The Masque of Tragedy

It’s been two years to the month since my life irrevocably changed.

It’s been two years to the month since I was forced to confront an armed SWAT team on the front drive way of a suburban swelling in the once working class neighborhood of Clairemont in San Diego. The SWAT team had been called in by a mentally disturbed, alcohol dependent woman who failing to capture my attention to her satisfaction, tried to damage one of my mother’s paintings.

She succeeded in getting my attention.

When I confronted her and seized back my property, locking my bedroom door, she smiled, exited to the front of the dwelling and called the police claiming that I was an armed and dangerous villain who had assaulted her with a baseball bat.

In retrospect I almost wished I had as the following two years consequentially proved to be a total assault on my life, my mind and my emotional well being.

Regardless of my gun point explanation to the police as to the actual reality of the situation and my accuser’s mental condition, I was handcuffed, arrested and detained in a holding cell for 4 hours. Upon my release, I was illegally locked out of my home by a lunatic I had once known in college. Months of litigation and on going harassment by the ‘Baby-Man’ and the police resulted in all charges being dropped and a meager financial settlement for the harassment I had endured.

Nonetheless, covering the bail money fees alone quickly bankrupted me financially and an injury I sustained in my right leg whilst fleeing yet another sheriff’s deputy intent on detaining me solely on the basis of one lunatic’s false accusation (I has forced to jump out of a window to avoid arrest), left me virtually disabled with a severe limp and constant pain for the subsequent 8 months.

I took refuge with a Poet friend whom I had introduced to the San Diego poetry circuit and later with the family of a motorcycle mechanic who knowing of my situation, took pity on an educated white man being mistreated and allowed me to camp on an outdoor sofa in his front garden, shielded from the rain by a shed like open roof. His generosity permitted me to recover from my subsequent hip replacement that was the only solution to my leg injury.

It was during this period, I lost my job teaching autistic teenagers poetry for San Diego City Schools last year due to my injured leg curtailing my ability to chase kids down if they ran into traffic on one of our frequent outings. So I quickly found myself flat broke and virtually homeless apart from the safe sofa I could Le in at night, policing the stars and waking to the dawn chorus of flying dinosaurs.

My days were spent either at the library or when closed, one of the two local Starbucks that graciously permitted customers to use their WiFi all day even if we couldn’t afford the price of a cup of coffee.

In San Diego, if you have no social status.
You are effectively a non person.
I learned this pretty promptly and brutally.

That said I was able to subsist on food stamps and small loans from a few sympathetically generous but equally financially challenged friends. But my main social network evaporated as I was perceived as a person in need, a living reminder of the financial precariousness most Californians live under.

However, I found new friends at the library charging their phones and discovered a community of some dozen homeless people surviving on the streets of Clairemont. Sleeping rough in front of the library after it closed. Hanging out in the public spaces of the shopping mall. Charging their phones and keeping each other company with dark humour and bitter sweet reminiscences.

Charlie, an Australian expat, struggling with a walker but usually poised at t bus stop reading a paperback and sucking back cans of Fosters. George, an ex stock broker, kicked onto the streets by his ex wife and once friends with Jack Nicholson whose daughter he dated.

Scotty, an immensely obese younger man who had been kicked onto the streets by his father after he had remarried a woman from Kentucky who didn’t want Scotty around. Scotty was always hungry and downed liter plastic bottles of soda.

Thierry, a long haired, seldom bathed hippie who feigned schizophrenia to get handouts and when not practicing Tai Chi, stacked the pebbles on the mall into precariously balanced rock sculptures.

Tim, also a younger man who had lost his job at Krispy Crème for drinking beers on the sidewalk after work. Tim was eligible for social assistance but when not drinking beer spent most his time either sleeping in his parked van or in the homes of the eldery women who occupied the affordable living tower and benefited from his physical affection.

Harry, a black mountain of a man who when he had a guitar would busk blues and American spirituals in front of the Sprouts grocer. I joined Harry on a occasion, reciting poetry with his musical accompaniment to earn enough to buy food at the grocers. Harry was also always hungry.

A thin portrait, albeit of the disaffected and unwanted inhabiting the neighborhood overlooking the parks and beaches of Mission Bay. However, I found comradely in their disaffection, their ability to survive on nothing and their dedication to helping each other out when chased away by the police or the mall security.

When I could cook in my temporary dwelling, I filled containers of beer basted beans, potatoes salads and beef stew to distribute among my adopted community. On the occasion that a young woman, usually fleeing abuse, found herself sleeping in front of the library or on the patch of green in front of Carl’s Junior. Someone would tell George who would make the first contact and provide viligant protection from the attention of wanton strangers (Usually driving by),