Saturday on the soup line

On September 16, I participated in a street retreat. Facilitated as an immersion exercise to understand homelessness, it was organized by the Faithful Fools, a street ministry operating in the heart of the Tenderloin. Retreat organizers Reverend Kay and Sister Carmen informed the group of 14 people in the morning orientation that the section of San Francisco got its name because its economy depended on the tenderloins of women.

Instruction included a map of the area, marked with the soup kitchens where lunch would be served, and a mantra to hold us together in the time that we would spend apart. We practiced the words and a melody that we could call upon in our five-hour solitary journey along the city streets that house the homeless. “What holds us separate, what keeps us separated, as we walk the streets, what connects us?

I wasn’t sure what the mantra meant but I was intrigued by the difference it struck between being separate and being separated.

We walked as a group to the Faithful Fools building on Hyde Street. We were instructed to return at 3:00 p.m. The group dispersed quickly. I checked the time on my cell phone. It was 10:25 a.m.

At first, my wanderings weren’t too different than what I had been doing in Berkeley. With the mission to witness the lives and experience of the homeless, I did not feel free to walk in and out of stores and do my habitual checking out of product and pricing in the neighborhood. But as I walked past restaurants, dry cleaners, Laundromats, and a variety of retail stores, I wondered about the connection between the shop owners and the destitute people who slept against the buildings or congregated in groups talking.

Mothers walked with their children. An elderly couple picked up bottles. Well-dressed people made quick drug deals. People slept. The police hassled two women, who I assumed were prostitutes.

I had a conversation with a man with a tattooed face, who was immaculately dressed in black leather. He wore a necklace and bracelets that were covered with spikes. His teeth had been individually filed into points.

“I really need some of these connectors for my new surround-sound stereo,” he said as I passed him and an unattended table covered with goods. “They would be cheaper here then at Radio Shack. I don’t want to steal them. But, if I put a dollar in this plate, someone will just take it.”

I paused, surveyed the table and suggested that if he put the dollar under the plate of connectors, the only person who would see it would be the person who packed up the table. He wasn’t convinced that was a good idea and surmised that the police had hauled off the person who owned the table. “They’re cracking down,” he said to me as I moved off.

“Good luck with the stereo,” I said.

I made my way to the soup line. I talked to attendant at the door to make sure that there would be enough food for all. He told me there was never a shortage, that people could return to the line as many times as they choose and that bags were available to take food home. Lunch, he said, was served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:35 p.m. Seniors, families and those who were not able to stand in line were served first. He said that he too had been homeless until he finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

“Now I work 40 hours. This job,” he said, gesturing around him, “is 24/7.”

I walked to the end of the line. I had a conversation with a man named Dennis. He said he had a job but that the free food helped him to make ends meet. He lived nearby in an apartment.

Once in the basement of St. Andrews, I was handed a compartmentalized tray filled with tuna casserole, steamed squash, a fresh plum, a piece of bread with butter, half a donut and a glass of lemonade. I ate a bit, and then offered to switch trays with the transvestite who had hungrily eaten her meal next to me. She accepted my tray without comment or conversation. As I left, I saw her get in line again.

I wandered over to the Civic Center Plaza on Market Street, the edge of the Tenderloin which buts up against the theater district. By the fountains there, a drumming circle had formed. People were dancing on the big stone pillars, making out and drinking out of small hip flasks. I sat for a long while before making my way back. Walking past a restaurant with a clock, I was amazed it was only 12:20 p.m.

I was tried of walking and the hot sun. I had neither a hat nor sunglasses. There were no benches and all of the stairways were gated. I found half of a stoop on the shady side of the street and sat down, tucking my backpack under my legs. People passed me by without much of a glance and I wondered if they thought I was homeless. It was the first time that I experienced anxiety.

Sitting on the ground, I could not monitor both directions and felt vulnerable. Still with nothing to do and nowhere to go, I sat for a long while. Feeling a bit out of the flow, I moved to a place where there would be more action. Sitting on a pile of newspapers, I watched some men load a truck.

When I tired of that, I checked the time in another storefront window. Fifty minutes had passed.

I found my way back to the mission and joined the crowd that was hanging there. I sat and watched people greeting friends, singing songs, and generally communing together. I was startled into reality when a man peed into a building corner some two feet away from me. His footsteps were moist as he moved past me. No one was particularly interested in me and my attempts at conversation were seemingly ended when I said that I wasn’t from around there. I felt useless, my presence being no presence at all.

I relinquished my stoop to two men who were looking for a space to play chess and walked back the Faithful Fools building, some 50 minutes early. And then, perhaps by providence, a man who was sitting on the sidewalk, shoved a book into my hands and asked me if I knew what it was about.

It was a complicated book about cosmology. I flipped through it, handed it back and indicated that the subject was beyond me. We started talking about whether Pluto was still a planet and he launched into a lesson on the number of solar systems in the galaxy. I sat down, placing my backpack behind me like a pillow.

He talked about space, Star Trek, the history of various wars and whether Hillary Clinton would make a good president. I asked him how he had gotten so smart and he replied that if he was so smart then what was he doing there.

We shared easily. His presence was a gift that helped my time move forward. My presence was a gift that helped his time move forward. When I told him it was time for me to leave, he painfully got up and helped me to my feet.

What holds us separate, what keeps us separated as we walk the street, what connects us?

On my day of street retreat in the Tenderloin, I found what connects us is the sharing of the human experience, which has the ability to transcend our human circumstance.

All the rest is just how the time passes.