Travels with Lizbeth

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  To Cliff Hexamer, Steven Saylor, Wendy Lesser, and, of course, Lizbeth

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Introduction

  1 Austin to Tucson: Hitting the Road

  2 Tucson to La Puente: The Desert Rat

  3 Los Angeles: Pounding the Pavement

  4 San Gabriels and Hollywood

  5 To Austin

  6 Temporary Arrangements

  7 On Dumpster Diving

  8 Summer in Austin: Dog Days on the Street

  9 Phlebitis: At the Public Hospital

  10 Alcohol, Drugs, and Insanity

  11 On Institutional Parasitism

  12 Eviction

  13 Daniel

  14 Lizbeth on Death Row

  15 To Hollywood Again

  16 In the Bamboo

  17 A Roof over Our Heads

  Afterword

  Also by Lars Eighner

  Praise for the Author

  About the Author

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  When I began this account I was living under a shower curtain in a stand of bamboo in a public park. I did not undertake to write about homelessness, but wrote what I knew, as an artist paints a still life, not because he is especially fond of fruit, but because the subject is readily at hand.

  In the summer of 1989, when I was in the bamboo, I supposed interest in homelessness had peaked in the presidential election of the previous year. Moreover, I thought my experiences with homelessness were atypical.

  I still think my experiences were atypical, but I have come to disbelieve in typical homelessness. I had some advantages and some disadvantages and I chose the course that seemed most likely to provide the survival of myself and my dog Lizbeth on the most comfortable terms of which our situation would admit.

  I did not often associate with other homeless people. I avoided the homeless shelters and hobo jungles. I did not attempt to survive on the streets of a very large city, but made my way for the most part in a liberal and affluent area of an overgrown college town. Although I often despaired of improving my material situation, I seldom lacked for a feeling of self-worth or a sense of mission. On the other hand, I spent most of my time in Texas, where a general contempt for the poor is reflected in a useless, vestigial social welfare system. I handicapped myself by adopting from the first a policy of not stealing and not begging on the streets. And, of course, I would not be parted from Lizbeth. I do not pretend to speak for the homeless. I think no one could speak for all the various people who have in common the condition of being homeless. I do not know many of the homeless, but of the condition of being homeless I know something, and that is part of what I have written about.

  In truth, becoming homeless was a long process that I can date only arbitrarily. I had been without a reliable income for about a year before I left the shack I had been living in. For about five months after I left the shack I traveled and imposed on friends and strangers, so that I spent only part of the time on the streets. Moreover, throughout that first period I believed I had one prospect or another of improving my situation and I did not regard myself as truly homeless.

  When I had the opportunity to get off the street for a week or a month or even for only a night, I did so; my object was not to explore homelessness but to get off the street. I have recounted these events in the ordinary narrative manner, but have only summarized the events of my longer stopovers. Eventually I became homeless enough to suit anyone’s definition. In spite of the challenges that homelessness presented, the chief characteristic of my experience of homelessness was tedium. The days and nights that Lizbeth and I were literally without a roof over our heads, although by far the majority of the more than two years encompassed here, are represented by relatively few examples. One of those days was so much like each of the others that to call any of them typical would be an understatement. Our immediate needs I met with more or less trouble, but once that was done I could do no more. Day after day I could aspire, within reason, to nothing more than survival. Although the planets wandered among the stars and the moon waxed and waned, the identical naked barrenness of existence was exposed to me, day in and day out. I do not think I could write a narrative that would quite capture the unrelenting ennui of homelessness, but if I were to write it, no one could bear to read it. I spare myself as much as the reader in not attempting to recall so many empty hours. Every life has trivial occurrences, pointless episodes, and unresolved mysteries, but a homeless life has these and virtually nothing else. I have found it best in some parts to abandon a strictly chronological account and to treat in essay form experiences that relate to a single subject although they occurred in disparate times and places.

  I have changed the names of people and of institutions throughout this account. I know my perspective did not often reveal the best side of people. When it did, I think I best return the favor by respecting the privacy of those who helped me. At any rate, I thought to name some and not name others would imply a criticism of those not named that, in some cases, I did not intend.

  Any homeless life entails certain dangers and discomforts. I have tried not to make too much of these, for I suppose people who have always lived in comfort will imagine the worst. In fact, my homelessness involved far more mundane annoyances and petty irritations than terrors and pains.

  Sometimes I escaped into daydreams à la Walter Mitty. I amused myself at night by studying the stars, and by day I read cast-off astronomy, paleontology, and philosophy books. No one will ever know if I become senile. Since childhood I have had the tendency to be absentminded, abstracted, and off in another world. Thus, I not so much became accustomed to minor physical discomforts as I often failed to notice them. Perhaps this was not all to the good, for had I been less abstracted I might have been driven to measures that would have altered my situation in one way or another.

