Full Moon at the Pacific Garden Mission
Keith Smith on the CTA Red Line, November 6, 2014
Photo by Terry Edlin
Keith Smith wore hospital pajamas, bedroom slippers, and a White Sox jacket as he dozed on the Red Line. I sat beside him to ask why the hospital released him wearing pajamas with his prescriptions and a one-day bus pass. He didn’t answer the hospital question but said that he was kicked out of a shelter because he didn’t have his seizure medication.
The 40-degree weather was dropping to the 30s overnight. I muttered to myself several times I don’t know what to do. Then I thought to take him to the Salvation Army store near my house. The manager assured me that the shelter on Clybourn would take him and give him a meal, and that it was within walking distance from the Fullerton station. She gave me the phone number and the address. She couldn’t give him a belt to hold his pajamas up, but offered a clothespin.
He was very hungry and wanted to go to McDonald’s. I suggested he save the $6 I gave him because he would get a meal at the shelter. The reality was that he would not get a meal at the shelter but I didn’t know that.
We got back on the L to go to the shelter, and I called ahead. I learned that they admit only during the day, and it was 7 by then. Five phone calls later, I discovered that the Pacific Garden Mission at 1458 South Canal would take him.
Sitting across from me, he dozed off, leaning against the shoulder of a kind young woman. I said that we were getting off at Roosevelt to which she smiled, shrugged, and said she didn’t mind. When he roused, he eyed the food in her brown paper bag. His teeth weren’t sturdy enough to eat the caramel apple she offered, but he tore into the Flaming Hot Fritos.
We were an unlikely pair walking to the bus. I held his pajamas up while he devoured the chips. Chicago is a big city and no stranger to poverty. No one batted an eye.
The Mission is a short bus ride from Roosevelt, then a 3-block walk. I finally thought to offer my favorite hat. He resisted at first and then yielded, admitting that it helped.
As we walked, he concentrated on surviving. I had the luxury of admiring Chicago’s magnificent skyline from a new vantage point, contemplating the misery that afflicts so many of our fellow citizens, and trying to peer into an even darker future as the anti-poverty hysteria becomes more firmly rooted in our hellishly polarized politics.
The guards at the Mission were unequivocal that he could not stay overnight without medication, but at least they had clothes. I saw that the pajamas kept falling because they were on backwards and the tie was in the back.
I wasn’t confident that he would be able to get to the 24-hour Walgreens three blocks away or that he would have the required identification. I waited quite some time to accompany him, but finally, the guards assured me that he knew how to get there, that I had done enough, and that he would be fine.
He returned wearing jeans over his pajamas, which were still on backwards, and, he wore a different hat. Mine was lost to his confusion and the chaos of the shelter. It was a good hat, which someone would be happy to have. I left him sitting on a bench between two other guys, who themselves were hanging on by a frayed thread.
Full moons often coincide with weird incidents. Unstable people are especially vulnerable. I regret that I’ve looked the other way and walked past people that I now wish I had gone out of my way to help. Mr. Magoo, the veteran on the Broadway bus (insert link to blog post), and the pregnant woman on the Michigan Avenue Bridge (insert link to blog post) come to mind. That night, I didn’t turn away.
I don’t know where our multiple crises are taking us, but I know with certainty that taking a whack at our housing crisis is a mission that has taken over my heart and won’t let go.
