by Janet Dawson
“Downright nasty, if you ask me. The so-called ‘civil libertarians’ were shouting down people who didn’t agree with them and calling them fascists. What happened to being tolerant of other people’s opinions?”
“Tolerance usually decreases in proportion to how much you feel threatened by the other person’s point of view. Then factor in the degree of emotion the issue generates.”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “Well, there were emotions bouncing all over that room. The pro-ordinance people are fed up with being accosted, ACLU lawyer’s going on and on about begging as a form of free speech, while the anti-ordinance people are drowning out anyone who had an opposing opinion. So much for civilized discourse. What about a person’s right to walk down the street without being hassled?”
“I’m remembering something my grandmother used to say.” I sipped my latte. “Your right to swing your arm ends at the other person’s nose.”
She laughed. “Believe me, these days people are swinging their arms right and left without regard to anyone’s nose. Now this panhandling ordinance prohibits soliciting money by ‘coercing, threatening, or intimidating behavior.’ That leaves a lot of gray area for interpretation. Those guys who were just in here weren’t all that threatening. Not to me, anyway. But someone else might think they were.”
Lauren fortified herself with another swig of coffee and went on. “The activists talk about criminalizing poverty. Good slogan, but that’s all it is. I’m here to tell you, Jeri, it’s not that simple. I’m not even sure it’s about poverty anymore, or jobs or housing or any of those convenient buzzwords. There are a lot of poor people in the East Bay, but they aren’t hanging out in front of the movie theaters with cups, asking for spare change. We’ve got pages of complaints from citizens who’ve been yelled at or assaulted by panhandlers for not giving ‘em money. Why should anyone be surprised that people have had it up to here with being hassled?”
I thought about what Levi Zotowska told me the other day about his wife Nell being pushed around by a panhandler down on Telegraph. And the opinion he’d expressed, that the mendicants drove business away.
“These guys,” Lauren continued, “and I say that on purpose, because most of them are men—these guys are on drugs and booze. You and I both know you can’t reason with someone who’s drunk or stoned. I can’t arrest a guy for being drunk in public unless I see him drinking from an open container. Then there are the mental cases, like the guy who stands outside the grocery store at Telegraph and Ashby, yelling obscenities and screaming at the customers. He’s been arrested several times but he still does it. Is that free speech? All I know is it makes customers want to buy their groceries somewhere else. And I don’t blame them.”
“So what’s the solution?”
“Hell if I know,” she said frankly. “If I had the magic wand, I wouldn’t be walking a beat in downtown Berkeley. You talk to a dozen people, you’re going to get a dozen answers. So have fun looking for this guy Rio, my friend. And watch your back.”
Not that simple, I repeated to myself as Lauren and I parted company on the sidewalk outside the French Hotel. I walked up Shattuck toward Vine, where I’d parked my car. As I passed the automatic teller machine at the Bank of America branch, I spotted the two homeless men we’d seen earlier. They were keeping well back from the ATM, yet they waited like a couple of seagulls ready to swoop down on a trash can at the beach.
“Got any spare twenties?” I heard one of them say. “I know you took a bunch out of that machine.” This was directed at a young woman with a backpack, who shook her head and hurried away. I reflected on the current state of my business and figured I didn’t have any spare twenties either. Spare change I had, and sometimes I dug it out of my purse. But was dropping a few quarters into the outstretched hand part of the solution or contributing to a problem?
Before I reached the corner I was panhandled three times. Each time I shook my head, and each time the person who’d asked said politely, “Have a nice day.” Usually in such a situation I kept walking, but now I slowed my step, gauging my reaction. The panhandlers weren’t hassling me. I would not have called their solicitation coercive, threatening, or intimidating. But their presence and the frequency of the question left me with the uncomfortable feeling that I was running some ill-defined and invisible gantlet.
