Rachel and Her Children (18 page)

This, then, is a case not of the breakdown of a family but of a bureaucratic mechanism that
disintegrates
the family, tearing apart a mother and father in a time of shared ordeal. Sharing pain does not merely bring relief to people under siege; it often forms a bond that gives them stronger reason to remain together later. So the efforts of the city, as belated as they were, to offer Holly shelter if she would agree to shed her child’s father, like its offer to remove her as a parent altogether and to place the child in an institution—not because the child
needed
institutional care but because the city could not give her a safe home—represent destructive social policy on several levels.

I have deleted some of the words that David spoke while Holly told me of the months after her baby’s birth. He is recounting the events of early January 1985 after Benjamin was discharged from Beth Israel. They were living in a hotel near Times Square. It appears, from what he says, that Benjamin may not yet have been entirely blind.

“Nighttime he’d be with us in our bed. I’d be here. Holly be there. He be in the middle. Plenty of nights I’d jump because I had forgot that he was there. He would work his way down in the bed. Sometimes he would get under my arm and go to sleep.

“He used to smile—sit and smile. He would gurgle and make sounds like he was tryin’ to speak. He’d go [sings a long, contented baby’s sigh] and then he’d go to sleep. Go
right
to sleep. He never cried but once.

“When she would go out I’d stay with him, give him his bath. Feedin’ him, I’d sit him on my lap. I would talk to him. He would make sounds like he was talkin’ back. Once I had him in the bathtub with me, washin’ him, and he start slidin’ down. I pick him up, he slide back down. I
let the water hit ’bout to his neck. He sit there in the water and he move his head and look at me like ‘What you doin’ to me?’ So I fed him and I got him dressed to take him for a walk. Go in the stroller. Go around the block. I have some friends. I liked to show him off.

“So I was goin’ to take him out. He fell asleep on me! I put him in the bed. I watch him. This is how he moves: He use his head.

“That mornin’, like I say: a split-second reaction. I turned around and he was slidin’ off. I could see his little feet just danglin’ in the air. I reached down. I picked him up. That was the first time that he ever cried! I just looked at him. I was amazed. I was shakin’. Four months old and he had never made a cry till then. I just sat there lookin’ at him, hopin’ that he’d cry again.

“So I set him back in bed and I laid down tryin’ to sleep. I pat him softly on his back to make him go to sleep. Soon as I close my eyes I’d open them and he is starin’ at my eyes. Then he’d close his eyes, I’d open mine, then he’ll close his, and every time I open mine he close his eyes. I just had fun with him, that’s all. I had a lot of hope during that time.”

Eight p.m. The wind is howling outside on Houston Street. I picture those men around the flaming barrel that I passed five hours before. Holly finds another cigarette, curls up on the sofa, strikes a match, and poses the question I had hoped to ask when she was done.

“Later, a reporter asked me this: ‘How do you feel? Do you feel it was the city’s fault?’ I say: ‘Yes, that’s true. I do. Hospital was the only home he ever knew. Minute he was admitted they had found me a hotel. I said: ‘Oh, that’s good! That is real good! Now he be dyin’ …’

“Seems like they do everything a little bit too late. I
couldn’t get him on my Medicaid when he was livin’. Mind you,
now
he’s on my card!” She takes out the card and reads his name. “Why do they bother with it now? When did he need it? Then? Or now?
Now
they give it to me! He be gone now almost for a year …

“So they sent me over and I went there and I had two weeks. The Hotel Carter. First they put me on the ninth floor. They had gotten me a room. It was a nice room. It had carpets on the floor. Understand that, even though the chance was slim, I was living like he’d make it still. So I thought at last I have a place for him to live.

“After a few days I came downstairs. The manager said I had to move down to a different room. He gave me this key and I went there to look. I went there to see it and it didn’t have no knob. It didn’t have no heat, no lights, and it was springtime but the nights sometimes in springtime do be chill and I was thinkin’ like my baby would be with me soon. So I asked him: ‘Are you tellin’ me I got to take my baby there? I can’t take my baby there in his condition. Nor the other children either.’ In my thinking he was with me still.

