Three Different Deaths

What is the average lifespan of a typical homeless person? I wonder. I will have to search for the answer to this question. From my experience, admittedly quite limited to our little downtown neighborhood, I'd guess it would be in the neighborhood of 58 to 62 years. But I'm not writing today about mortality rates but to mark the deaths, within a week's span, of three homeless people who were Ladle regulars: Ron, Susan and Kyle. Here, first, is a little something about Ron.

Ron was a large Hispanic man in his early 50s. About 6 months prior to his death, Ron began spending his days at the side of our church, usually in the company of a drinking buddy or two. Upon my first encounter with him he told me he'd just gotten out of the hospital and was homeless. He said he had cancer, but was vague about where it was, what treatment he was getting and any prognosis he might have been given. When I told him our building was used as an elementary school during the week, and that we'd had a problem with men hanging out at this spot and drinking, he assured me that he had been "clean and sober" for a couple of years. He said he was homeless due to his poor health and some unexplained problem with one of his legs. He said he just needed to rest here for a couple of minutes and then would be going. A few days later I found him, again at the side of the church, but this time he was so drunk--or high, or both-- that he could not stand when I asked him to leave. A buddy--also drunk, but a bit more functional--helped him up and they staggered down the sidewalk as if contestants in an extremely slow three-legged race.

This was just the first in a series of similar weekly interactions with Ron. Sometimes however he'd surprise me by being completely sober. At those times he looked so different it was difficult to imagine this was the same man who, just the week before, was passed out on the church steps and unresponsive. A couple of times he was so far gone we had to call the paramedics. Other homeless people who know Ron told me he used to be a heroin user and seller. Ron, it turns out, was on a steeply and rapidly declining pathway. He seemed to know this but did not seem to care. The ultimate and sad confirmation of this came in the form of a telephone call I received from my counterpart at First Lutheran Church, just a few blocks from here. "Allen, I have some sad news," Jim began. "Ron died three days ago." "What happened," I asked. "They're not sure. Either he fell down and hit his head and then had a stroke, or he had the stroke first, then fell down and hit his head. In any case he died from the combination of the two. And he's not the only one to die recently," Jim continued. "I got word that Susan--you knew her from Ladle didn't you?--was found dead in the doorway of the 'C' Street Inn the day after Ron died."

Yet again my soul groaned in grief for our so tragically fallen world and the ugly and terrible toll it visits upon the lives of the homeless--especially those enslaved to drugs, alcohol and mental confusion. Even as I laid the receiver back in its cradle, I was already questioning whether I could have/should have done something more or different to have helped either Ron or Susan avoid their sadly premature deaths. The bland and monotone thought, "no, there was nothing" relieved neither that dark little shadow of tentative guilt that now niggled my mind, nor did it counterbalance the lead-like weight of my sadness over the seeming inevitability and pitiful ending of these two lives.

Susan had been coming to our Sunday afternoon meal for about as long as I can remember. I never knew her very well. She was usually quiet and kept to herself and her little circle of street/drinking/drug-using friends. Susan was somewhere in her forties I suppose, but as you might imagine the hard conditions of street life can put apparent age on a person--sometimes an additional ten to twenty years worth. In the last year of her life the one thing that stood out if you were to see Susan would be that her feet were terribly swollen and marred with open sores. I think this may have been one of the symptoms of liver failure. It pained me to see her struggling just to walk up or down the ramp to our dining room. When I would express sympathy and ask what if there was anything we could do she'd give me a sweet partial smile and say, "No, I'll make it. It's the cancer. I'll be O.K. thanks." I've come to find that alcoholics with failing livers often cite "cancer" as the explanation for their physical symptoms. Susan however did not live long enough to die from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. She died of a drug overdose--probable heroin. Jim at First Lutheran told me her body had been found on a recent morning in the doorway of the C-Street Inn. Several street people who knew her came to me to confirm this and to tell me that the people she had been shooting up with had, when she'd overdosed, just taken her down and dumped her on the sidewalk. This was told to me in a tone as if they thought perhaps I should pursue this angle and tell the authorities about it. I didn't think there was any point to doing that, nor did I believe the authorities would be interested, or could even do anything if they were.

A week after Jim had told me about Ron and Susan, I got another call from him. This time it was Kyle. Though his death was not unexpected, the news of it brought me a heaviness as if someone had casually handed me a shoebox full of bricks. Kyle first came to my attention one Sunday morning when, after the church service a helpful church lady whispered to me, "The young man over there--the one in the dirty green T-shirt just walking away from the doughnut table--I think he must be drunk or something." I thanked her for bringing this to my attention and began to weave my way through the tightly packed fellowship hall toward the young man. He certainly did appear to be drunk. In one hand he was awkwardly holding onto a glazed doughnut so tightly as to be partially squishing it. In his other hand was a cup of coffee which was sloshing over the rim and onto his hand as well as onto the carpet.

I greeted him as I tend to greet street people inside the church who appear to be drunk. "Are you feeling all right?" I said, "You look kind of unsteady--is anything the matter?" "Nope" Kyle said, cocking his head and meeting my eyes, "I just need a place to sit." "Follow me" I said "there's a chair right over there"m I said, stalling for enough time to assess his slurred speech and very unsteady walk. His movements were, on the surface, somewhat similar to the stumbling of one under the influence except that Kyle's motions were more jerky and stiff. Even as I was making this observation and we had about reached the chair in the little foyer, one of Kyle's buddies came over to me quickly and said, "hey, it's O.K--he's not loaded, he's got Huntington's. "Yup" kyle affirmed. I spoke to him for a few minutes, but his speech was so slow and choppy it took him a long time to compose a whole sentence. And though I strained to listen, I could not make out half his words.

One of the friends watching out for him was a homeless man who was later to join the church. I doubt any member in our churches history had more tattoos--or more colorful. We are a Navy town, so I'm sure some of the men in the church have tattoos under their sleeves from their days in the service during WWII--ut not like Robert's. His were clearly biker tattoos and climbed clear up his neck.

To be continued...