Life’s a Bitch
Posted on March 17, 2008
Filed Under Anxiety, resolutions, challenges, neurosis, volunteerism |
She lives within four grungy walls, yellowed with years of cigarette smoke. A nasty habit. Two packs a day. One check from the government each month must stretch to pay for the run down efficiency that is public housing and the cigarettes and the phone and the romance novels with pinkish-mauve covers, silver embossed titles stacked waist high in the corner. A photo of George and Laura Bush is taped on the wall just to the right of the door. They are beaming and radiant on the White House lawn. Their presence is incongruous and startling here among the filth and neglect of this sad life.
She could not hear our knocking. We let ourselves in and found her still in bed. She had yet to rise and get dressed for the day.
The television is on in the corner. It’s been on all night. She has forgotten our appointment and is embarrassed to be caught in bed at four minutes to noon. The two of us stand politely near the hollow door while she puts on her clothes and slowly rises to meet us. Neither of us dares to even glance at the picture of the President and his wife. It’s just too shameful.
The case worker talks in a plain voice about the old woman as if she isn’t there. “Brace yourself, this is going to be difficult. She’s become paranoid and delusional. She’ll have to be convinced to write the rent check.” I kind of shake my head and gesture towards Gladys who is rising slowly from the bed. It seems impossibly humiliating to be speaking of her like this, not ten feet away. And the case worker says, “Oh don’t worry. She can’t hear us. She’s as deaf as a stone.”
There is a steady drip from the faucet that serves as kitchen and bathroom sink and I walk over to turn it off. It is broken and spins freely in my hand. The fire alarm chirps a warning that the battery has run down. I shout to Gladys as she shuffles towards the table at the window, “Gladys? Gladys? Do you have any batteries? I’d like to change the battery in your smoke alarm.” I am almost screaming but she still can’t make it out. So I try again, louder, making sure I am in front of her so she can read my lips.
She shakes her head and repeats batteries with a blankness that underscores the fact that she can’t grasp the meaning of the word. And then, suddenly, there is connection. She declares, emphatically, “No, I haven’t had batteries in months. They come and take them all. Let themselves in here all the time. It’s those bitches down the hall. They steal my books. They take my china.”
“When, Gladys? When do they take these things from you?” And she declares that the theft occurs every time she goes out, sometimes when she’s sleeping. She gestures to the five Styrofoam cooler boxes she has beside the bed. She tells us that she has put everything of value in those white boxes. She has bundled them with packing tape.
“Those bitches will take everything in here if I’m not careful.”
I glance around knowing there is nothing to take. Perhaps they have already filched everything of value or, more likely, she is forgetting that she’s never owned the things she now thinks are missing.
She unwinds some tape and takes the lid off one of the cooler boxes. She removes a small votive candle, the kind eight year children make with colored sand in the third grade to give to their mothers on Christmas. It is not particularly well done, the glass is dingy with age and the filth of tobacco smoke, but Gladys holds it in her hands as if it were the Holy Grail.
“You see this candle,” she asks. We nod gravely. Of course we see the candle. We each own a similar candle made by a child’s hands.
“My grand daughter made me this candle. A long, long time ago. She lives in Florida now and I’m going to live with her.”
“Right, Gladys. Florida. We know,” her case worker says rolling her eyes slightly. “But until you finalize those plans for Florida, you need to pay your rent. It was due the 1st and it’s now the 13th.”
Gladys goes to get her check book and we find that she has lost the register. Without going to the bank there’s no way to determine if she has sufficient funds to clear the check. She can’t recall how much she is supposed to pay for rent on a monthly basis. There’s no record of what she has paid in the past. Perhaps she owes two months. Maybe three.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’ve lived in this place for twelve years. I don’t owe nothing anymore.”
As I sit on the phone enduring the voice mail hell that is the Housing Authority’s call-in service, I wonder how this woman has found herself here, a step from eviction, alone and destitute, on full government assistance, sick and smoking and angry at those who are trying to help her. After twenty minutes of phoning and holding and pressing cued numbers, I learn that she is mostly caught up on her rent. She is only late with March. I ask her to make out this month’s check and she fills in October on the date line. We start again. Pointing to the calendar that her case worker has hung on the wall.
“It’s March,” she says, incredulous.
“Yup, all month,” I say. “And I’m going to come back to see you again. Next month. When it’s April. I’ll help you make sure you get the rent paid and the cable and the phone bill taken care of.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do next month,” she says. “I’ll be in Florida.”
“Okay, Gladys. I hope so. And then I won’t come and you can send me a postcard,” I say as kindly as I can, mustering my benevolence despite the cursing.
We let ourselves out as the Meals on Wheels delivery volunteer is just arriving. I can hear Gladys say to her as I’m heading down the stairs.
“Well, it’s about time. Where the hell have you been?”
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