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| Go to San Francisco |
What a rubbish tourist I am! I have seen very little here, other than the street I have been staying in. Ellis Street. In the middle of Ellis are a few grimy looking hotels and a Methodist Church, that seems closed apart from the adjoining building that serves food to the homeless three times a day. There is a real community up and down the street, though like nothing I have seen before. It's a street that most visitors try to avoid, but somehow I find it very comfortable to be there. In the eyes of the people of Ellis Street you can see the years of struggling and scraping up whatever they can to get by. That most often means begging up to $200 a day for crack, and apart from that I don't know so much yet.
They are, for the most part, really friendly, and I have learned a great deal from talking to them, enjoying their raucous wit and observing the drill on the street corners. The sellers have a guy watching all the way up and down the street and when, every ten minutes or so, a patrol car comes up they shout:
'Black and white, comin' up!'
The dealers glide into the bar and corner shop and most of the smokers outside disappear into apartment buildings and hotels. At least that seems to be the case. They simply vanish, in fact, until the threat has passed, and then return, to continue. It is a nuisance, but if caught red-handed, the dealers would get custody. But it is obviously an acceptable risk:
'I got no other choice but sellin', honey,' says one lady.
So it goes on and the craving people shuffle up and down, bringing $4, or $8 for the next rock of crack, and off they go again for an hour. They slump on the ground smoking the stuff, drooling and slurring when I strike up conversation. The years of abuse have ruined the health of so many, but what exactly do the patrol cars achieve, I wonder? They are forgotten, unloved people, and the policemen just harass them. Janice, a 39 year old African-American, very lucidly tells me about her life, though there is surely a lot more to hear from her:
'One of these days, I'll tell you a few really interesting stories.'
She tells me that she has two daughters three grand-daughters and a great grand-daughter. She hasn't ever seen her daughters kids. They ask her to go home, to Arkansas, but she knows the street in San Francisco.
'After the accident I got a place up the road, but I been so long on the street, I am used to it! One night I was sleeping outside the police station, on the sidewalk and a truck backed up over my legs, I was real lucky, just a coupla' hairline fractures and my heel hurt some for a while.'
John is in a fairly bad state, one ankle broken and set at a 30 degree angle to the his shin. I ask him where he's from.
'New York.'
'Do you ever want to go back?'
'Na.'
'Why not?'
'Gotta job.'
'What's that?'
'Janitor.'
But I don't see how John can work too well. Another guy, white, who is known as 'Papa Smurf'' tells me that he adopted 46 kids in his life and sells everything, from grass to heroin, methamphetamine and crack. He opens a little wrap of crack for the blind guy I am talking to, but the blind guy thinks better of it and gives the drugs back. Papa Smurf becomes more agitated.
'Shit! Why you wastin' my time?' He leaves.
'God bless you!' He barks as he strides off. A couple of hours of sharing the day with the people of Ellis is really wearing, so I'm out of there, back to my hostel. I cannot imagine how it would be, not to be able to leave.
