The Umbrella Assassin
The Military Police crowded into the room, guns drawn, shouting to the few off-duty soldiers, "Face down! On the Floor! NOW!" The party was suddenly over... in a strange turn...
The day before, it had seemed such a good idea: the good buddies had a few days to literally kill. Being stationed in Korea, while war was raging in Vietnam, was as close to either heaven or hell that a boy from Watsonville could wish for. One buddy knew another and so a circle of deceit was formed: an MP jeep, a penthouse in Seoul, an overabundance of liquor, and two days off... maybe it was heaven after all... meanwhile...
President Nixon could probably think of nothing useful for his Vice President to do, so he sent him on an Asian tour. In the funny way the Universe -- at least on occasion works, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew arrived in Seoul and was protectively escorted by Korean police and American military personnel to the very same hotel of our good buddies. One of our number, Michael, was looking out of the window and noticed the arriving procession of black cars and jeeps. Persuaded by alcohol, Michael grabbed an umbrella, opened the window, and briefly made as if the umbrella was a rifle, before laughing and turning to his buddies as a wannabe comedian. Vigorous toasting of the "Umbrella Assassin" was soon interrupted by the breaking down of the door... "Hey! We don't have any guns! That was just an umbrella!" The MP's quickly searched the room before saying, "Soldier, you just scared the shit out of the Vice President of the United States! This party is over! Move out!"
It really isn't a very long way from Watsonville to Korea... and back again. Michael successfully made the journey, and like most men, followed the itch of loneliness into work and marriage, but somehow things were never any better than just okay. Surviving -- always just surviving -- is a depressing way to live, and the occasional poke naturally resulted in a child: a son, to a man increasingly present only to the fog of work and alcohol... Eventually, the woman did what forgotten women have done for ages, one day she just forgot to come home, but she remembered to take their son, and disappeared... The slow burn of anger, resentment, depression, and self-incrimination fueled the off-hours alcohol... which steadily impacted work performance... which led to the loss of work and a trail of extending failures... each one chipping away at a soul, until only a brutalized core remained housed in a homeless body...
"Hurry! There's a fight in the Day Room!", yelled a volunteer.
"Ah", I groaned to myself, here we go again: and in the back of my mind I wondered if I was going to "get it" today. I crashed through the green doors separating the Kitchen from the day shelter and immediately stumbled upon two bodies writhing on the floor -- each trying to kill the other. I jumped into the fray, which attracted the assistance of a couple of my homeless brothers, and we successfully wrestled a knife from the hand of the man I would soon meet: Michael. The warring parties separated, the knife securely in the right hands, and it was time again to breathe...
Time has a weird way of bending in several directions at once the closer one gets to the core of things: oh sure, there were other fights, like when a taunting Nicky Kirby got a milk crate to the side of his head and another that broke his arm... and Michael got some time in the County jail... But, at the very same time, an interesting group began to form in Dorothy's Place: there were Eleanor and Jose, brother and sister, addicts, small-time dealers, and street-hustlers. Jose was gay, which was both useful for surviving on the street and always a calling-card for the brutal to strike. Eleanor had been abused as a kid, and raped a number of times on the street as an adult, and for protection had become a resourceful member of a Mexican street gang. Then there was "Grandma" Emily, a beautiful elderly Mexican woman with long gray hair and a kindness hardened by necessity... And Jim, a Vietnam War veteran who loved his dogs as family, but couldn't trust that any human wouldn't, sooner-or-later, break his heart: but goddamn it, even his dogs would eventually die, and the consuming grief of unworthiness would compel another dalliance with heroin, or crack, or anything that would erase his mind still catapulting him every night back into the jungles of Nam and the killing, the endless killing... Others came to be part of this circle, but were always kept at a certain distance, like Pam and Dwain and Slow-Motion Bob... I suppose that the common ground upon which they each stood was the surety they claimed from my love: even when a forty pound case of meat refrigerated for tomorrow's BBQ disappeared during their volunteer shift and I tossed them all from the Kitchen for thirty days (no one ever let on who took the meat: I was certain they all celebrated with one heck-of-a private dinner...), they each knew they had a secure place in my heart, which was absolutely true, and was also my great consolation... What a motley crew!
But here's the thing: how do any one of us deal with the pain life sends our way? Now don't give me the least little line of crap -- I don't want to hear it! Life is goddamn hard! If your heart has never been broken (or not been broken over and over again); if you've never been abandoned by those you trusted; if you've never been forgotten by your children; if you've never been looked at with utter contempt and revulsion; if you've never been told you're unworthy of love; if you've never been fired from your work; if you've never been awake night after night fearing for your life; if you've never been lied to and lied yourself to escape one consequence for another; if you've never endured while you watched others crash and burn -- and then... and then... and then came, inching-by-surprising-inch, into the risk of giving mercy to someone just as fucked-up as yourself... Well, if somehow you've gotten however far you are in life without any of this coming your way, well then blessings -- or the pox! -- on you!
