounge inside. With a start I saw two uniformed airport police officers walk by. They did not glance in my direction, but I felt suddenly exposed and moved into one of the chairs. There were five people sitting in the area, all quiet, absorbed in their own thoughts. Two appeared to be sleeping, two were smoking, and one was staring glassy-eyed into nothingness.

I pulled out Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, and read for several hours, using mind control to keep at bay all depressing thoughts of my predicament, of my adult children in New Mexico, of unresolved legal matters. As I drifted off to sleep, lines of a poem I had written eighteen years earlier ran through my mind.

There is a strangeness in my head - an unusualness that frightens. Serious thoughts flit in and out - my soul inside me tightens. Insanity? The word brushes my mind - I have no way of knowing, but only wonder fleetingly - if to others it is showing.

Although I had covered myself with a heavy winter coat that night, I was still cold much of the time. The airport was not heated at night, and, in fact, the air conditioners remained on. It puzzled me then and still does to this day. The next morning, following two nights of sleeping curled up in a chair, my body was aching and racked with pain, as the song goes, but I was up and out of the airport at first light.

That night when I returned, I brought my sleeping bag with me. It was risky, I knew, but I spread it out behind a row of connected seats which backed up to a wall, in a different waiting lounge this time. I could not endure another night of sleeping in a chair.

I was awake ninety minutes after falling asleep, which was my usual sleeping pattern. Taking my pack, I went into the rest room and did a hasty Navy shower. The room was deserted at that hour. I was not always so fortunate, and many times was interrupted in my middle-of-the-night-bathing by women entering. They would look startled, seeing me standing there with my sweat pants around my ankles or my shirt pulled up around my neck. They would quickly avert their eyes and enter a stall.

A pattern developed over the days. Each morning I paid a dollar to stuff my sleeping bag into a locker. It was cheap rent, I figured, and saved me from having to lug it around all day. More importantly, a person seen repeatedly carrying a bedroll screams out the message: "This woman has no home! Beware! She's not to be trusted!" I would go every other day or so to my storage room, leaving off dirty clothes and putting a set of fresh clothes into my back pack. A stop at the post office to pick up mail was next. Then there were dentist and doctor appointments, paid for by Medi-Cal. There were prescriptions to get filled, paid for by the Short-Doyle bill, which covered medications for the homeless. (Thank you guys!) There were libraries to visit and movies to see, laundry to do, and naps in the park.

I spent hours on pay phones, attempting to resolve legal issues over my forced disability retirement, and trying to get my car towed from in front of Lee and Katie's home. Other calls were made in an attempt to maintain friendships with people who were trying to pull away from me, even though I never told them I was homeless. The words manic-depressive frightened them; I frightened them.

Occasionally, if I strayed into the city where I had worked, a police officer cruising by would spot me at a bus stop or walking along El Camino Real. He or she would pull over and we would stand by the patrol car and chat and laugh and gossip. It would be the highlight of my week. I very much missed these people I had worked with for so many years. Together we had attended a dozen retirement roasts. I had been present at that many weddings, baby showers, and divorce celebrations as well. I had rushed to the hospital when they had been stabbed, or run over by a suspect's vehicle, or suffered a heart attack. They were much more than co-workers, they were friends. I never mentioned I was homeless, not wanting to put them on the spot by making them feel obligated to offer me shelter. They were all sympathetic with my termination, hoping I would win my appeal. They didn't like the chief any more than I did, and some of them outright hated him.

There were "Pubic Showers" signs scattered about the airport and I had tracked them to an expensive looking barber shop, which was always closed during the hours I was there. I stayed later than usual one morning to check it out, and was told there was a charge of $7.50 to shower. Forget that! Instead, I decided, I would go once a week to my friend Linda's apartment to shower, since she was one of the few friends who knew I was living in the streets.

I began going to the airport earlier each evening, to get out of the cold and to feel safe. Gradually I realized there was an entire population of homeless people living there. We spotted each other after a time, but never, ever, approached one another. Gathering in a group would have been too noticeable. And besides, I suppose none of us wanted to hear the other's hard luck story.

I was never once bothered by the SFIA police - a force of over 600 men and women - in spite of sleeping stretched out in my bedroll each evening. Although I changed my sleeping spot each night, I felt certain the police must have spotted me. But maybe because I kept myself clean and neat and didn't bother anyone, didn't hang out in the bars, didn't panhandle, they left me alone. Or perhaps they gave me a break because of my gray hair.

I never saw any of the other regulars bothered either, but we all made an effort to look like passengers, to not look like what we were - homeless. Those homeless people who showed up drunk and dirty, or those who panhandled, or returned luggage carts to the rack to collect the deposit, were quickly spotted and ejected by the police.

One night I found laying on the carpet of the waiting lounge, what I considered to be an amulet. It was a tiny padlock, fallen off someone's luggage. I rubbed it between my fingers, admiring the dark, burnished gold color. As I snapped it onto my key ring, I felt it was a sign of good luck about to happen.

