Finding Momentum

A Brother Like Me

I’m back at school for less than a week when I get a call from Mike — “Hey Drew, I’m in front of the food court. Come see me.”

I’ve collected our gifts for him — gloves, a scarf, AC Transit ride tickets, a Sony boombox, and a 12-pack of D batteries — into a corner of my apartment (thank you, all 9 of you, for contributing!) and tuck them into a Trader Joe’s bag on the way out.

I find Mike walking out of the food court. He’s lumbering towards me with a particularly strange grin on his face. He pauses right before he reaches me, cocks his head, leans over and gives me a particularly big hug.

“You okay man?” I half-jokingly ask. “Had anything to drink?”

“Naw, Drew,” he replies. I’m not sure whether to believe him, but I let it drop.

Mike loves the gifts, and is particularly thrilled by the stereo. “I gotta thank you, Drew.” I tell him it’s a gift from all of us, which only makes his smile wider.

“Ya know, let me tell you something, Drew,” he begins. “I just got outta the hospital last week. My arm started hurtin’ real bad. Gotta go back in there and get my medication.” He looks up, giving his attention to a man walking out of the food court.

The man holds out an open carton of Marlboros. Mike pulls one out and slaps the man on the back, then returns his attention to me. “Yeah, anyways Drew, I got outta the hospital and…”

“Mike, you can’t be smoking now. It’s gonna put you back in the hospital,” I interject.

Mike doesn’t hear me. Cigarette Man’s lends Mike a lighter. “I just been real stressed,” Mike continues as he lights up, “Belinda’s son got caught stealing an’ now he’s in jail…”

He takes a long drag and the tip of the cigarette glows bright orange in the evening darkness. Mike looks up and shifts his footing around on the pavement.

“Wait, hold on,” I tell him. “Belinda’s got a son too?”

“Yeah, he thirty years old. Got caught for robbery and now he’s all in the system. Got Belinda trippin…” he tells me. “And Belinda, don’t let me get started on her.”

Mike’s rolling the cigarette between his hands, unsure whether to crush it or cradle it.

—

There is an woman, dirty, aging and obviously homeless, huddled in the corner of the food court. She drapes herself in a pea-green fleece blanket and stares into the Kingpin Donuts wall. Customers file in and out of the store, never seeing her. She is there for an hour before she leaves. She never makes eye contact with anybody; she just stares at the wall and shivers.

—

“So this is mine now, Drew?” Mike asks, pointing at the stereo. “Man, oh, man, ever since my last one got stolen…”

Mike’s last stereo was stolen in the utility entrance to the Asian Ghetto food court. One day he locked it up in the alleyway on his way to work washing the outdoor court. An hour later he went back into the alley and it had been stolen.

Restrooms are scarce commodities on the street.

“I think my friend did it,” Mike says. “Tell me, ‘Hey Mike, I got to go to the bathroom’ so I toss him the keys. I check it out later and it’s gone. It’s gotta be him, he hide it and sneak it away from me.”

There are no such thing as friends on the street.

—

Mike’s plugging in the batteries into the boombox and turns the dial to KBLX. Whitney Houston is on, and he turns it up so Whitney’s singing loud enough to envelop us.

It startles me how fast he turns around and starts walking up the street. “Ma’am?” he’s asking, “Ma’am!” I have to squint to see who he’s talking to.

It’s the homeless lady by the donut shop. She’s stood up and walked up to the curb. As Mike walks up to her, I see her quickly part her legs, bend over and urinate all over the sidewalk. I turn away.

Mike spins around and walks right back. “Man!” There is a grimace on his face. “She’s got to go. You can smell that from all the way here.”

The woman’s pulled her pants back up and has returned to shivering outside of Kingpin.

Restrooms are scarce commodities on the street.

“She has got to go,” Mike repeats. He calls the Berkeley Police (how does he have their number?) and gets an operator on the line. “Hello? Berkeley Police? There’s a homeless lady urinating on the streets in front of all the students… she’s under a green blanket… middle-aged… yes I’ll hold…”

There are no such things as friends on the street.