Michael started to volunteer in the Kitchen: grumpy, even foul on occasion: but he would keep showing up. A sense of humor also started to show up along with his apron, but the funny thing was how he would try to keep his kindness "under wraps". "You know", he would say, "the street is never safe. You've got to watch your back. But it makes me feel good to cook a good meal and maybe make someone's day by doing something special." Oh, he'd always yell if you came in late and the chili was all gone... but there was always something... especially for the strung-out, skinny-almost-see-through-ladies of the street... "Oh that Michael! I'm always late and he always yells at me! Does he always have to yell? But he always helps me: he's so sweet! I'd take him home with me if I had a home!"
Volunteering for Michael became his recovery program -- not the end of his alcoholism, no! -- but his recovery! Not everything can be cured, just ask any doctor or minister. But it's really not the curing that we need: it's the loving: not the one-way kind, not the "I'm loving you because I'm good" sort of loving. But the "goddamn that was one-hell-of-a ride" kind: the kind that can listen to a story and say, "Wow, maybe that wasn't so bad, listen to what happened to me... or to what I did"... It is by loving, without agendas or attachments, that our loving is proven to be real: "Hey Michael! We had a chance to love each other! Isn't that something? Hey Michael! We cooked some real good soup, didn't we? We helped some folks, right? So what if we're still a couple of fuck-ups: we're at least in great company!" And so it goes with love: we invited Michael into our home: he didn't trust us at first, he knew for certain that once we really got to know him we'd kick him out like everyone else in his life always did... We said, "No Michael... we won't kick you out! Just be nice. Show up for your shift sober. And be nice some more!"
Hundreds of families come over to the House during the winter months for food bags: farm worker families who are not following the crops but staying in the neighborhood because they want a good education for their kids. Michael has coordinated the project for years... while still taking a cooking shift in Dorothy's... and working on Sundays as Church Groups come into the Kitchen to volunteer: Michael is there: grumpy and welcoming at the very same time... The "Umbrella Assassin" with the soup ladle, the bag of beans, the quick talk about baseball, the ready wit, and the encouraging word, "Look at me. I did it and so can you!" Everyone knows that Michael didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't: but what does any of that matter? He learned how to give away love to the lost, the lonely, and the broken: and in that giving, he was never healed -- neither was I -- ah, but we did love! "Do you hear me, Universe! Michael and I learned how to love! You can take away everything else, but that you cannot take: for we give it to you, too."
That's it... and that's just about everything...
Based on a True Story
-- Robert Daniel Smith
This is lovers' work, to break through and become the earth, to die before we die. -- Rumi
The Military Police crowded into the room, guns drawn, shouting to the few off-duty soldiers, "Face down! On the Floor! NOW!" The party was suddenly over... in a strange turn...
The day before, it had seemed such a good idea: the good buddies had a few days to literally kill. Being stationed in Korea, while war was raging in Vietnam, was as close to either heaven or hell that a boy from Watsonville could wish for. One buddy knew another and so a circle of deceit was formed: an MP jeep, a penthouse in Seoul, an overabundance of liquor, and two days off... maybe it was heaven after all... meanwhile...
President Nixon could probably think of nothing useful for his Vice President to do, so he sent him on an Asian tour. In the funny way the Universe -- at least on occasion works, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew arrived in Seoul and was protectively escorted by Korean police and American military personnel to the very same hotel of our good buddies. One of our number, Michael, was looking out of the window and noticed the arriving procession of black cars and jeeps. Persuaded by alcohol, Michael grabbed an umbrella, opened the window, and briefly made as if the umbrella was a rifle, before laughing and turning to his buddies as a wannabe comedian. Vigorous toasting of the "Umbrella Assassin" was soon interrupted by the breaking down of the door... "Hey! We don't have any guns! That was just an umbrella!" The MP's quickly searched the room before saying, "Soldier, you just scared the shit out of the Vice President of the United States! This party is over! Move out!"
It really isn't a very long way from Watsonville to Korea... and back again. Michael successfully made the journey, and like most men, followed the itch of loneliness into work and marriage, but somehow things were never any better than just okay. Surviving -- always just surviving -- is a depressing way to live, and the occasional poke naturally resulted in a child: a son, to a man increasingly present only to the fog of work and alcohol... Eventually, the woman did what forgotten women have done for ages, one day she just forgot to come home, but she remembered to take their son, and disappeared... The slow burn of anger, resentment, depression, and self-incrimination fueled the off-hours alcohol... which steadily impacted work performance... which led to the loss of work and a trail of extending failures... each one chipping away at a soul, until only a brutalized core remained housed in a homeless body...
"Hurry! There's a fight in the Day Room!", yelled a volunteer.
"Ah", I groaned to myself, here we go again: and in the back of my mind I wondered if I was going to "get it" today. I crashed through the green doors separating the Kitchen from the day shelter and immediately stumbled upon two bodies writhing on the floor -- each trying to kill the other. I jumped into the fray, which attracted the assistance of a couple of my homeless brothers, and we successfully wrestled a knife from the hand of the man I would soon meet: Michael. The warring parties separated, the knife securely in the right hands, and it was time again to breathe...
