Overdosing

We’d asked him to leave a few times, given a 15-minute warning, a 5-minute warning, and finally a we-are-actually-closed-now-please-leave warning. He wasn’t going. I left the room for a moment and when I came back, he was in the cleaning closet, facing the wall.                                                                                     

“Come on, Charlie,” Margo said as she gently grabbed his arm and steered him out of the closet. She guided him, stumbling, out the door. I followed, carrying his jacket and scarf, which had fallen to the floor. Ryan was on the phone, “No, no, we don’t need you anymore. Looks like he is leaving.”

We try not to call the cops on our Network folks, but if a client is clearly and possibly dangerously under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is violent or using violent language, or refuses to leave after being asked and warned, sometimes we have no other choice. This is never to get one of our folks in trouble. It is a last-resort when we have no other options.

We walked Charlie outside and kept checking to see if he was okay. I wasn’t sure what, but he was clearly on something and long-gone. I tried to give him back his stuff. I wasn’t sure he could keep ahold if it, his arms didn’t seem capable of grasping the bundle. His eyes wide open were only half visible from under the black beanie pulled down low, and they didn’t seem to really be registering what was in front of him.

He stumbled off, veering and tripping down the sidewalk. He didn’t seem okay. I felt worried. I watched for a moment, and was about to turn back inside when I saw him stumble while crossing the street. He pitched forward, falling headlong across the white lines marking the crosswalk. He didn’t move.

I froze for a second, then sprinted over to him with a sense of panic. He was lying on his back, feet on the ground and knees bent to face upward, eyes open wide and unmoving. I tried to grab his hand, but it was limp, he wouldn’t grab on so I could help him up.

It was like he wasn’t there, just a wide-eyed body with no mind operating it.

I’ve quite possibly never felt so helpless in my life. Laying in the middle of the road, he was clearly in danger, and I could not lift him out of the way. I thought maybe he'd had a seizure, with the wide, unseeing, unmoving eyes. I hollered for someone to get Ryan and then Brad came over to help Charlie to his feet. I again gathered all his fallen things and we walked him over to a building where we could prop him against the wall. We tried to help him sit down, but I don’t think he could. So Brad just stood here, holding him so he wouldn’t fall back down. He couldn’t even stand on his own.

We waited while Ryan called 9-1-1.

Charlie was a shell. He never looked at us, his eyes still wide and just staring off. He looked paralyzed or petrified, like I imagine a character from Harry Potter would look under a spell or enchantment. It was as though the human inside his body had disappeared.

When the fire truck finally came and the medical responders piled out, I felt oddly reluctant to leave him. I asked multiple times if he’d get to keep his things, which I was still clutching like a safety blanket. Hesitant, I finally handed them over.

My mind went to Michael Lee Marshall. My memory selected the buried image of frail Michael Lee restrained by a number of large police officers in the sheriff’s department where he later died from asphyxiation induced by the brutality of his restraint. I recalled a comment by a Network staff guy about how hard it is to call the police when sometimes our guys don’t make it out of the jail alive.

I know paramedics and fire department aren’t police, but they all have sirens and authority and I get worried and scared sometimes.

How to navigate this broken world?

Where Charlie was getting high on an aerosol can of Old Spice and there’s nothing we can do but call 9-1-1 because we aren’t trained to help someone who is overdosing. But sometimes the very ones tasked to “serve and protect” don’t because the system is so deeply riddled with racism and injustice, and you never know what could happen to in those places, especially to someone black and homeless.

How awful, to be the one who called the cops on someone who just needed help and detox and ends up dying in custody. I couldn’t live with myself.

All those thoughts raced through my mind as I tore myself away from the red and blue flashing lights and the men in navy blue shirts checking Charlie’s vitals.

What are we to do? When we aren’t equipped to help someone overdosing, mentally ill, or violently reacting to their fear or mental illness, we should be able to trust the people we call. I’ve met some really amazing people serving on the police force, like the homeless outreach officer who drove two of our folks to Network a few weeks ago because she didn't want them to have to walk such a long way when they've been sick. But in a world where policing is run by a system so deeply entrenched in systemic racism and oppression, people get churned out reflecting those systems. So what sort of cop will show up when we call, and will this homeless black man live?

It’s overwhelming.

I’m left unsure of where to go and what to after days like this. I want to curl up and cry in my hopelessness, I wanted to while I stood beside Charlie. Standing there with this far-gone man, this precious human being in front of me who I so wanted to help, yet all I could do was stand by and obsessively ask the paramedic if Charlie would get his things back before I surrendered them.

How to be the living room of Christ in this hurting world wrecked by racism and injustice? How to be the living room of Christ in a world that doesn’t often see our homeless folks as humans? How can I trust my friends to actually be cared for if they are viewed as dispensable nuisances?

Sometimes all I can do is cry. Submerged in an overdose of my own helplessness and weakness in moments of incredible brokenness, all I can do is speak out the one thing that’s left…

Jesus.

Tamir Rice

I wasn't going to say anything, because it has all been said. Because my news feed is bombarded with tragedy already and I sometime just feel too overwhelmed by the brokenness and sadness to engage. 

But then I realized, some of you might not know. 

You might not have heard that just over a year ago a 12 year old boy was killed in a park and that now his family has had two Christmases without their son. You might not know that he was just twelve years old, and that's just the same age as my baby brother, my little best friend. You might now know that he was playing with a toy gun, and that the officer who shot him took not even a second to evaluate that it was a child in the park, that the gun was not real, or to even tell the person he thought was an adult to drop the weapon. Window halfway down, less than two seconds, the 12 year old boy with a toy in a park is gone. 

