Where the ragged people go

When I left my home And my family I was no more than a boy

In the company of strangers In the quiet of the railway station

Running scared . . . Laying low . . .Seeking out the poorer quarters

Where the ragged people go

Looking for the places Only they would know

Beneath Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct a community of three tents and two supermarket carts

It was after 7:30 p.m. Monday night. I added two more lunches to the two already in the fridge, packed them in the large bag and headed out into the night, cold at first, despite the bundling. The street seemed vacant and I wondered whether I would find anyone. But there's probably always going to be someone. Over time, I will know where to look for them.

Tony

I saw him by the Bank of America cash machine. He was wearing a large coat and seemed to be limping, as he spotted, retrieved, and examined some tan object on the ground by the machine. Was it someone's checkbook? No, it was a glass case, he said, as I introduced myself and asked whether he was hungry. He was.

Tony is from the south and has lived here for twenty years. Most recently he was performing manual labor -- temporary work -- but he's out of work now. He might have tried a shelter for the night, but he met a woman at "The Morrison," and he was heading her way to see if he could find better lodging for the evening. He said he needed bus fare to get back downtown. We stopped into Mad Pizza so I could break a $20 bill (and get him out of the cold for a bit). We sat and he told me the story you've already heard most of. Tony said he weighs 190 pounds and is six feet. Under his coat he had only a T-shirt, so naturally he was cold. Although he looked like he was limping, he was just walking that way to shake off the chill, he explained.

He asked whether I could spare a couple more dollars. I could, and I suggested we walk in the direction of my condo. There are clothes I haven't worn for years, and he's my size, I thought. But by the time we reached Broadway he wanted to take off to his friend's place. He didn't want to miss the possibility of a better place to stay for the night.

And as he left, he thanked me for the meal. Several times.

The messenger.

I don't know his name, but I call him "the messenger," because he sits at the offramp of I-5 at Madison passing out pieces of paper with information on them and hoping for donations. Here's part of his message:

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, does it?

This didn't make any more sense than the last piece of literature he gave me, which appeared to be a table created in a Microsoft word document that was filled with gibberish, and neatly folded and stapled to make it easy to present to drivers who stopped to make a donation. A lady who told me she lives at the YMCA said he believes there's a building nearby with communists...well, it goes on from there.

I first met him some time ago when I climbed the hill from Ivar's and gave him the rest of my fish and chips. The next day,  I was summoning the police to arrest him as I watched him flailing at another "street person," who was on the ground beneath him, apparently over the use of this particular corner.  I had been walking toward the water front when I witnessed the assault,  and that was when I learned how really off kilter he was. Well, actually, it was after I went home and retrieved the "literature" he had given me that I realized he was off kilter.

But on this night he was calm as I approached him, and he gently suggested that I work the other side of the street. I explained I was only there to give him a meal. He was OK with that, and he didn't assault me.

Shane

Shane was in the tent with the orange top  in the photo at the beginning of this post. Since all the tents were buttoned up and it was past 8 p.m. I walked by at first, not sure just how you approach street people in their tent. Then I doubled back, stood a few feet back and said in a reasonable voice, "I have some meals if anyone wants one." A voice came from the middle tent, and Shane opened the "window" to greet me. Surprisingly, I could feel warmth coming from the tent. (I never thought to ask whether he had some sort of heater in there.) Shane explained that he was up from Florida by way of Louisiana and Illinois. He is disabled with a lung ailment that required some surgeries and which made it difficult to live in a hot climate where even sleeping at night was difficult because of the heat. ("Eventually you pass out," he said.)  Seattle's climate is a lot better and he can walk a few more blocks up here than he was able to in the South.

Another reason he came to Seattle was that people had told him it was friendlier here. Still, he never feels safe. You sleep with one eye open, he said.

Shane accepted one sack meal and asked for a second for the folks in the adjacent tent. They look out for each other and probably will move as a group across the street to a sidewalk location, he said. I asked him about his tent. He explained that another person like me wanted his story, too. That individual  took photos for his church. The next day he returned with a tent from Target that replaced Shane's make-shift tarp. On first glance it looked like an expensive tent. But it costs under $40, Shane explained. But the folks next door have the REI tent, he noted.