Time has a weird way of bending in several directions at once the closer one gets to the core of things: oh sure, there were other fights, like when a taunting Nicky Kirby got a milk crate to the side of his head and another that broke his arm... and Michael got some time in the County jail... But, at the very same time, an interesting group began to form in Dorothy's Place: there were Eleanor and Jose, brother and sister, addicts, small-time dealers, and street-hustlers. Jose was gay, which was both useful for surviving on the street and always a calling-card for the brutal to strike. Eleanor had been abused as a kid, and raped a number of times on the street as an adult, and for protection had become a resourceful member of a Mexican street gang. Then there was "Grandma" Emily, a beautiful elderly Mexican woman with long gray hair and a kindness hardened by necessity... And Jim, a Vietnam War veteran who loved his dogs as family, but couldn't trust that any human wouldn't, sooner-or-later, break his heart: but goddamn it, even his dogs would eventually die, and the consuming grief of unworthiness would compel another dalliance with heroin, or crack, or anything that would erase his mind still catapulting him every night back into the jungles of Nam and the killing, the endless killing... Others came to be part of this circle, but were always kept at a certain distance, like Pam and Dwain and Slow-Motion Bob... I suppose that the common ground upon which they each stood was the surety they claimed from my love: even when a forty pound case of meat refrigerated for tomorrow's BBQ disappeared during their volunteer shift and I tossed them all from the Kitchen for thirty days (no one ever let on who took the meat: I was certain they all celebrated with one heck-of-a private dinner...), they each knew they had a secure place in my heart, which was absolutely true, and was also my great consolation... What a motley crew!
But here's the thing: how do any one of us deal with the pain life sends our way? Now don't give me the least little line of crap -- I don't want to hear it! Life is goddamn hard! If your heart has never been broken (or not been broken over and over again); if you've never been abandoned by those you trusted; if you've never been forgotten by your children; if you've never been looked at with utter contempt and revulsion; if you've never been told you're unworthy of love; if you've never been fired from your work; if you've never been awake night after night fearing for your life; if you've never been lied to and lied yourself to escape one consequence for another; if you've never endured while you watched others crash and burn -- and then... and then... and then came, inching-by-surprising-inch, into the risk of giving mercy to someone just as fucked-up as yourself... Well, if somehow you've gotten however far you are in life without any of this coming your way, well then blessings -- or the pox! -- on you!
Michael started to volunteer in the Kitchen: grumpy, even foul on occasion: but he would keep showing up. A sense of humor also started to show up along with his apron, but the funny thing was how he would try to keep his kindness "under wraps". "You know", he would say, "the street is never safe. You've got to watch your back. But it makes me feel good to cook a good meal and maybe make someone's day by doing something special." Oh, he'd always yell if you came in late and the chili was all gone... but there was always something... especially for the strung-out, skinny-almost-see-through-ladies of the street... "Oh that Michael! I'm always late and he always yells at me! Does he always have to yell? But he always helps me: he's so sweet! I'd take him home with me if I had a home!"
Volunteering for Michael became his recovery program -- not the end of his alcoholism, no! -- but his recovery! Not everything can be cured, just ask any doctor or minister. But it's really not the curing that we need: it's the loving: not the one-way kind, not the "I'm loving you because I'm good" sort of loving. But the "goddamn that was one-hell-of-a ride" kind: the kind that can listen to a story and say, "Wow, maybe that wasn't so bad, listen to what happened to me... or to what I did"... It is by loving, without agendas or attachments, that our loving is proven to be real: "Hey Michael! We had a chance to love each other! Isn't that something? Hey Michael! We cooked some real good soup, didn't we? We helped some folks, right? So what if we're still a couple of fuck-ups: we're at least in great company!" And so it goes with love: we invited Michael into our home: he didn't trust us at first, he knew for certain that once we really got to know him we'd kick him out like everyone else in his life always did... We said, "No Michael... we won't kick you out! Just be nice. Show up for your shift sober. And be nice some more!"
Hundreds of families come over to the House during the winter months for food bags: farm worker families who are not following the crops but staying in the neighborhood because they want a good education for their kids. Michael has coordinated the project for years... while still taking a cooking shift in Dorothy's... and working on Sundays as Church Groups come into the Kitchen to volunteer: Michael is there: grumpy and welcoming at the very same time... The "Umbrella Assassin" with the soup ladle, the bag of beans, the quick talk about baseball, the ready wit, and the encouraging word, "Look at me. I did it and so can you!" Everyone knows that Michael didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't: but what does any of that matter? He learned how to give away love to the lost, the lonely, and the broken: and in that giving, he was never healed -- neither was I -- ah, but we did love! "Do you hear me, Universe! Michael and I learned how to love! You can take away everything else, but that you cannot take: for we give it to you, too."
That's it... and that's just about everything...
Based on a True Story
-- Robert Daniel Smith
This is lovers' work, to break through and become the earth, to die before we die. -- Rumi