Today is New Year’s Day 2018. It’s 10:30 am and I’m sitting drinking coffee. And no, I don’t plan to get out of these pajamas any time soon. They are my warm and cozy home for the rest of the day, after quite a wild night out.
No, I’m not suffering from a hangover, but from the aftereffects of trying to help people. I’m taking mental inventory of last night’s events. While the rest of the world celebrated, I watched broken lives evaporating like champagne bubbles on the streets of St Louis last night.
Every Thanksgiving, arguably the most boring of holidays, parents teach their kids a lesson on thankfulness. Everyone piles in the minivan and heads downtown to the local homeless shelter. For an hour or two, the family ladles out gravy on turkey for a few scruffy residents.
This happens only once a year. No one ever considers who helps them the other 364 days. But the trip downtown wasn’t really to help them anyway. It was a lesson for the kids in how to feel good about doing the least amount possible. It was self-aggrandizement and empty symbolic gestures. They may need their arms in a sling from patting themselves on the back so vigorously.
But last night, I saw what people do who actually want to help. They leave their New Year’s parties and plans and head downtown in below zero temps.
Let’s rewind to yesterday when an alert went out over a homeless rescue page on Facebook. They were calling the group to action, based on reports that temperatures will go below zero, threatening the lives of St Louis’ substantial homeless population.
We meet around 6:30PM New Year’s Eve at a local coffee shop. We split up in groups of two and head downtown to try and convince the homeless to let us transport them to the shelters. We’re driving our own cars, loaded with blankets and food.
“Sometimes when we’re out, we may see a transaction (drugs) so be careful. If you see anything like a health issue or seizure, call 911 and then call me. We’re sending you new people out with experienced people…but listen to your gut….”
I’m being sent off with Becca (not her real name). Becca looks about 60 and says she’s former nun. She used to work with the homeless and knows all their hiding places around town. St Louis has the highest murder rate in the country now, so I’m glad to be going with a veteran of the streets.
Becca sits shotgun giving directions while I drive. First, we go over the Eads Bridge to East St Louis. After the bridge, we head north and she directs me down a deserted street. From a distance, I see a fire burning with tents set up a few feet away from it.
We stop the car, and Becca warns me to turn off the engine and take the keys. “You never know,” she says as she walks toward the encampment.
She calls out ahead of herself as she walks toward his massive dome-like orange tent.
Bill finally steps out to greet us. He’s maybe late 50s, early 60s and dressed like a mountain hiker with wool hat. I’ve already noticed both he and Becca have the wool hats down over their ears. My ears are already starting to sting after only one minute out of the car.
Becca offers Bill a ride to a shelter. “Naw, I’m good,” Bill says. “It’s warm in the tent. Got blankets and a good sleeping bag, provisions. Appreciate you asking, though.”
We’re just 3 minutes standing outside now. I feel myself starting to shake from the cold in spite of my heavy jacket, sweater, and gloves.
We’re now back across the bridge into St Louis, and I’m driving through the downtown streets. Every now and then, Becca will call out, “Slower here” as she looks for some of her homeless folks favorite sleeping spots. We get out of the car several times to check blankets that have been left on the sidewalk.
“I guess someone already got to them. That’s a relief”
I follow Becca’s directions to a white building, where I notice a pile of blankets under the building’s fluorescent light. We approach Johnny, an older white man, laying on the concrete under that mountain of blankets.
Johnny’s white beard is stuck together with ice. He sounds a bit drunk from his speech. He’s friendly, but cautious and not completely rational. He says we’re the third group to try to get him to go inside tonight.
“It’s going to be below zero tonight, Johnny. We’ll take you straight to a shelter. They’ve got hot food there. Nobody’s going to bother you.”
He answers, “Thanks so much, but I’ll be just fine here…”, then he starts pointing out his provisions and mumbling incoherently. As he moves his blanket to show us his food, a large kitchen knife protrudes and sparkles in the storefront light.
Back in the car now, Becca asks if I turned on the seat warmers.
“Well, it’s either that or you’re having a mild stroke,” I quip. Like most of the population, Becca doesn’t get my humor.
Back behind a local theater, we find two African-American gentlemen. They immediately agree to go with us. We load into my SUV and head down Grand Boulevard to a church where a temporary shelter is set up. One man thanks us repeatedly along the trip. The other is younger, maybe just in his late 20s, and stares out the window silently.
