Sin Malicia

Sin Malicia by Katie Romley

This morning I saw a man who looked hungry. Right before I reached the drive-thru at McDonald’s on “F Street” in Bakersfield, I noticed him. As I waited to pull forward in my car, the questions that always come to me whenever I see someone homeless began flooding my brain

• How long has it been since you’ve had a bed?
• Are you sad or did you leave someplace where you felt sadder?
• Can I help you?
• If you don’t ask me for money, will I offend you by offering?

I circled back to where I first saw the man. Young, black, possibly newly homeless. His gaze was one of sadness, but not hopelessness. I drove up close to him, hoping I wouldn’t scare him. He looked up. I asked if he needed money. He said quickly, “Yes”. I realized I already had the five-dollar bill in my hand. I was nervously turning it over. He saw it. His eyes became wider and his eyebrows rose. He walked toward me and I said, “If you’re hungry, they’re still serving breakfast inside”. He said, “Thanks. Wow. Thank you”. After wishing one another a good day, he collected his bag, and what looked to be a rolled sleeping bag with a green and blue pattern on it, and headed into the restaurant. I felt an emptiness. Sad because he seemed genuinely happy, grateful, to receive this small thing. Guilt because I didn’t engage with him further. Didn’t ask him where he is going. What else he needs.

My whole life, giving has been my default button. It has been a rather black and white issue for me, and I’m not sure why. For my fourth birthday, I cried watching a televised special of Biafran babies, arms skinny but bellies extended. I wouldn’t stop crying until my mom agreed to send some of my birthday dollars to the babies. Today the same core truth remains. Where some might find fault with the homeless or their plight, I’m unlikely to look to blame – even so much so that I may put myself in harm’s way without a second thought. I share this not so someone would pat me on the back, but rather understand my thought process. It is something I feel in my core, similar to how I feel if I see a child or an animal mistreated. To face another human’s immediate pain makes me ache.

The feelings that I imagine a person who is homeless has, whether it be temporary or years-long, seem to attach to me each time I see someone in need. And mostly, they are ones I’m conjuring in my brain, because everyone’s situation is different and each person feels differently about his or her address. I know there are people who blame the homeless, or feel no responsibility, presumably because it feels so “other”. I can be guilty of over-identifying. I imagine how someone is feeling when I make eye contact, and I take it with me when I leave.

Someone reading this might think I’ve never had a bad experience when talking to a homeless person. That is false. I was once chased home by a homeless man who barked as a dog and nearly caught me until I made it safety into my Washington, DC home. I was panicked, heart racing and out of breath. I sweat through my clothes. I remember calling a friend to come over and stay with me once I realized I’d made it safely inside the door. Another woman yelled at me for not giving her more money when I left Sunday mass and handed her the $10 I was planning on putting into the collection basket. Collection-in-action, I had decided, and while it was not pleasing to her, this didn’t stop me from giving to people who asked or seemed in need. I later learned after many mental health facilities were closed in Washington, DC, a number of innocent people became homeless, with nowhere to go, no skills, no address. These folks had diagnosable mental disorders which impacted functioning and the ability to maintain jobs. It confirmed what I already felt to be true – these folks did not need my judgment – they were entitled to grace.

I do have to be careful though. Careful of over helping and over caring. It could possibly freak someone out. They could feel, for example, that I’m trying to make them into a project, obtaining community service hours, taking pity. When truly my heart hurts less in a pity way and more in an “I’d want someone to do the same for me or my loved ones” – way. To me, homeless feels less other and more us. Any one of us. I know that it could be.

I have extended family who live here, who would take me in. My parents, brother, aunt and uncle. A warm bed in any number of places has always been in sight. But say I didn’t have this. One late paycheck, one serious illness, or one lemon of a car, and I could be couch –surfing or curb-surfing. Without moving towns or neighborhoods, I could switch from a zip code of plenty to a zip code of despair.

“Sin Malicia” literally translates to without malice. And it encapsulates what I wish to feel about anyone who crosses my path. Homeless or homed. I don’t know the things that have been on their path before, and all of that has informed and shaped who they are, just like my path has shaped me. Since I cannot judge, I’m operating from a perspective of now. Immediate. What can I do in this moment to alleviate some suffering? Maybe that comes from my first job as a lifeguard.

My favorite work site was Jefferson Pool in East Bakersfield. The hot dry summers were punctuated with moments of teaching young kids to read on their mandatory 15-minutes breaks from swimming. Many of the neighborhood kids stayed with us lifeguards all day.

A skill one learns as a lifeguard is to scan the water. A guard is never supposed to keep his or her head stationary, lest they miss a body that is beginning to drop. Most drownings are quiet. They lack commotion and excitement. The person appears to be keeping their head above water just fine, and they slowly begin dropping, yet they don’t have the skills to push up through the covering of water for that next breath. Each day of 100 degrees plus I sat in that high back, white fiberglass chair. I climbed up the silver ladder, hot to the touch. I perched from my post, and moved my head from side to side, my eyes roving the lanes of the 25-yard lap pool, full of children. I did what I was taught to do and it became a habit, routine. Each shift I’d begin scanning the water, my eyes would attach to the swimmers, counting them to make sure I hadn’t lost track of anyone.

The neighborhood kids would watch as we’d practice our resuscitation skills weekly, staying in top respond-worthy condition in case the need arose. One day it did. A homeless man was outside of the park, passed out after one too many. Three of the young kids came running in,

“Miss! Miss! He fell over”.

My manager instructed us to grab the oxygen tank and run. The four of us surrounded him, checking for vital signs. When our boss assured us he had a pulse, he encouraged us to take out the oxygen mask. As this 22-year old young manager knelt beside us teenaged-guards, he held the forehead of a stranger in a park, next to the paper bag he’d been carrying, he said,

 

“Now let’s help him out, and give him some nice cool oxygen”.

 

The only person who ever received an actual rescue that year never drowned in a pool. And it probably didn’t look as if he were slowly slipping through the water. If he were swimming, he probably would have appeared to be having fun, splashing as his friends laughed alongside him. This man might have been the only rescue, but he was likely not the only one who needed one. I wish that what this man experienced that day was not luck. I wish it was common to pick up the fallen, any of us who fall. Maybe that’s why I’ve still got my oxygen tank beside me, and I’m still ready to run.

 

(c) Katie Romley 2016