Homelessness

I am sitting at my friend's house reviewing my online accounts and listening to NPR waiting to train my first shift at Comet tonight. I am in Milwaukee.

The first time in my life I was homeless and looking for work on the East Side of Milwaukee was because I had decided not to return home for Christmas break, and also to move out of the dorms at art school. I had been let go from my part time job and had absolutely nothing. My poor parents must have been so worried. One day I was riding the 32 up Oakland and had stopped at a coffee shop a block over to fill out an application. They had said they didn't have any openings but that they would keep my application on file. Across the street was a small family owned grocery store called Koppa's. I walked in and asked to fill out an application whereupon I was directed to talk to the owner. He didn't give me an application, I am not sure if I told him my story, but I must have explained that I was looking for work. He looked at me for a full minute without saying anything and then he asked me if I could start right now. Up until that point I had been riding the bus to keep warm, so I said yes. He told me to hang up my coat in the back room and I started that day.

I was with my boyfriend at the time. I have a feeling that it was his idea to quit the dorms and find our own way in the city. We managed to make friends with an alcoholic saxophone player who lived on the corner of Irving and Oakland who allowed us to stay in his spare room while we were looking for an apartment. It was a vile hole of a place and I spent my time there trying to clean what looked like 40 years of unwashed dishes. There was a layer of grime and cigarette smoke so thick on everything that it was all dingy greyish brown. At some point a child had created a crayon masterpiece on one of the walls. I wonder what happened to him or her. I made a dent in the dishes and I still have a scar on my knuckle where one of the many filthy glasses broke in the hot water and sliced through my finger. We eventually had to leave in the middle of the night after our host's drunken fits of rage began to focus on us.

In retrospect, I did everything to keep us alive then. I paid the bus fare to keep warm. I got a job. I found an apartment by convincing my boyfriend to wear a tie and I wore my best imitation of business-lady clothes in order to convince the landlord we were reliable. I put it together out of nothing, but I was blessed with the gifts of a few people who believed I could do what I said I was going to do, without any evidence. I will be forever indebted to Mr. Koppa for hiring me on the spot. My heart goes out to the landlord who trusted that the two kids with no history and one job between them could pay the rent.

So it is interesting to me, now, that the second time in my life that I am homeless and jobless that I have found employment in the first coffee shop I applied to across the street from the grocery store. I wonder if they did keep my application on file. It is no longer a coffee shop, but a restaurant owned and operated by very good friends of mine. Of course this time I am alone and I have a home and the use of a truck. I don't have to ride the bus to keep warm and I am surrounded by friends who are as good as family. Better.

God bless the corners of Irving and Farwell.