A thin, frail-looking woman with white hair stepped through the door of the produce market on the corner, canvas shopping bag over one arm, a purse with a long strap hanging from the opposite shoulder. The man who had just approached me now turned to her, paper cup extended as he asked politely for spare change. He was much bigger than she was, younger, of a different race and sex. She reacted the way I thought she would, by shrinking away from the panhandler. It didn’t matter how polite he might be, she felt threatened by his presence.
It boiled down to who was being asked and who was doing the asking. And Lauren was right. There weren’t any easy answers to be had.
Nineteen
I STARTED WITH SOCIAL SERVICES, THEN MADE THE rounds of the various shelters. By early afternoon I wound up at the Berkeley Drop-In Center on Oregon Street, which operated on a similar schedule to the women’s shelter in Oakland run by my friend, Sister Anne. This facility was open Monday through Friday, nine A.M. to four P.M. On this cold rainy Monday the center was crowded with people escaping from the weather. They crowded the ragtag old building, talking, drinking coffee, reading newspapers. Hung on one wall I saw a huge sign spelling out the rules: NO DRINKING, NO DEALING, NO WEAPONS. NO HARASSING PEOPLE. NO RESORTING TO VIOLENCE.
It took me two cups of coffee and a lot of conversation to get beyond the center staff’s reluctance to talk with a private investigator. I was dressed too well, I thought, and didn’t look as though I fit in. Finally I had convinced one staff member that I didn’t plan to hassle the clients, who reflected the demographics of Berkeley’s homeless population.
“Over half African-American, other half white, with a few Asians and Latinos.” She was a whiskey-voiced blonde named Betty. She wore blue jeans and a baggy sweater, and looked as though she were somewhere between fifty and sixty, her face lined with hard living. “Mostly men,” she continued, taking a sip from the mug of strong black coffee that seemed to be permanently attached to her left hand. She peered at the snapshot of Maureen and Dyese. “But there are women out there. I know. I used to be one of them.”
“How did it happen to you?” I asked.
“Drugs, honey.” She laughed. “I used to be an office manager for a big law firm, over in the city. Really high-pressure job. Thought a little heroin would calm me down at the end of the day. It was a good life, but I shot it all into my arm. I lost everything. Wound up sleeping in People’s Park.” At the look on my face, Betty smiled. “It’s okay, honey. I’ve been off the junk two years, eight months, and four days. But who’s counting?”
“If you used to hang out on Telegraph, maybe you can help me.”
“Maybe. Of course, I was stoned most of the time. Too stoned to know how stupid I was. There I was sleeping out in the open, which is damned dangerous for a woman. God looks after fools, I guess.” Betty laughed again, a pleasant whiskey rumble. She handed me the photo.
“This girl, she’s young. Most of the ones I see hanging out in the park are older, in their thirties or forties. And I’d sure as hell notice a baby. Families are a small percentage of the homeless here in Berkeley, but the numbers are growing.” She shook her head. “No, we get lots of men through here. In this part of town, most of them are black. You check the women’s shelters? There’s one on Harrison Street and another on McKinley Street.”
“Yes, both places. No luck there. None of the people at either shelter had any recollection of Maureen or her daughter. One of the shelter workers told me it was likely Maureen would have avoided a shelter, afraid social services might take her daughter.”
“And put her where?” Betty countered. “In a foster home? From what I hear, there aren’t e
nough of those. I think the social workers try to keep kids with their mothers. But if the mother is panhandling in front of Cody’s...” She stopped and shook her head.
“If Maureen had the baby with her at all,” I added. “My source, who’s a street merchant, didn’t see the child the last time she saw Maureen. Maybe she left the baby with someone. But who would she trust? That’s why I’m looking for this man called Rio. She was seen with him several times up on Telegraph, so he may know something.”
“He may not get down this way. You say he’s Hispanic or Native American?”
“Described to me that way. Mid-forties, tall...”
Before I could give Betty any more details, a man in work clothes came through the center’s front door and looked around. His eyes went around the room and settled on Betty and me. “Understand you run a hauling service,” he said gruffly.