An hour later, settled down for the night, I heard the persistent beep-beep of a near-by ATM machine. Thinking surely the person would return for their forgotten ATM card, I ignored it at first. Then, worried someone might steal it, I went to the machine and removed the card and slip of paper. The name on the plastic card was foreign, unpronounceable. I went to a white courtesy phone and spelled the name out to the operator, who made a public announcement for the person to meet me at my location. As I waited, I studied the slip of paper, noticing - with shock - the balance in the account was well over $37,000, and that $1,000 had just been withdrawn. I couldn't imagine having that much money. It occurred to me that perhaps the person would give me a reward - $20, maybe even $50! Perhaps this was the good luck I had superstitiously hoped for when I found the amulet. While no one could withdraw money from the account, not having the access code, it would certainly be a troublesome inconvenience for the person traveling to have to obtain a new card.

When a middle-aged, dark-skinned man approached the ATM and looked around expectantly, I knew he had to be the owner of the card. A dark blue turban was wound neatly around his head, in strange contrast to the expensive business suit he was wearing. I approached him and held out his ATM card and the small slip of paper. He accepted them with a quick smile, a casual "thank you," and then he was gone. Disappointed, I went back to my spot. So much for good-luck amulets . . .

The next night I paid four cigarettes to get a ride from the coffee shop to the airport. Ozema, a thin black woman I knew and liked from the soup kitchen, was headed into San Francisco, driving her beat-up Chevy, so it wasn't out of her way.

"Come with us, Martee," invited the man who was with her. "One of our bros scored some killer pot today. It'll be a cheap high for you." Dully, I shook my head in refusal.

"Hey, Baby, it'll be cool," said Ozema, "no one'll mess with you if you're with us."

"We've got a safe squat," the man said, adding that it wouldn't be too crowded. That meant an abandoned building, which would be filled with other homeless people, some drunk, some on drugs, some insane. It would not be safe, to my way of thinking.

"No, thanks," I replied, easily resisting their urging. I had gotten off pot two years earlier, during my stay in the psychiatric hospital; I wasn't about to start that form of self-medicating again. Besides, the danger and uncertainty of flopping in the City-by-the-Bay overnight, along with 8,000 other homeless folks, was not a pleasant prospect. I had heard many horror stories and witnessed a few as well. I entered the terminal and heard the familiar words on the public address system, advising all passengers to stand to the right of the white line, and knew I was home.

As the weeks passed, my mental health suffered, although I continued faithfully with the medications twice a day. One evening, I became convinced a female police officer was following me as I wandered through the terminals, with bed roll tucked under my arm, looking for a safe spot to settle for the night. I panicked. Like an animal, I looked for a place to hide, and found it in a small alcove leading off to a locked maintenance equipment storage room. Two unattended carts were sitting there. Crouching my bulk behind them, I peered through stacks of toilet tissue and spray bottles of cleaning liquid as the police officer passed by. She did not look into the alcove and did not appear to be searching for anyone. She had not been following me after all and my rational self realized that, but the incident had triggered an anxiety attack. I sank back against the wall, trembling, fear shooting through me like an electrical shock. I knew I was overreacting as the hysteria continue to grow, but I was helpless, unable to control the attack. The body trembling worsened as the terror grew. I was trapped, unable to move from that spot. Then, for the first time, I welcomed, rather than dreaded, the familiar hot stirrings in my abdomen which indicated an imminent spastic colon attack. That forced me to move - and quickly - to the nearest rest room.

Several weeks later, forced to walk from the movie theaters in South San Francisco to the airport in Millbrae, because it was late on a Sunday night and no busses were running, I cut through the City of San Bruno, searching for a short cut. I was well accustomed, by now, to long walks with the heavy pack, but still, it was late and I was tired and regretted my decision of going to see a movie (The Gods Are Crazy - II) rather than going early to the airport.

I passed by a Chinese bakery, where two San Bruno police officers were busy rinsing raw eggs off the large shop window. They nodded respectfully and greeted me with a questioning look in their eyes. So I paused for a moment and said, "That's very nice of you, to wash that mess off."

"Yeah . . . well, by morning when the owner gets here, it would be hardened, difficult to clean, and he's a nice old guy," one of the officers responded.

"You're out a bit late, aren't you?" asked the other.

"Yeah, later than I'd like to be, but I've a friend coming in at the airport in an hour and have to meet his plane," I lied. "Is there a shorter way to get there than the direction I'm headed?"

"Not really," he replied. "The overpass is just a few blocks down. But once you hit that big employee parking lot on the other side - you know where that is?" Feeling dense, I shook my head no. "Well, it's the first big parking lot you'll come to, off to the right. There's little bus stop shelters scattered here and there. You can catch a free shuttle to the terminal."

"That'll shortened your walk by several miles," the other one added.

"Great!" I answered, "Thanks a lot, Officers." They bid me a pleasant good-night as I walked on. Maybe they were helpful just to get me out of their city, but I appreciated their consideration.