“I told the man: ‘If you had a son in his condition would you put your son into that room?’ And he said: ‘No. I wouldn’t.’ But he said I didn’t have no choice. He tell me that I have to wait till Monday to do something about electricity. I said: ‘Are you tellin’ me you want me to stay in that room with both my children until Monday mornin’ in the dark?’ There was no electric switch to switch the light. You had to use your finger. There was wires but no switch. The wires that go in the box that holds the switch, the light switch that goes up and down, you could push those wires together but you get a shock. No doorknob on the door. You
push
the door …

“I saw a woman—I think it’s his wife or daughter workin’ down there at the desk. I thought, bein’ she’s a
woman, she would understand. So I told her that my son was sick. She said: ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I told her. She says: ‘Why you want to bring him here?’ I said: ‘Can I stay please in a room that’s got a light switch and some heat? My baby has an illness.’ She just look at me and says: ‘I’ll tell you what you do. You pack up your stuff and leave right now. You can take this room or else you go.’ I said: ‘Well, I’ll have to go.’ So I bundled up my kids and I went back to EAU, and after that they sent me somewhere else.

“You know, there is something that I do not understand. With all this money that they have here in this state, in New York City, it should not be no one homeless with the money that they have. The money they take spending on these condominiums—they could be building places such as this.” She gestures with her hand. “They are out there building condominiums—beautiful places, cost five hundred dollars, that poor people can’t afford. Five hundred dollars. Way they goin’—you remember when there use to be a time when it was
high
class,
middle
class, then
poor?
Now it’s only high and poor. And gettin’ worse. If the government was doin’ what it s’posed to do, you would not be puttin’ people into places with no doorknob and no heat.”

Evicted from the Carter, she returned to welfare and was told to go back to the EAU. “I said to them: ‘By the time that I get out of here it’s goin’ to be too late. Let me call the hospital and see if he’s okay.’ If I couldn’t be there I would call the hospital three times a day. On the phone the woman told me: ‘Mrs. Peters, come right now.’ So I said: ‘What is it?’ I was thinkin’: They are goin’ to remove the shunt. I will have to sign a paper. I said: ‘Can’t you tell me on the phone?’ She said: ‘No, I have to tell you this in person.’ I went out and got a train and I went to Beth Israel. I had gotten a cold feelin’.

“On the train I said: ‘No. I ain’t goin’ to think like
that.’ So when I got to the hospital I went to his room. The bed was made. I ain’t seen none of his things, none of his toys or nothin’. I said: ‘Where’s my baby?’ And she looked at me. So I said: ‘Where’s my son?’ She like ignored me. So I said: ‘Look, I am askin’ you: Where is my baby? Did you move him to another floor?’ She said then: ‘The doctor will talk to you.’ So then his doctor, she came over. ‘Is there someplace we can go that’s quiet?’ So I say: ‘Please tell me here.’ So she said: ‘Well, umh … during the night or else this morning somehow, he, the baby got congestion and he choked. We did everything we could, but it was just too late.’ I just sat there and I started cryin’. They had took his stuff and boxed it up in boxes. I said: ‘Look. I have to go.’ So I got up and left.

“I had to make the funeral arrangements on my own. Welfare gave $250. The Coalition for the Homeless paid the rest. A man that worked at the Carter had a son who was a preacher. He preached at my baby’s funeral. I cannot recall his name. Reverend somethin’. He was good. Umhum! I don’t remember what he said. There was one part he got out the Bible. One last paragraph he said, he read it from the Bible. But the rest was from his own.”

Coalition representatives confirm her memory of the expense. The city allotted only $250 at the time to bury the dead children of poor people. An HRA employee called the coalition and requested the remaining funds required for the funeral.

“I was cryin’. Went from there to welfare. Then to EAU. I still didn’t have a place to stay. I could not go to the burial. It was some place on an island. I was thinkin’ I would go this year. Go for his birthday. As a matter of fact … we had no money to get out.

“After that the doctor said I had a nervous breakdown. I was cryin’. I was
tired
. I gave up on everythin’ from then. Everythin’, on him, on me, the kids … I knew I cared
about my other kids but now that Benjamin was gone and he was something precious that I lost … I was hurtin’ bad so when I lost him I just said … Because I had the other kids. Don’t get me wrong. But I had built my world around him for so long. I had built it in my mind: Nothin’ would happen. He was here and he would live and that was
it
. You know, I blocked it out of mind. When it happened I would not believe that he was gone. Even when I saw him in the casket I did not believe that he was gone.