  I must say something of Lizbeth.

  She seemed not to suffer much, so long as we had a bedroll for her to lie upon. She liked softness and warm places. She seemed to be compensated for all the discomforts of our new life by being constantly near me.

  Although as a puppy she had shown an aptitude for amusing herself, she loves human attention and like Browning’s duchess she is pleased indiscriminately whencesoever it comes. In this she frustrates herself because she seeks attention by barking in a way that people who know little of dogs interpret as threatening. In the ultimate she prefers to sleep at her master’s feet, but being constantly at leash-length from anyone would please her. With few exceptions, this was a great adventure for her.

  For my part, I must admit, the romantic and timeless aspects of a man and a dog seeking their sustenance together, relying on each other’s special abilities for survival, and accompanied by the ghosts of all such pairs that have hunted together since man and wolf were first allied—that was not lost on me.

  I often write or say we, meaning Lizbeth and I. Some people find this peculiar, but I fail to see why. I do not say we planned, we hoped, or we thought, because I do not think that way. I do say we walked, we camped, and we slept. I do not anthropomorphize Lizbeth in my mind or in my words.

  While it is perfectly evident to me when Lizbeth is happy, bored, tired, or thirsty, I do not write clever things she is supposed to have thought. I do talk to her and say to her some things I think are wi
tty, but I certainly do not suppose that she apprehends anything more than I am paying attention to her and whatever she may gather from my tone of voice.

  My point is that the relationship between me and Lizbeth is that of man and dog. That I have made some sacrifices to avoid abandoning her or having her put to death in her youth seems to me entirely within the proper scheme of the relationship of man and dog—my proper performance under an ancient interspecies contract.

  Lizbeth had her disadvantages. I could not go some places with her. Usually I had no safe place to leave her. Individuals and institutions who might have helped me alone could not consider the two of us. She is not an especially bright dog, and even so I regret not having trained her to the extent of her abilities in her youth. I often averted disaster only by anticipating her behavior, which is to say, I suppose, she has trained me. I was never confronted with a choice between Lizbeth and some permanent, significant advantage. I might have given her up to obtain a few days lodging here or there, but then I would have been back on the streets without the advantages of having her. I do not mind admitting that I love my dog. But anyone who has had to sleep by the side of the road in some wild place may appreciate that an extra pair of keen ears, a good nose, and sharp teeth on a loud, ferocious ally of unquestionable loyalty have a certain value that transcends mere sentiment. If she did not save my life, and I am not so sure she did not, she did prove herself worth having many times over. My loyalty to her may seem touching to some people, and others may take it as evidence of my irrationality, but it always had, too, the aspect of preserving a valuable asset.

  I am indebted to Steven Saylor, who collected and preserved parts of this account while I was in no position to keep things as fragile as ink and paper, to Wendy Lesser of The Threepenny Review, whose early interest in this work encouraged me to complete it, and of course to the many people who helped us while we were on the streets, some of whom did more good than they knew.

  Lars Eighner

  Austin, Texas

  Autumn 1992

  ONE

  Austin to Tucson: Hitting the Road

  Billy inelegantly brought his little black Scirocco about and drove back toward Austin. That car was Billy’s shibboleth; he never learned to pronounce its name although he was frequently corrected by parts dealers, his mechanic, and me. Never mind. In Billy’s mind it was a Porsche and that was the way he drove it.

  There we were, Lizbeth the bitch and I, with a pile of gear I could carry only a few yards at a time, by the side of the road in what seemed to me to be a desolate area. I had not been to the desert yet.

  At that moment I had my first doubts that moving to California was the best idea I had ever had and that my plans were entirely adequate.

  My plans, so far as they went, were in three parts.

  My friend Rufus was in prison in Las Vegas on a charge of “gross and public lewdness”—a picturesque title for a crime, I thought. He had propositioned a minor, but as it was known that the minor was a prostitute, Rufus had been allowed to plead to the lesser charge. He was due to be released soon—exactly when, I was not sure—and he had mentioned in writing that I might visit him and his benefactor, an older man I had never met, at their home in La Puente, California.

  I could see from my map that La Puente was not so far from Los Angeles. Rufus always seemed happy to see me and owed me some hospitality. But as I stood by the side of the road it occurred to me that Rufus had nothing of his own and perhaps his companion, who owed me nothing, would not be so happy to see me.

  The second part of my plan was to obtain a position with one of the gay men’s magazines that had bought my short stories. I had been writing short stories for the gay men’s market for about five years. A collection of my stories had been published and had been a critical success. One of the magazines in Southern California had recently advertised in its own pages for an assistant editor, and thinking myself exceptionally qualified for such work, I had sent a résumé. That periodical had not had time to respond, but I took the fact of the advertisement as evidence that the demand for literary talent was brisk in the Los Angeles area.

