Chapter 5: The Bulls of St. Mary's
Divine intervention gets me out of an untenable shelter situation and into a much safer, if imperfect, environment.
January 2015, West Oakland - I had been here a little over a week. City Team’s $5 nightly fee, which made no sense to me, was starting to drain what reserves I had. Men were regularly clashing over insignificant issues, given the small space and what I would call an obsession with over-regulation. Treat men like they are image bearers who matter, and they will respond one way; treat them like cattle, and a few of them will turn and gore you.
On this Saturday morning, I had been settled in at the big rear table at Starbucks. There was Fred, the gregarious Flintstone sort of New Yorker, with his coke-bottle-bespectacled, Andy Warhol-ish companion, “Whitey.” Fred was quite excited. “Hey Mac!” he yelled in that subtle New York Fashion. “I woke up this morning and God tells me, ‘Hey, go get the big guy and get him in here!’” Fred explained he and Whitey had been staying at the St. Mary's shelter on San Pablo Boulevard, a good mile and a half toward Emeryville.
“You gotta come on Monday, Mac,” said Fred. “I’ll make sure they let yous right in. Yer supposed to be dere.”
I took it that Fred was right. I mean, who was I to argue if God woke the guy up in the morning and told him to walk all the way downtown with his buddy just to tell a guy about a free spot in a shelter? I agreed to show up Monday afternoon and try to check in there. It worked.
All shelters have their ups and downs, but St. Mary's is mostly up. You had to check in around 4 p.m., and they made you sit through a class before dinner and free time. Some of these classes were a bit silly, but others were somewhat entertaining. Regular opportunities for real foolishness existed also, such as when my newfound friend Stuart adopted a new personality during a group drama class. With straight-faced brilliance, Stuart embodied the persona of Don Julio del Domingo Montoya, III, with an air of pomp and circumstance. Somehow, I received uncommon grace to remain stone-faced as Stuart reveled in his charade.
At dinnertime, we would set up the round tables and folding chairs. East Bay church groups would cook or bring prepared meals for the 30 of us staying in the gymnasium. The food ranged from very good to astonishing, of gourmet quality at times. We spent most of our free time reading. I would often jerry-rig the internet connection, giving us contact with the outside world. At an appointed time, volunteers would open the big closet and roll out a giant cart loaded with cots, our names attached to them. We would set up for the night with bedding and pillows.
The nighttime staff was … iffy. Their regular sleeping habits worked to our advantage early in the morning, as some of us would sneak into the bathroom for a quick shower. Most of them were more interested in stealing food and supplies from the kitchen than helping Homeless people. It was nothing compared with the thievery I saw in the shelter in Santa Cruz, and I don't think it impacted our morning meals. But I believe guilty consciences drove a relational wedge between them and us.
My only confrontation at St. Mary's happened that first night. A Black man spoke loudly and indirectly about “some pretty-boy White folk who come traipsing in here like they own the place.” I followed the man as he went to the locker room, looked directly at him and said, “I don't know exactly who or what you were talking about out there. But if you have anything you want to say to me, I'd like you to say it directly to me, and then we can talk about it.”
The man protested that he didn't have me in mind at all, that he was thinking about someone else. We both knew that wasn't the case. I let it go at that. As a child, I learned if someone tries to bully you – directly or indirectly – you must confront them immediately, face to face.
During the next three months, this man and I got along just fine. In fact, everyone enjoyed one another, for the most part, and tried to help one another. But real worry built among the older men in the program as the weather warmed toward springtime. The shelter staff members had promised us we would be placed in housing by program’s end, but this had not happened. Many feared they would be turned out onto the street to become easy prey to those with ill intent. I did not yet have a full plan for what I would do, but I felt confident that one would present itself when the time came. And it did.