We drive back to the downtown section and canvass the streets. We locate a lady called “Annette” that Becca knows under a mountain of blankets, in the doorway of a bank. A pastor from a nearby shelter also shows up to help. I introduce myself and talk “shop” with him a few seconds.
“So, you’re a pastor?” Becca asks.
“Yep. Usually try not to mention it until I need to. Tends to make people stiffen up…”
We pick up a fairly young couple at a convenience store further west up Kingshighway. The woman is obviously high on something, but present enough to know she’s freezing. They jump in the backseat of my car and we head toward a church where they’ve set up a shelter in their gymnasium.
As we arrive, an older black man is being escorted out by a volunteer guard. He’s drunk and started a fight so they’re making him leave. Becca knows the old man, of course.
“He’s so drunk, he’ll freeze to death out here.”
We go inside for a while and look around. Cot after cot fill the gym, with a old 24 inch tv set up in front of everyone. Some try to watch it, but most try to sleep with covers pulled over them. Volunteers hustle around through the room, caring for different ones.
As we head outside again, Becca looks for the old man who started the fight. She negotiated with the volunteers for the man to come back inside if he behaves. But when we get back to my car, the man is gone.
Becca begins a controlled panic.
“We’ve got to find him. No way he’s walking well enough to get far.”
We whip around street corners looking for the old man. Nothing.
“Go up Martin Luther King this way. Maybe he went toward a liquor store.”
I slow a bit as she take the right side and I the left, peering down alleys and behind dumpsters. Still nothing.
Becca frantically but persistently works her phone. She tries to call the shelter to see if they’ve seen him, but she can’t get through.
As I listen to her talk on her phone, I wonder about Becca. I’m interested how she cares so much for people who care so little for themselves. How much of her past life as a nun still matters to her? Did she have a bad experience that caused her to leave the faith, or is that faith still intact? And how much does her faith play into her passion to help these people?
Then I start to worry this guy we’re looking for is going to die tonight. We’re not going to find him, he’s vanished.
“What? He’s there? You’ve got to be f’ing kidding me?” The former nun drops the F bomb on the phone with the lady at Calvary Baptist and then catches herself.
“Oh, I’m so sorry Helen. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. Just so happy you guys have him inside. Thanks for letting him come back!”
She hangs up and we chuckle and celebrate together. She drops a few more choice words, unable to contain her excitement that the old man had somehow wandered back into the shelter.
For a second, I wonder why she apologized to the lady at the church shelter for her language and not to me. Then part of me was glad she didn’t feel the need to.
We whip down a few more streets. We find a homeless vet in a building with a back wall exposed to the elements. We negotiate him out, but his other buddies stay inside.
“I can’t feel my knees anymore. Figure that’s a good sign it’s time to go indoors…”
We talk to a couple in a tent on top of a vacant lot. There are no trees or anything to stop the wind. As we plead with them, the wind picks up so much my face is numb. These won’t come with us either. We check a couple of abandoned cars down the street from them and decide to call it a night…
Now we’re winding our way back down Grand Boulevard toward the coffee shop.Becca has run out of places to look, and I’m ready to go home. Then, she sees a guy in hiking gear walking along the road. He’s wearing a large backpack and has his head down.
“Pull over, right over here!”
We pop out of the car again. The young man is noticeably shivering, and says he was just evicted and a friend offered to let him stay in his basement. We convince him to let us drive him the rest of the way. His speech is slurred for whatever reason. We drive past our coffee shop to take him to his friend’s house.
After Becca and I talk a bit, she calls back to the guy in my back seat. No response.
We look in the back seat and he’s slumped over. We both start frantically yelling to him, and Becca nudges him. Did a guy just die in my back seat?
Thankfully, he darts back upright. He was so tired he’d just fallen asleep in the seat.
We finally make it back to the coffee shop, where the owner is patiently waiting. We’re the last ones back, but I’m not surprised. I think Becca would have kept looking all night if she knew where any more people were.
As I leave, Becca gives me a big hug and says goodbye. I almost start another lame joke, “The pastor and the former nun walk into a coffee shop…”. But I just let it go this time.
It’s New Year’s Day now and I’m back in my warm home again. Other than a wind-burned face, I’m no worse for wear from last night’s experience.
I don’t know if our efforts last night did any good. Some of the people we missed probably died, and most we helped will be back on the streets again tonight.
But we did something. And after all the good intentions and symbolic gestures, that’s what really matters.