“That’s right,” Betty said. “We’ve got our own truck, a pickup. Workers get paid six bucks an hour, supervisor eight bucks an hour. You got a job?”
“Sure do. I can use about ten guys...” The rest of what the man said was drowned out as the homeless men who had, up until now, been sitting on chairs or sofas stood and crowded around him, volunteering to be part of the crew he was putting together.
“’Scuse me, honey,” Betty said, getting to her feet. “I got to go direct traffic for a minute.”
I watched her wade into the group, a voice of authority in the raucous circle swirling around the man who was besieged by potential laborers. Then I sensed a presence at my elbow. He was a short skinny guy enveloped in olive-drab clothes that looked as though they came from an army surplus store. He carried a pail with a spray bottle and a squeegee. He must have been one of the homeless men who went from store to store, or approached people in parking lots, offering to wash windows. He smiled at me, stained teeth in a dark face.
“I heard you say something about Rio,” he said, hovering.
“You know him?” I asked.
“I heard of him.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “He’s a mean guy, hangs out up on Telegraph.”
“Why do you say he’s mean?”
“He sells drugs. Runs people off, if he don’t want them on his patch. I used to stay up on Telegraph but I came down to Shattuck. He run me off.” Now he ducked his head. “Said I was bothering his girls.”
The way he said it made me envision Rio as a pimp running a stable of prostitutes. I didn’t like the image any more than I did the constant refrain I was hearing about Rio and drugs. For some reason I didn’t want Maureen to have been involved with either vice.
“Any idea where I can find him?”
The man shook his head. “Just up on Telegraph. People’s Park, you know.”
Betty had walked back to me and heard this last. “I was going to suggest the Multi-Service Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. I’m drawing a blank on Rio. I think I’ve heard the name before, but I can’t put a face to it. Anyway, the other center is a mail drop for a lot of the street people. Also has a phone message service. Maybe this Rio passes through there sometimes. But most folks stick to one area. Guys who hang out here in South Berkeley don’t go up by the campus. Except Wayne, here. You like to move around don’t you?”
“Change of scenery,” he said with a nod.
A couple of guys in the corner got into a heated discussion, and before I could thank her Betty moved away, to referee. I walked toward the center door, past a sagging sofa where a woman was stretched out I thought she was asleep, but as I passed she sat up and stared right at me.
“Hey, you,” she said, running a hand through her short dark hair. She was probably in her thirties, wearing faded blue jeans and several layers of sweaters. Her mouth was a pugnacious line in her long narrow face, and her dark brown eyes were wary and appraising as she looked me over. “You really a private eye?”
I stopped. “Yes. You hear what Betty and I were talking about?”
“Heard everything. Don’t pay no mind to that guy with the squeegee. He’s a creep. Can’t keep his dick in his pants. You know what I mean?”
I nodded, waiting for her to continue. She swung her legs over, feet on the floor, and rummaged in the backpack she’d been using as a pillow. She drew out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one. She swept her left hand in a gesture that encompassed the room.
“A lot of these guys think because a woman don’t have a place to sleep, she’s gonna spread her legs for them. Well, they’re full of shit. I hear this guy Rio keeps guys like that from hassling women.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mukisa,” she said, with an upward tilt of her head. “It’s an African name, means good luck. I picked it out of a book.”
I sat down next to Mukisa and took the photo of Maureen and Dyese from my shoulder bag. “This is the girl I was talking about. Have you seen her?”
Mukisa examined the snapshot, holding it gingerly by the edges. Then she gave it back to me. “Seen a lot of white girls with colored babies, but not this one. Be hard living like this with a baby. Diapers and all that stuff. Hard enough keeping myself clean, particularly when I got my period. I can get a shower evenings over at Willard School, but I sure don’t like going over there at night.”
“Where do you sleep? Do you go to one of the women’s shelters?”
