Blessed Is The Kingdom

Poor people come and go in a day’s time, sometimes, and you never see them again. They rent or squat rather than buying homes, and when things go badly for them, they disappear.

My friend I met in the worst part of the neighborhood, when he had nothing but beans and rice to feed his picky children, stopped to talk to me whenever I passed his apartment for the whole summer. He introduced me to his boy and girl; he showed me his dog, the dog he’d gotten before he became too poor for such luxuries as pets. He showed me how he caught bees with his bare hands.

Then, one day as I was walking by, I saw him coming out of his house, and I waved as usual, but he didn’t answer. He ushered his wife and children quickly into the car and they drove off, anxious-faced and silent. As I walked back the other way, I saw why: a truck pulled up from the pay-by-the-month furniture rental company. The driver got out and knocked; he peeked in the windows to see if anyone was there.

My friend had defaulted. He couldn’t pay the bill, and they’d come to take their property back. He’d apparently been evicted as well. A few weeks later, I walked by to see the door to his apartment propped open and a pile of trash on the sidewalk. The pile grew bigger week after week– rotted drywall, a sofa that was at least twenty years old, a toilet. It’s still there. The trash collectors won’t pick it up because it’s not in bags.

I haven’t seen my friend since.  I hope they found a place to stay, but there’s a good chance they’re homeless. We’re all one mistake away from homelessness, all the time.

We moved away from the horrible neighborhood last year, into a  better neighborhood. That was where I met Ezra, the little boy with epilepsy and autism, who became my daughter’s best friend. His mother can’t work. She’s tried, but she can’t hold a job because she has to leave work and rush to the Pittsburgh Children’s hospital if Ezra has a seizure at the special needs school. They live for the fifth of the month, just like we do, and they long for the day they can move out of this town just as we do.

One night, just before bed, we were startled by an ambulance blaring up the street. Red and blue lights flashed off the walls, through the window; I looked outside.

It was in front of Ezra’s house.

My daughter ran out to the sidewalk with me, barefoot. We watched the medics rushing inside with a first aid kit. We watched the heads moving back and forth in the front window– Ezra’s mother was moving, so they weren’t there for her. We saw Ezra’s older sister, hugging the baby, so they weren’t there for them. They were there for Ezra. He’d had another bad seizure.

My daughter held my hand without a word, until the medics left. Ezra’s mother came out sheepishly and announced to the crowd on the sidewalk that Ezra was okay– he’d had a seizure that went on too long, he’d turned blue, but he was all right now. He was only afraid, because he was terrified of loud noises and thought the medics would turn on their siren as they drove away.

Rose was afraid as well. She didn’t speak about what she’d seen that night, or the next day. But the night after that, she came to me, wide-eyed.