You might not have heard that the state of Ohio is an open carry state, and since the officer claims to have perceived Tamir Rice to be an adult, it would have thus followed for it to be legal for him to have a gun. And you might not have heard that the police officer who shot the 12 year old boy had been deemed unfit for duty in the last police department he had worked at. 

And then two days ago, maybe you didn't hear, it was ruled that the police officer will not face charges for the killing of Tamir Rice. Not the killing, the murder.

He was 12 years old, playing in a park with a toy gun in an open carry state and killed by a police officer who was "recommended to be released" because he could not control himself or follow orders.

My brother is 12 years old. He's white. Tamir Rice was black. So my brother can play in a park with a toy gun and the officer won't shoot him on the spot. He'll probably ask him to drop the weapon and treat him like the human child he is. Because he's white, my brother would live.

Tell me again racism doesn't exist. Tell me again that our system isn't broken, systematically oppressive and racist and unjust. Tell me again, and I will keep telling you the stories.

From Martin Luther King Jr:

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

"The time is always right to do what is right."

Reality and Restoration and Stuff on the Streets

He usually wears a smile and he has a different earring every time I see him. Every finger wears a ring, contrasting the dirt under his nails and worn hands. I don't think we've ever had a conversation, he's usually muttering to himself as he pours a cup of coffee, stirs in creamer, and dumps way too much sugar into the cup.

Michael Marshall.

Just another homeless guy. Likely judged by most who see him on the streets and assume he's a drug addicted alcoholic who shouldn't be helped or humanized because he deserves what he gets.

Michael Marshall.

A friend. A regular. A favorite. Known by those at Network, staff and clients. In fact, when you go to the Network website, his smiling face, filled with laughter, is first to greet you. You'll see him in the Network video, sunglasses on, earbuds in, head shaking to the music we can't hear.

Michael Marshall.

A brother. Someone with family who cares.

Michael Marshall.

Not a nameless face with a cardboard sign on the street corner. He has a name, he has family, he has friends.

Tonight I received this text,

"Hey friends, sorry to interuupt your Friday evening... Something ugly has happened to one of our regulars and favorites..."

From one of the directors over at Network, linking us to a news story telling us of Mike's arrest and violent encounter with Denver police, resulting in him having a "massive heart attack." He is now on life support in intensive care at Denver Health.

I could say so many things. I could talk about how horrible it is that our system is not set up to care for the mentally ill. "According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homelesspopulation in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill."

We could talk about police brutality. Folks whose job is to protect and serve, and yet often are the broken people in this deeply broken system acting out the violence rather than protecting from it. And I could go on because this incident ties all my worlds together, with this police violence against a black man being exactly what the Black Lives Matter movement is talking about, and the lack of care for the poor and marginalized.

Oh I could talk about these issues, these deep injustices and violences against humanity (against all of humanity, the oppressor and the oppressed are both suffering violence). My heart is so broken and so longing for the healing of this world.

But tonight, I'm just overwhelmed by sadness.

We often live in multiple worlds, say our work world from 8am to 5pm and then our "lives" with family, friends, hobbies, and such. We can bounce back and forth, leaving work at work and not letting it affect our lives.

But relationships don't work that way. You can't turn them off and stop caring, because there's something so deep in your soul connected with the people you care about, you can't compartmentalize them, separate the worlds.

And I'm tired of being expected to turn it off. To turn off the sorrow at injustice, the worry for my homeless friends, the heartbreak at the racism plaguing our world.

I cannot compartmentalize the tragedies.

I know it's hard to understand, because for me, my time spent with the homeless isn't just volunteering. It's not me doing a good thing so I can feel good about myself because I helped someone. It's time spent with friends, it's the place I want to be.

When I get to see Alan or Jerry at church on Sunday, I'm overjoyed. When I see a friend pitching their tent outside or flying a sign on the street corner, I struggle to hide the tears welling in my eyes.

Sometimes, I don't know how to just go on living, to not be constantly affected by the tragedies. There are weeks where I'm filled with hope, there are weeks where the heaviness of the stories I hear weigh me down.

And it's like I'm expected sometimes to just turn it off. As if I don't know the things I know, haven't seen the things I've seen, don't care in the ways I care. Like I can choose moments to exist in a world that isn't deeply affected by the brokenness all around, the brokeness that so many do choose to simply never see.

Like it's so hard for me to go downtown at night to just hangout or have fun. I see folks on the streets, in the cold, trying to find a place to sleep. And I'm out to drink a little and laugh a lot with friends and go back to my warm bed and privileged home. And often people don't even see them, and they're all I can see.


Seared in my mind, people and their things strewn across the sidewalk outside Samaritan House.

How do I just go on with my life when my heart is breaking and I can't just turn off all the tragedies?

I remember going downtown once with a friend. We were wandering around and found a bar to check out. There was a man with a cardboard sign sitting on the sidewalk outside the place. We got to the bouncer, pull out our IDs. All I could think about was how I was going to spend $5-7 on a drink, when this guy is hungry and in need. So I walked away from the bouncer and gave the guy the cash I had, then went back to get my ID checked. I think the young guy's name was Roger, he's all I could think about.

And so tonight, when I get that text. When I learn a friend is on life support. That his mental illness, not understood or cared about, likely affected the cops interactions with him, ending in the police enacting violence and Mike having a heart attack. When I learn this, how do I just go on with my Friday evening plans like nothing has happened? There's nothing I can do, except sit beside Jesus and give Him my burdens. But the heartbreak is still so real.

Some days, the world just feels so heavy.

That doesn't mean I cry myself to sleep every night and fight back tears every moment of the day. There is hope for this broken, wounded world.

But the world still feels heavy, and the work is finding the balance between reality and restoration.

- - - - -

"[Network] is the living room of Christ. It is a place where we communicate dignity to those who don't experience much dignity in the city."