  By the side of the road I reflected on my lack of experience in layout, copy fitting, and all the other aspects of magazine work, except copy- and proofreading. But I was just as willing to start in the mail room.

  My third thought was to seek a position working with PWAs (people with AIDS). For this I had fifteen years of related work experience. I had kept books and filed tax forms for a nonprofit eleemosynary corporation, I had maintained medical records, I had stalked the elusive third-party payment, I had wrestled with budgets and written parts of proposals, I had tiptoed—not always successfully—through the minefield of alternative agency collective decision-making, I had directed a suicide-prevention and drug-crisis center, I had carried bedpans and changed linens on occupied beds, and I had ruthlessly manipulated other agencies into providing the services they were supposed to provide for my clients. I thought if there were any order in the universe at all, I had been provided with this particular combination of skills and experience to be of some use in the AIDS crisis.

  The only drawback I could see here was that in Southern California such work would probably entail lots of sensitivity training, encounter groups, and similar things that always make me want to throw up.

  Perhaps the idea of moving to California was not so wonderful after all, but remaining in Austin certainly offered no better prospects.

  By exploiting the formalities of the eviction process, I might have remained in the little shack on Avenue B a few weeks longer. But I had been without a job for almost a year. The shack had changed hands in the height of Austin’s real estate boom. My new landlord had taken out an enormous loan to acquire the property and was in no position to extend me any more credit.

  I had resigned from the state lunatic asylum under threat of being fired. I had always been in trouble at the asylum, for the humane published policies of the institution conflict with the abusive habits of some of the staff, and I often found myself in an unpopular position. But in the event, I was in trouble for complaining of being assigned to vegetative patients who had been warehoused at the institution since birth. That was not the work I had been hired to do and I found it emetic.

  I sought work elsewhere. I knew I could do many things that might turn a profit for anyone who would employ me. But I had no documentary evidence of my skills. I had made a point of attending staff-development classes at the asylum. Those classes qualified me for more advanced positions at the asylum but provided me with no credentials that would be accepted elsewhere. My previous experience had been with a so-called alternative agency that did not believe in documents of any sort. What I knew of computers and electronics I had learned as a hobbyist. I had qualified as a first-class radio-television engineer, but my FCC license had not proved useful when I first got it and had long since lapsed. I knew I could write, but whenever I learned of a position for a staff writer, the position required a college degree, which I did not have.

  I went to the state unemployment commission. In past years when I had been unemployed the commission had provided me with inappropriate referrals. Now it was too swamped to do even that. The bust had hit Austin. Only those who claimed unemployment compensation could see a counselor. I did not qualify for unemployment compensation because I had resigned my last position, and it would have been the same if I had been fired for cause. Since I was not a drain on the state fund, I would not get any help in looking for a job.

  As for public assistance, it is like credit—easier to get if you have had it before. That you have qualified for one sort of benefit is often taken as evidence that you are eligible for another. Documents from one agency are accepted as proof of need at another agency. But as I had never received any form of public assistance before, I had no documents. When I was asked to provide documents to prove I had no income, I could not do so. I still do not know how to prove lack of income.

/>   The private charities had organized a clearing house, originally under the direction of the Catholic Church and still dominated by it. There I was told plainly that having neglected to produce children I could not support, I was disqualified for any benefit. Single men, I was told, were persons of sacred worth, but if only I could come up with a few mewling little wretches, illegitimate would do, then something might be done for me.

  Sadly I had neglected to become addicted to drugs or alcohol and had not committed a serious crime. Rehabilitation was out of the question. But some hope was held out if I were to become maimed before funds ran out in that category.

  Wherever I went I noticed an enormously fat blond woman, at least twice my size, with two screaming, undernourished brats. She fared better than I at the public and private agencies; they could hardly do enough for her. The waifs were about three and five years of age. The peculiar thing was they were never the same children. She had a different pair with her every day. So I must assume she had at least sixteen children under the age of six, and I can hardly begrudge her all the assistance she received.

  I continued to write and to send my stories to the gay magazines that had bought them in the past. I had not yet learned to write when I was uninspired, and at three cents a word, paid six to eight months after I had finished a story, I could not make a living, though I sold all the stories I wrote.

  Nearly every block in Hyde Park, as my neighborhood in Austin was called, had at least one foreclosure sign. The banks and the savings and loans were beginning to go belly up. The bust might not have been so bad if it had not been for the boom. Once, Austin had many old roomy houses that were inhabited by musicians and artists, students, punks, and latter-day hippies. The rents were low and such households stayed afloat so long as the law of averages prevented all of the occupants being out of work at once. Years before I had survived in Austin on a low income by living in such places. But during the boom many of these old houses were replaced with condos. When the bust hit, the condos went into receivership and housed no one.