While he was explaining this, a young man stopped and leaned down to hand me an energy bar and an orange. I think he thought I was part of the community. It's a natural mistake. The poor frequently aren't  much different that the rest of us.

Meals distributed so far: 9.

Ubuntu

Four men, four sack meals on the street

THE INGREDIENTS: What goes into $6 bag lunches

Buying

The food came from Costco; the sakcs and napkins from Safeway. I purchased them, and then did a "menu explosion," estimating what each portion cost based on purchase price, and how that would yield the bottom line for a sack lunch. Here's the breakdown:

MENU EXPLOSION: How I determined the cost for a bag lunch for a homeless person.

This isn't a gourmet lunch, and it's not as healthy a meal as I would like to deliver. But it's quick, and it will be appreciated. Most of the items here were purchased at Costco. The bags and napkins came from Safeway. It would be nice to include a beverage and perhaps a toothbrush and dental floss. I'll work on that.

Making:

Saturday night. The coldest Seattle nights are behind us, for a while. It's 4:30 p.m, and it's dark. I made five lunches, ate one for quality control, and still had enough for two more lunches before I run out of the Cranberry Goat Cheese. It's a filling meal.

Delivery:

This is where it gets interesting. It was dark when I set out and I wondered whether I would find anyone who needed food for the night. Before I had gone 200 yards, however, I heard someone howl in anger. His possessions were scattered on the sidewalk. I cross the street and walked past. I said "hi." No Answer. I asked if he were hungry. He said no. I walked on. He yelled again. Bad prospect.

The guitarist:

Andrew is tall and thin. I could see his table from a block away. It was across the street from QFC on Broadway at Pike, on Capitol Hill.There is an umbrella to protect the keyboard. He was just tuning up when I came by and I did a little dance, which drew a smile. So he was approachable. We talked. He can earn up to $40 a day on spare change by just playing music. He's there all day, every day. He isn't homeless, but he is clearly  under employed. I pulled a sack out of my reusable shopping bag and offered him a meal. And I asked him whether he knew where other people hung out who might not have a roof for the night. He suggested the dumpster near the Comet Tavern around the corner.

The doorway man:

He was bedding down for the night, curled up and he seemed to notice me when I walked by. I stopped to offer him a sack. He appreciated it. It seemed intrusive to start a conversation, so I walked on.

The next doorway man:

Around the corner from the Comet is the Oddfellows Building, which houses the Century Ballroom,  and the Tin Table restaurant, both upstairs, and Molly Moon's ice cream at street level. (Should I offer to buy someone ice cream? Would a street person like ice cream?

A little farther down the street there was a roomy doorway quite inset, and in that doorway a man propped up on blankets and what-not and wrapped up against the cold. His name is Jesse. He had hopes of finding housing in a few days. And until then, yes, he got cold at night. But for $3.50 he could drink coffee all night in the nearby Lost Lake Cafe. All night? You're going to be peeing a lot, I opined. Yes, he said. And he chuckled. The $3.50 for a warm night in the Lost Lake Cafe came from the change people gave him during the day, he said. So, if you were wondering, they don't always drink our spare change.

The backpacker:

Back to Broadway. In less than 30 minutes I was looking for the final person who would want a meal this night. As I circled back toward home, in front of me was a short man kind of curled over and walking with a backpack. I said hi. He said hi. I said he looked like he would like a meal. He said yes. I asked where he was spending the night and he said he was heading toward a shelter whose name I forgot. I wasn't taking notes. I was trying to listen the way we used to listen to each other, without having to write things down to remember. Maybe there was a time like that.

I mentioned that, for $3.50 he could at least drink coffee all night in the Lost Lake Cafe. But he had another way to stay warm at night: For $2.50, he said, he could ride the bus all night.

When I started out on this Odyssey, I thought I would focus on just one meal a day, not four a night. My objective is to budget about $1,000 on food for street people until it's all spent. And to share their stories and their survival tips. (And survival is the word. You don't have to be in the wilderness to be a survivalist.)