“That was like almost a month. Bein’ that I had all of his clothes there and his carriage and his toys, I used to sit there every day and look at them and cry. It took me a long time. Even now I wake at six o’clock. That is the
exact
time that I used to wake and feed him, six o’clock. And do it now. When I wake I know that he’s not there. I
know
he isn’t. Only that I’m used to lookin’ for him that I still get up at six.

“Let me tell you, when he died, that man upstairs: I cursed Him out. I said: ‘Why did you have to take my baby?’ Then, you know, I said: ‘It’s over.’ So I prayed and asked for His forgiveness. Then I say: ‘He did it for a reason.’ I ain’t sayin’ He intended it. I’m just sayin’, if He took my baby, then He did it for a reason. Well, my son was sufferin’ real bad …

“It’s an island. I forget the name. I don’t think that I am ready yet. I’m not gonna say I got it stable in my mind. I’m not goin’ to tell you I accepted. In my dream, when I do dreamin’, I think that he’s there. I wake up and look for him. I do it plenty of times. Searchin’ for him. Searchin’. He’s not there.

“After I calm down, then I believe in Him again. Most definitely. I believed in Him back then, it’s just that I was wantin’. I was wantin’ him real bad. With my other two I loved them all the same, but at the time he was so sick I would of had to show a little more for him because of his
condition. I wouldn’t love him more than I love them, but I would give him more because of his condition. But, um, that was in my heart.

“My daughter, she was took real hard after he died. She cried. You had to talk to her. When he went into the hospital she took it bad. She would sit awake and cry. Umhum! Act more like she was the mother and I was the child. Like
she
was his mother. It was hard. Every night when they would go to sleep I used to tell them: ‘Say a prayer now for your brother.’ For a long time after that my son would say: ‘When is the baby comin’ home?’ I had to tell him he’s not comin’ but he still don’t understand. Even sometimes now he’ll say: ‘When is the baby comin’ back?’ He’ll ask me that. My son. Umhum. My daughter tell him that the baby’s dead and he’s not comin’ back. He in heaven. She know more than lot of people understand.”

I ask her how she pictures heaven.

“Peaceful … glorious … paradise … That’s the place where you can rest in peace eternally. And that’s another thing. I know my baby’s restin’ now. Can’t nobody or nothin’ hurt him anymore. He don’t have to suffer anymore. No welfare, EAU. No nothin’. No more can hurt him now he’s in His hands now and can’t nobody harm him.
Nobody
. And
nothin’
… He’s in peace.”

M
en and women from the Coalition for the Homeless, who befriended Holly, note that, in the period she has described, her capability for making wise and long-term judgments seemed impaired.

This seems a realistic observation. I’m not sure it tells us much of Holly. It does tell us something of the impact of the shelter system on a homeless woman.

“You
think
only of the next day when you’re
trained
to think only of the next day.” These words were spoken by a homeless man with whom I spoke last year. “Be at the EAU by five. Be at your welfare office on the other side of town by nine …” When every moment in a woman’s struggle for survival calls for an alacrity in seizing the next opportunity for placement, for a medical appointment, or (when all else fails) for an appointment to obtain the money for her child’s burial, it may be a bit unfair to ask for longrange plans.

A friend who knows this story raised a somewhat different point: “I don’t believe you can exonerate the city. Nonetheless, you have to ask yourself: Why did she have another child? After all, she wasn’t married when the older two were born. She couldn’t support them. She hadn’t finished school. Why does she have a child if she knows she can’t provide him with a home? It seems a little harsh of me perhaps; but isn’t this a fundamental question that has got to be addressed?”

It is a fundamental question and it needs to be addressed; but it is not the issue in this book. This is a book about the fact of dispossession—
homelessness—not
teen pregnancy, illiteracy, poor education, or the evolution of an underclass. We do not know what we ought to do about an underclass. We do know that we should not manufacture one. We do not know how to bring an end to poverty and inequality in our society. We do know children shouldn’t live in subways. We also have a good idea of how to build a house—or many houses, each of which has many heated, safe, well-lighted rooms, doors with doorknobs, electric switches that go on and off, a stove that can be used to cook nutritious meals, a refrigerator in which food for children can be stored. Overwhelmed by knowledge of the things we can’t do, we are also horrified that we do not do what we can. I suspect that one of the ways we deal with this is to get angry—not at ourselves, but at the mother and, by implication, at the child.