From Waitress to Homeless

Tara woke up and tried to reach her emaciated arms toward the sky. Golden light shone through the canopy of a tree above. The pale blue sky created a perfect canvas — tufts of cotton candy pink and baby blue clouds drifted lazily— showing off without meaning to.

Embarrassed, Tara wrinkled her nose at her own fowl stench, and turned her head behind her, trying to turn away from herself.

"I am homeless," Tara thought to herself. She hadn’t always been homeless.

She rubbed her knobby ankles and turned her head toward the dumpster she’d slept by all night.

It had become her new resting spot. The pale, beige dumpster, often overflowing, sat outside a government-subsidized apartment complex. Tara slept on the side obscured from the pale, blue brick apartments.

A law office was on the other side. As long as she lay down after 7pm each night, no one seemed to be in the office. She was also hidden from street view.

She felt safer here. Safer here than at the centers or roaming the streets in wild packs.

***

Garbage trucks were sounding before most people's morning alarm clocks. Workers leaned against the moving trash trucks.

“Boise Street next?!” Tara thought she heard.

Boise Street. Quaint houses-lined Boise Street. How she’d love to walk into a house on Boise Street, take a ridiculously hot shower, go to bed, and wake up to a home cooked meal.

***

Takeout containers, pop bottles, chip bags, rotting meat, and vegetables were tossed without a thought onto the trucks.

Tara’s mouth watered.

She hadn’t eaten much for two days.

Hurrying, she looked in the dumpster to see what she could scavenge before the dumpster service came later in the morning.

Bingo. A bottle of water and a takeout container with barely touched ribs and Texas toast. She sat with her back against the cool metal and ate the food. She’d save the water for later. It needed to be portioned out in case she didn’t find any later in the day.

“Hello, there.” Startled, Tara looked up and saw a short, stout woman with strawberry blonde hair standing a few feet from her.

***

“Hello. Umm, I’m sorry.” Tara stuttered.

Dammit. Why did she say she was sorry? Tara thought to herself. Because you’re sorry for living right now, for anyone seeing you like this. She answered back.

Warmly, the woman extended her hand and said, “I’m Mary. And, I’m sorry, too.”

Tara wondered why Mary was sorry and why she’d stopped to talk with her, and why she was looking her in the eye like she was a normal, run-of-the-mill human being you’d greet in the grocery store on a Saturday morning.

Mary was dressed in a crisp, navy pant suit with sensible beige heels that precisely matched the color of the dumpster.

“I’m Tara,” Tara said, extending her hand. She couldn’t will a smile, but she felt her facial muscles relax from her usual fearful and angry animal-grimace.

“Tara,” Mary said, “I see you’re having a bit of trouble. Please take this,” and Mary handed Tara an envelope. “I’m late for work. I wish I could do more. Maybe this will help a bit though.” She turned on her beige heels and walked toward the law building.

What in the world? Tara thought to herself. How strange. She thought she’d been hiding better than that. She hunched over the envelope so no prying, curious eyes would see, and looked inside.

Two crisp one hundred dollar bills and a sticky note.

I see you from my office window. I wish I could give you more, but I’m a single mom with three kids, trying to make it myself. My thought is you can use this money to treat yourself to a night at a hotel. I thought about what I’d like if I didn’t have a home. My mind kept coming to food, water, a hot shower, and a bed to sleep on. ~Mary

At first, Tara had been a little irritated that this middle-aged woman who didn’t know her at all ventured to advise her on what to do with the money.

Oh, yes. She was grateful for it, but when you are homeless two hundred dollars doesn’t take you far. It could feed you for a bit. It could buy you some new clothes.

What two hundred dollars couldn’t do: put a deposit down on a place to live. That felt like the most pressing thing. Maybe Tara should save the money and add her can-coin money to it until she had enough for a deposit.

But, no one would let her rent a place without a job.

***

Tara lost her job when the restaurant she’d worked at for twenty years closed its doors. She’d never had to write a resume. She’d never interviewed except to walk into her old job, ask for a job washing dishes, and get it. Eventually, she was promoted to waitress.

She didn’t make much, but she made enough to rent an efficiency and pay the bills. The restaurant let her eat leftover chicken fried steak, burgers, fries, and salad at the end of the day.

Then, poof. It was all gone.

The job. The leftovers. Security. Camaraderie.

She missed her coworkers. Her family was all dead. Every last one of them. Depression cloaked her. The gravity of it all slowly, surely — layer upon layer — wrapped itself around her.

***

Back then, she’d sat on the flowered, sunshine yellow loveseat in her efficiency, looking out the window, wondering what happened when you didn’t pay the rent or the bills.

First, off went the lights, then the refrigerator, then the oven.

Second, the water.

Third, someone taped an eviction notice to her window.

Tara read it and took a walk to the park. She watched the birds sing and fly and wondered why she couldn’t just be a bird whose job it was to find worms, grubs, nuts, and seeds, trees in which to sleep and a mate for life.

Resigned, she walked back to the efficiency.

***

All her things were strewn on the front lawn. Tara sank into the pile of clothes and sobbed. No one came near her.

Not one person cared.

She grabbed a large purse and put a few essentials in it.

Her dead cell phone. Some clothes. A tube of rose lipstick. All the pantry food and bottled water she had left.

The bag was overflowing. Tara walked away, frightened and angry that this was her lot in life.

***

Now she was used to it.

Living poor.

Tara walked to a hotel about half a mile away. The soles of her shoes flapped loosely against sparkling concrete.

Determination and grit consumed her.

“May I help you?” The concierge looked Tara over and greeted her eyes with a look of annoyance.

“Yes, sir, I’d like a room for the evening.”

“We don’t rent by the hour.”

“Good.” Tara stood up straight, looked the fool-man in the eyes, laid $100 dollars on the counter, and said, “I said I want a room for the night.”

Quietly, the fool-man handled the transaction and gave Tara a room key. 222.

That seemed like a lucky number.

***

Tara rode the elevator up to the second floor and found Room 222. She swiped the key in the card reader and opened the door. She shut the heavy wooden door behind her and looked around the room.

A queen sized bed with a crisp, clean comforter. A mini fridge. A microwave. A coffee maker with single serving coffee packs and cups. A bathroom.

A shower — a big shower.

A window with a view of the city. A television. A desk and three chairs.

It smelled clean.

Tara relaxed her shoulders and took a deep breath.

Tara unpacked the clothes she’d purchased at the Dollar Store on the way. Plain pants and a plain shirt. New undergarments. New socks. A nightgown. And, a new pair of flat shoes. It’d cost her $20. She hoped it’d be worth the splurge.

After taking a shower and scrubbing clean with the hottest water she could stand, she put on the nightgown she’d bought. It was time to plan. On a hotel notepad, she scribbled:

• Take all pens, notepads, toiletries, etc when you leave
• Coffee in the morning
• FREE breakfast in the morning
• Type resume in the morning (?) At least try — print several copies
• Look for job listings in the morning
• Shower, new clothes, rose lipstick
• Find a resource for homeless women nearby and drop in to ask for help
• Apply for jobs in person

Tara put the cap back on the pen. She didn’t know if her plan would work out, but she was feeling a tinge of hope.

She’d chosen this hotel for all its amenities.

She lay on the crisp white sheets and turned on the television. The noise assaulted Tara's senses. She switched it back off. Tara closed her eyes and imagined the hard ground she’d woken up on just this morning. Silently, she thanked Mary.

Mary who'd cared about her. Who'd generously gifted her $200.

Tara hoped she’d be able to swing by the law office soon to thank Mary personally.

***

A previous version appears in Age of Empathy.