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The police only came when someone was dying...or dead.
Mom.
I found my feet moving toward the cops even though I wanted to run away. My heart raced, my vision blurred as tears flashed, then disappeared.
Mom.
I knew several of the local cops because I had been volunteering for the last two years with First Contact, a nonprofit that connected the homeless with available resources. I didn’t recognize the first officer that got out, then I saw Officer Juan Perez. He frowned when I approached.
“Violet, you should wait here.”
He wasn’t surprised to see me. He knew that I walked by the park five days a week on my way to work. He understood why.
I shook my head. “I can help.”
I was grateful he didn’t try to dissuade me. I followed him through the broken metal gate. Juan said to his fellow officer, “Steve, this is Violet Halliday. She works with First Contact.”
Steve’s badge read S Colangelo. All LAPD officers had training with the homeless population. There were social workers who could be called upon to assist, but they were few and far between and their response time was pathetic. First Contact was made up of mostly volunteers, like me, and often arrived to a situation before the paid social workers—if they showed up at all.
The wary eyes of the homeless watched as we walked toward the far corner of the park. The cops wore sturdy boots; I had sneakers so was more cautious where I stepped.
A row of five tents were lined against the brick wall of a shelter that housed one hundred people a night. It was just as dangerous for the men and women inside the shelter as it was outside because the shelter didn’t ban drugs or alcohol, had minimal security and handed out pretty little bags with clean needles and straws under the so-called “harm reduction” model. As if dying of a drug overdose was better than dying of hepatitis.
I glanced left and spotted the blue tent with a tear on the roof sealed with zebra-patterned duct tape. Flaps closed. It was the last place I’d seen my mother ten days ago when she once again told me to go to hell.
Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
My mom was slowly killing herself, so I knew that one day I would pass by this park and she would be dead. But it wasn’t today.
Steve spoke to a couple, a man and woman named Fletch and Gina. First Contact had been working with them since they turned up here two months ago. They hadn’t shared their last names, but every time we came out, they seemed to be more receptive and friendly.
The first step to getting off the street was to obtain ID. Finding family who might pitch in or help navigate the tremendous bureaucracy of the drug or mental health programs was always beneficial. But nothing happened without official identification.
Gina sat on a foam cushion outside a faded canvas tent, Fletch with his head in her lap, eyes closed. Passed out or sleeping or ignoring the commotion. Gina paid no attention to the cops, but turned to me with sad blue eyes and said, “Bobby.”
I knew Bobby’s story. I’d talked to him several times because I thought he was someone I could help.
My mom made it clear that she didn’t want my help, that she resented me even trying to help her, but others were more receptive. Cautious—because they had been lied to and let down in the past—but with enough time and patience, I could reach them.
Bobby was twenty-nine, like me. He got hooked on heroin when he was seventeen. In and out of rehab. Got a job here and there, but couldn’t hold anything down longer than a couple months because he would go “chasing the dragon” and not show up for days. Lived with his mom, who told him no drugs but didn’t enforce the rule. Because she loved him, worried about him, feared for him—all of the above. Then one night when she was working late, Bobby got wasted. He was speedballing, combined meth with heroin and was so wired that he smoked pot to calm himself down, didn’t realize the pot was laced with fentanyl and “went bonkers.” His words. Trashed the house, then crashed. When his mom came home, she had him arrested. He went to jail for three days, court-ordered rehab for thirty. But under California law, any facility that took public money couldn’t be dry. So he popped whatever pills were around and, when the thirty days were up, went back home high as a kite and his mother refused to let him in.
She was crying, but she didn’t budge. I felt like shit, but what can I do? I tried the rehab thing, it didn’t take.
Of course it didn’t take, I thought. Counseling only went so far: Don’t do drugs, they’re bad for you. Here, have a clean needle so you’re safe.
Bobby had been on the streets for three years. The last six months he’d been here, in this tent, never wandering far. He’d deteriorated rapidly over the last few months, as if he’d given up on living before he died.
Both Juan and Steve wore gloves. Steve pulled the latex over his watch—an expensive-looking watch with a yellow face. Gina eyed it with narrowed eyes. I knew she had a shoplifting problem, but I didn’t think she’d rip off a cop.
Juan opened the flap. He didn’t touch the body; the smell announced death. Bobby had died sometime in the last twenty-four hours, probably last night. Steve called it in. They would wait here until the coroner arrived.
The stiff body, the glassy eyes, the stacks of burned foil he used to smoke fentanyl. I had seen death coming. Hope had drained from Bobby’s eyes with each passing week until there was nothing left.
“His name is Bobby Thomas,” I told Juan. “I don’t remember his mom’s name, but Will knows. I’ll call him.”
Will Lattimer ran First Contact. He’d been my lifeline after I learned my mom was living on the streets. My sounding board. My venting partner. My punching bag.
I glanced again toward the closed blue tent with the zebra duct tape. There was movement inside. The flaps opened and a man came out. His pants were around his knees but he didn’t care, made no move to pull them up. He went over to the porta-potty, tried all the doors until he was able to wrench open the last one.