I may deliver one more meal before I leave town for a couple weeks. When I'm back, it will be after Christmas, and there will be many more cold nights ahead.

Meals distributed so far: 5

Ubuntu

01: Leighton

His mother was Sioux. When he was four years old, his Irish father died at age 33 from a fall on a Seattle street while intoxicated. By Leighton's account, his father did most of his dying in jail, because the police who brought him in didn't understand the extent of his injuries until inmates yelled that he was bleeding. Leighton's lineage probably had a lot to do with the fact that he is an alcoholic as well. As a young, strong, athletic man, he could overdrink and not show the effects. But he's 69 now. His right hand is arthritic and swollen; he has arthritis in his right leg and walks with a cane. And 11 years ago he might have bled to death.

Seattle was cold last night, and winter is just getting started. A nippy breeze was blowing uphill from the Sound--the kind of breeze that can slip up a sleeve or down your collar and chill your bones. At the intersection of Madison and I-5 a man in well-used clothing presented off-ramp drivers with a sign asking for help. In another half mile, Ivar's will sell you five pieces of fish, sleeping on a bed of hot salty chips for $12.05. You can take a lot of napkins, get extra tartar sauce and ketchup packets, and even get a larger paper grocery bag, which helps to insulate the food against the chill as you ascend Madison back to I-5. You can eat two pieces of fish for your trouble and give the rest to some guy just trying to stay warm.

At I-5, the man with the sign was gone, probably driven to shelter by the light, pelting rain as well as the chill, and the fact that the off-ramp traffic had diminished considerably. But diagonally across Madison, next to an abandoned coffee stand, two men were talking in the dark, one sitting, the other standing.

The sitting man, 50 years old, came from Alaska three years ago. He said Leighton and he were friends, so it seemed a safe assumption that if he received the meal he would share it -- and he did, small as it was. And they were grateful. The fries and fish were still warm even after a half-mile hike up Madison in a chill wind. The Alaskan -- who said he was Eskimo,  took some fries and fish before offering food to  Leighton. Afterward they both shared with a man who arrived with a wheelchair that he sometimes stood beside and sometimes sat in. A fourth man arrived; the Eskimo shared with him as well, and explained he was Cheyenne. He should have been cold, with what little he was wearing.

Leighton was born at Harborview Hospital in 1947; at 69, he looked good, for his ailments. He spoke with a calm, rich voice. His possessions were all contained in his backpack. You don't need a foam pad to sleep on at night, he explained. Under these circumstances you want to carry as little as possible (the backpack might have been 15-20 pounds), and you can always find cardboard in a dumpster. You put down a couple layers to insulate you from the cold. And you don't have to carry it around the next day.

What about health care -- he's old enough to be worried about the diseases of age. What about prostate screening? Well, that's already been taken care of, he explained. In 2005 he was in California, drinking in an alley: a swig of liquor followed by a swig of beer. He went to a convenience store and tried to purchase cigarettes, but the clerk kept asking him if he were all right. That puzzled him until the clerk pointed out that his lap was soaked with blood. After a visit to the emergency room and a checkup he had his hemmoroids tied off and some polyps removed. He believes there were issues with his prostate that were taken care of.

No-one had arranged lodging yet for the night. The Eskimo and Cheyenne walked off and the man with the wheelchair left. Leighton explained he would find shelter someplace -- perhaps under an awning, protected from the rain.

Leighton has a sister he hasn't seen for years. He would like to find her, but doesn't know how. He knew where she used to work, but for confidentiality reasons, that agency can't provide him with information or help link him with her. Although the Seattle library has Internet service, Leighton doesn't avail himself of the library much and he said he doesn't use the Internet. And he didn't know that the Salvation Army has a missing persons program which he can tap into. Maybe, after finding that out, he will be able to track down his sister . . .

Takeaway: There was a remarkable air of calm among these men, buffered against the chill wind by the side of a coffee stand long since abandoned. This life is their normal. The word I'm searching for is not "content" or "acceptance" or anything I can put my finger on. It's something else.

Ubuntu,

Centennian