Mukisa grimaced. “No, thanks. Those shelters are damned bad. But it ain’t safe to sleep outside. I try to get me enough money together for one of those hotels over on Telegraph. That and a bag of groceries. Why you looking for this girl?”
“I’m not looking for her. I’m looking for the child. The mother’s dead.”
“Somebody kill her?” When I confirmed this, Mukisa shook her head and blew smoke out one side of her mouth. “Damn. Bad enough having to live like this without some creep killing street people.” She ground the cigarette out in an ashtray on a nearby table. “You give me your card, Miss Detective. I hear anything on the street, I’ll get word to you.”
“Fair enough.” I slipped her one of my business cards along with a couple of twenties, wondering if that would be enough for her cheap hotel. Then I went outside into the rain that washed like gray despair over the low, huddled buildings of South Berkeley.
Twenty
BY MID-AFTERNOON A HEADACHE HAD POUNDED ITS way into my head. Too much coffee, too much smoke from other people’s cigarettes, and I hadn’t eaten since my meeting with Lauren that morning. Of course, a lot of people I’d talked with had gone a longer space of time without a meal.
After I parked outside the Berkeley Multi-Service Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, I rummaged around in the glove compartment of the Toyota and unearthed a bottle of aspirin. I pried open the lid, shook out a couple of tablets, and swallowed them with a mouthful of tepid water from a large plastic bottle I kept in the car.
I walked into the center and worked my way through several counselors before I found one who was willing to take a few minutes to answer my questions. His name was Hotchkiss, a tired-looking man in his forties, with thinning gray hair receding from a high forehead.
“We provide all sorts of services for Berkeley’s homeless population,” he said “We give out temporary housing vouchers, help people find jobs. We also get medical and psychological care for them. And detox programs for those with substance abuse problems. We have about a hundred people a day cycle through here.”
“I get the feeling that ‘homeless population’ is an elastic term. Just how many people are we talking about? What’s the ratio of men to women?”
“It’s hard to get an accurate count,” Hotchkiss explained. “Well over a thousand people, maybe as many as twelve or thirteen hundred. I’d guess men outnumber women three-to-one. The reason it’s difficult to get numbers is that people are so mobile these days. Their situations change rapidly. For example, a guy who’s lost his job could stay with family or friends until the welcome that wears out. Then he goes to a shelter at night, or checks into those
cheap hotels like the ones on the Oakland end of Telegraph. Maybe he lives in his car or camps out in a park. Or he spends the day in Berkeley, then gets a bed in a shelter in Oakland or Richmond.”
“Why are these people homeless?” I asked, sweeping the center with a glance.
Now Hotchkiss frowned and shook his head. “That’s the million-dollar question. They fall through the cracks, I guess. Some of those cracks used to be covered up, by family. But a lot of these people are disconnected from their families. Jobs keep disappearing and there’s more competition for the ones that are left. Social services continue to be cut. So the cracks are getting wider.” He sighed. “Those are the externals. The internals are more difficult to deal with. I’ve heard estimates that a third of the city’s homeless population is mentally ill. Probably half or even two-thirds have problems with drugs or alcohol.”
I was quiet for a moment, digesting the numbers the counselor had tossed out. I’d always been aware that many of the people I saw on the streets of Bay Area cities had problems. I had no idea the percentages were so high. I’d seen such people on the street corner, talking to themselves or whatever personal demons lurk below the surface. Sometimes the demons came screaming out, released by booze or drugs. For others, the chemicals held the monsters in check.
The phone next to the counselor rang and his fingers danced toward it. But someone else picked up the line and the pealing stopped.
“I understand this center acts as a mail drop and a phone message center,” I said.
Hotchkiss nodded. “A lot of our people get government checks, like SSI, General Assistance, or Social Security. We handle finances if they want us to, so they don’t have to carry their money with them. They don’t have bank accounts. They cash their checks, stash their money on them. It gets pretty damned dangerous out there right after the checks come in. Homeless people are easy prey for every predator on the streets.”
“What kind of predators?” I asked.