Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [44]
“We’re here to help, Adam. I can promise you that,” she said. “But the fact remains that if you don’t take some initiative, you’ll be stuck in here like a lot of these other guys.” Her speech was energized, and her tone sounded unrehearsed as if she said what she meant and meant what she said.
Though she was only six months or so into her employment at the shelter, she had heard countless stories of repeat visitors to the shelter, guys who did what it took to get out for a month or more but didn’t have the preparation needed to stay out. It was a vicious cycle that had claimed many victims, and it was the most frustrating part of her job. Otherwise, she appeared to love what she was doing. While her friends were doubtlessly accepting high-paying jobs as accountants and managers and attorneys, she was doing something truly worthwhile. She was making a difference.
She shuffled me out the door as she called in her next appointment. It was only 6:00, so I had time to make it down to the library for a quick half-hour session on the computer, just enough time to check up on current events and to confirm the continued lack of response from the local job market.
I hadn’t seen Marco the night before, but I caught up with him when I got back to the shelter. He appeared disheartened.
“What’s up with you?” I asked.
He smacked his lips. “Man, I ain’t goin’ to school. They ain’t givin’ me any money.”
Since he didn’t file a tax return, his financial aid hadn’t gone through in time, so he couldn’t register for classes until the next semester. He wasn’t as angry or agitated as he was dispirited.
“It’s ridiculous, dog,” he told me. “I’m finally tryin’ to do the right thing—go to school, work hard, all that. I’m finally tryin’ to get my life on track, Shep. What the fuck?”
I really thought he was going to start crying.
But there was no time for that.
Suck it up, buddy. Just like the rest of us.
He would just work for the rest of the year, until it was time for him to start school in January. He started talking a bunch of gibberish about how he might move back up to Michigan to live with his mom and start his life over—again—something he didn’t want to do, but things simply weren’t working out for him like he had planned in Charleston. He was growing to like his new town if he could only find some source of inspiration to get him motivated. He wasn’t any more pepped up when I told him that I was planning to start at the car wash on Monday. “Dude, six fifty an hour? That’s like slave labor. You can find something better than that.”
At dinner Wednesday night, I met a man named James who had fought through a bitter divorce eight years prior, in which his wife got nearly all of his assets—house, furniture, car. Everything.
“I was hurtin’, man,” he said. “Hurtin’ real bad. I was stayin’ with my ma.”
Forty-two years old and living with his mom for support, he took some time to save enough money to get out and on his own. Revived and poised to conquer the world, he got his own place.
“And then my ex came back to me. Said she was struggling herself, that she loved me, and that she wanted to give it another chance. So I did.”
He and his wife got back together and began to build a life again. Things were going great. Then, another divorce.
“I’m not the only guy I know that has lost his hat, ass, and overcoat in a divorce. I am the only guy I know that has lost his hat, ass, and overcoat to the same woman. Twice.”
Nearing fifty, his pride was one of the many things he lost in the second divorce. So, he came to Crisis Ministries to get back on his feet.
The services provided by Crisis Ministries, though, weren’t what helped James get his swagger back. It wasn’t even his case manager. It was a fellow resident at the shelter.
“This guy had been staying at the shelter for almost a year, and his time at the shelter was running out. One