It dawned on me then that that was the first conversation I'd had in several weeks. For the first time, I realized how much I had withdrawn into myself. I had long since stopped going with the others to the coffee shop following supper at the soup kitchen. I sat off by myself at the kitchen, my back to the rest of the room, my body language shouting out that I wanted to be left alone.

I found the lot, the shuttle stop, and got the ride, thankful for the walk it spared me. But it started (again) on the bus, my seeing "something" floating just on the edge of my vision. I would turn my head quickly, but nothing would be there. I'm not fast enough, I thought, and increased my efforts to turn my head more quickly, but still, nothing was there. It seemed important, very important, that I discover what was hovering around me. Noticing other passengers staring at me, I forced myself to stop. But once inside the terminal, the feeling that "something" was there, just to the right of me, following me, watching me, continued. I would spin around quickly, jerking my eyes from side to side, startling anyone who happened to be walking behind me.

I went directly to my locker and dragged out my bed roll, spreading it behind the chairs of the first waiting area I came to. I took off my shoes and slipped inside, forcing the back pack in by my feet, hiding my smelly shoes under the bed roll. I curled up tightly and slid down until my head was covered and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. "I'm not relapsing, I'm not relapsing," I repeated over and over to myself. The broken-record thoughts cascaded in then, tormenting me until the sleeping meds finally pulled me into the darkness and relief of sleep.

I no longer looked out the window walls at night, or people-watched. It wasn't interesting anymore. The novelty had long since worn out, to be replaced by an ever-deepening depression. I had become unconcerned about my appearance, less particular about keeping myself clean. I stopped trying to maintain old friendships, no longer pushed my legal case, picked up my mail at the post office only occasionally. I was careful to avoid my old city where my police officer friends would spot me. I stopped phoning my children, and they never even noticed.

Early one October morning, trudging down the terminal past snack bars and lounges on the way to stuff my bedroll into a storage locker, I caught a quick glance of myself as a glass door swung open to the side of me. It was a horrifying glimpse of what I had become during the three months of being without a home. My hair was disheveled and dirty, as were the jeans and shirt I was wearing. My face looked strained and gray; my eyes were sunken and wild. The bedroll was thrown carelessly over my shoulder, dragging on the floor behind me. The back pack, crusted with dirt along the bottom, hung from the other shoulder. The sight shocked me. I looked exactly like what I was: mentally ill and homeless.

I hurried to the nearest rest room and hid in a stall. For the first time since that July day in the San Mateo park, I cried. Despair overwhelmed me. Like I had written in that poem, many years before I was diagnosed as being mentally ill, serious thoughts flickered in and out of my mind. I was on the downhill side, going deeper. I did not believe I was insane, but I feared that's where I was headed. Above all else, I did not want to end up in the county psych ward. I felt stuck-on-stupid, overpowered by the heavy-duty medications, overwhelmed by life period. Perhaps it was time to remove myself from this planet.

With effort, I collected my thoughts. I figured I wouldn't last much longer at the airport. The SFIA police would eventually decide they had to do something about the old lady who wouldn't stay away. They would take a Polaroid picture of me and hang it in the Security office. I would be escorted to the doors, told not to return. With burning shame, I flashed back to the day I had been denied access to my work area at the police department.

I had an appointment with my psychiatrist that afternoon and forced myself to focus on that as I finally left the airport. Going to a park near his office, I stretched out on the warm grass and waited, fighting the broken-record thoughts which were torturing me. I hadn't eaten that day, but the smells coming from a nearby fast food restaurant did not tempt me, although eventually I got up and wandered over and bought a bottle of water.

Returning to the park, I pulled out my journal and wrote page after page of painful, convoluted, unconnected thoughts.

It took only a few minutes for my psychiatrist to realize I was near the end of the line in every way. "I may have found a possible solution for you, Martee, but I'm not certain yet," he said, in his typically cautious way.

He made several telephone calls. As I sat there, daring to hope, I rapid-cycled from depression to manic. Time passed. He continued with the calls, searching for the right number, the right person, who had the answers he needed. I could barely stay in the chair, feeling a strong need to pace, but pacing wasn't permitted in that office.

When he put the phone down for the final time, he handed me a slip of paper. No, much more than that, he handed me sanctuary. The note read Spring Street Shelter, with a nearby Redwood City address. "It's a homeless shelter for the mentally ill, Martee," he explained to me. "Call that number and they'll arrange an interview time for you. A psychiatrist's referral is required for admittance and I've just given them that. There shouldn't be any problem in your being accepted."

Still stuck-on-stupid, I stared at him, my thoughts whirling, barely able to comprehend. I can't remember what I said to him as he ushered me to the door. I hope I thanked him for his efforts on my behalf, for taking extra time for me that day, forcing his next patient to wait.

I made that call, had that interview, was accepted. I had spent my final night on the floor at the San Francisco International Airport.~~~

Written by:
Martha R. Thomas
Belen, New Mexico
Jan through Mar 1994

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Email author: Martee Thomas