If you close your eyes and imagine or if you open the eyes wide and see what the movie titled “A Life” offers you will be curious to see some scenes that could pass as invisible only to the clinically indifferent part of the public who are not exactly human beings….they only look like people, but internally they are vampires or the creatures who can only take, not give. They actually can’t give because they don’t have anything to give- not warmth, not an advice, not a comfort, not a love. I am silent about money- even though some of them are millionaires they again will look to take, not give as they will live forever. I hate to disappoint them, but…. This city is full of vampires.
All people are the same: we need food, clothes, and a roof above us, and we know for sure that any of that is free. I have heard the beautiful stories about miserable men and women who were born in a poor and dirty neighborhood and, with the time, they graduate from cruel places named schools in their areas, became teachers, or managers, or whatever and live happily ever after. I was young and stupid enough to believe in these fairytales- they softened a life experience, establish hope for a high justice of a fate given by a God… As a time passes, the chill of reality entered me as cold water a bottle- as much I was thinking about a fate, as much I was feeling desperation of inability to influence unfortunate people’s lives. Honestly, I do not care of the spoiled creatures why destroy themselves because they don’t know what to do with their snobbery empty existence. I was always on a side of unfortunate enough guys who weren’t able to escape from a trap of their areas, careless families, poverty, with no help from anywhere and no choice to choose anything at all and finally finished dead on the streets or in the government nursing homes- the end point of desperation.
I was raised with no homeless around-it was in USSR. Everyone had a job and everyone had somewhere to live- nice or not, but place to live. I left my country when I was twenty, married in another country and skipped the reality of changes in Russia probably for better for me who was always ready to cry for unhappy guys, or Dostoevsky’s personages, or for the solders in all wars on the Earth, or inquisition’ victims, as Children Crusaders as well.
For the first time in my life I saw a homeless guy was when I came to LA. It was a skinny, very tall guy with a bunch of hair on his head and surprisingly light blue-grey eyes. He stopped me and quietly asked for a cigarette. I never smoked, so never had cigarettes in me, but I offered him a dollar. He was surprised, grateful and polite. Later I saw him to eat on a newspapers’ stand near the bus stop- the napkin was spread underneath a plastic box with a food from the Tai restaurant on the corner and he was eating very beautifully, as a lord: accurate, clean, and slow. I never saw any luggage with him, the clothes were very old, but relatively clean…I just hoped that somebody was taking care of him. One day I was passing by him and stretched a hand with a dollar bill to him and have heard: “I’ve got my change for today, thanks.” I stopped surprised and stubbornly passed a bill to him telling: “Well, save it for tomorrow.” The answer was the same: “I’ve got my change for today” with a confident voice and straight look into my eyes. For seven years living in a Hollywood area this situation repeat three times and every time I was looking in his eyes and thinking:” There is no priest in the world, probably, who would say this and refuse a money…but in LA…in Hollywood area, this guy does…he lives in a different dimension… only right now, not even tomorrow…probably I have to learn from him.” Certainly I did.
Another guy I meet on the street was a Mexican man…middle aged, short, slim, with a usual name Louis. How happen that I find out his name? Well, he helped me…for free...then we exchanged our names. I was stupid enough to through the trash bag in a big cane with the bunch of all my keys that hanged on to the bag. So, I was desperately looking at the bottom of a huge bin with my keys there and was thinking how to get in and rescue myself from the heart attack. Imagine how funny I was looking: walking around a can as a cat would round a bottle of Valerian – I haven’t seen any way to pick the keys: the container was tall to my chest, it was smelly and I had been wearing a white relatively short dress. At a moment when I almost started crying I heard: “Senora, I help you”. Who was this-some kind neighbor? No. Was it some nice man? Yes. And it was a homeless guy whom I knew from the street with a code name “Mexican guy with the white socks”. I was always wondering how it could be that he had those white, clean socks when preparing for the night on the street edge and taking his shoes off. We usually exchanged the graters softened with smiles, that’s all. Now he approached me with his Ralph's cart, decorated all over with the United States banners (also clean ones- where this guy have been doing the laundry-is mystery for me), he draw up himself by the container’s end, jumped inside and gave me the keys- one minute job!. I was impressed by his male behavior! For a few years living in LA it was a first time when somebody made something for me with no any advertizing at all before and after. I expressed my gratitude of course and went to the purse to take some money to him- he was an unusually slim for the Maya guy- just as a sign of my happiness. He politely refused money the way I gave up to insist. I went home, take couple of beer cans from the fridge and came back to a place where he did usually sleep- between the parking entrance and a dental office. He was having a guest on his rug- another Latino guy with a red face- they were having Corona. Mine was Asahi. Hope they liked it- we have met almost every day on the street but I never had a chance to ask how he is doing and keeping his socks that white because he didn’t speak any English. One day I saw a bottle of Corona at the place between two gates with a flower sticking out of the bottle and a piece of lime on the side. It was a bad mark. As I understood later, my actor neighbor Phil found Louis about noon sleeping which was unusual- he usually waked up early. Phil calls a police. Louis was dead. Probably of too much Corona, probably of something else, who knows? What was happen in his life that he prefers to live on the city’s streets, not at home or, at least, in his own country? Why am I asking this question…I know exactly why…many people from many countries have done the same years ago and, I guess, for the same reason?
At the middle of my life I realized that a Russian proverb “Never deny go to jail or live on the streets” is a cruel reality, not only scary meaningless words. Looking at the streets of LA, especially Sixth and Fifth in Downtown, I start feel a very deep compassion for these people and their meaningless lives with no hope on the dirty dangerous avenues. And I know for sure that something wrong is going on, something totally wrong…
I saw an invisible law of the city – separate and rule- applied in a drastic way to these people and I can’t see the way for them to escape.
My grandma was always telling me: “If nobody cares of something unfair – why not you take care of it?” and Dostoyevsky, my soul teacher, was leading met he same direction…but I do not see a way...
Do you?
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