Dave and Biscuit: Humanizing the invisible
Iwas having lunch with my son Anthony at a local sandwich shop a few weeks ago when the topic of the homeless in Lodi came up. I’ve been working with the homeless here in Lodi twice a week for the past three years and it was a subject in which I thought I was well-versed. I explained that it has been difficult balancing the concerns of the public with the needs of those living on the street. Coming up with a long-term solution for the problem has been very challenging.
Anthony listened to his old man ramble on for a bit then said, “They’re invisible.” I looked up from my Joe Montana sandwich and said, “Who’s invisible.” He replied, “The homeless. To most people, they’re invisible. They’re out there but people don’t really see them.”
I let his statement sink in for a minute, then realized he was right. That wasn’t a surprise. He’s smart, good-looking and compassionate — obviously he takes after his mother.
So are the homeless in Lodi invisible? Sure, we all see the piles of clothes and bike parts in Lawrence Park, we notice the woman flailing at the invisible demon on top of the Lodi Arch, and we glance at the guy holding the Homeless and Hungry sign in front of Lowe’s as we wait for the light to change. We spot the knot of homeless huddled behind the bushes next to Saigon Grill and feel sorry for the lonely woman sitting with her belongings in front of a longclosed repair shop on Main Street. But do we really see them? Who are the homeless in Lodi? They all have names and they all have back stories.
As part of our duties as support services officers, Jimmy Pendergast and I check out the areas in town where the homeless congregate. The streets near DMV have been an issue for years so we make sure we cruise through there at least two to three times a week. It was early spring and as we were headed down Auto Center Parkway, we noticed an old man sitting alone in a beatup late ’60’s GMC blue pickup truck. He looked up from the magazine he was reading and gave us a little wave. We waved back and kept going.
This interaction took place once or twice a week for about a month. He’d wave as we went by and we’d ask him how he was doing. His standard response was, “Can’t complain.” We’d keep driving.
Fast forward to early June. It was a warm summer morning and we came upon the old fella sitting in his truck reading a book. We decided to stop and see if there was anything we could do for him.
After an exchange of pleasantries, he told us his name was Dave. His thick head of unkempt hair was the color and consistency of a Brillo pad and he had a long scraggly beard to match. The hair that encircled his mouth was dark orange, indicating he was a heavy smoker. He looked like a guy who would be more comfortable standing in the middle of a stream outside of Coloma panning for gold than sitting on the side of the road in Lodi. He said he’d been in town living in his truck for about six months. Jimmy asked if he had any friends or relatives in the area. Dave smiled through tobaccostained teeth and pointed over at a small mound of gray fur on the front seat. “That’s Biscuit”, he beamed.
The little mutt slumbering next to him resembled a worn-out version of Toto from the Wizard of Oz. Biscuit lifted his head and eyeballed us. It’s true what they say about some people looking like their dog and vice versa. Biscuit had the same coarse gray hair, scruffy face, and laid-back disposition of his owner. “He’s a stray. He walked up to me one day. He found me, not the other way around.”
Dave assured us he was OK and that he didn’t need any assistance. We knew there were people in the area who couldn’t say the same thing so we went on our way.
A month went by and we came across Dave parked in the lot at Salas Park. It was a few days after my lunch with Anthony and I thought it was a good opportunity to really “see” who Dave was. He sat in his truck with the front door open as Biscuit tiptoed through the lush green grass nearby. Dave was dressed in a black long sleeve shirt, black jeans, and tan hiking shoes. A simple pair of reading glasses with black frames sat perched on his nose. He was a small, thin man with nicotine stains on his right index and middle fingers and a hint of Texas drawl in his voice. His words were punctuated occasionally by a dry smoker’s cough. He seemed amused that someone outside the homeless community wanted to have a conversation with him.
I asked him how he ended up homeless in Lodi. He took a long drag off of his Pall Mall cigarette, coughed, and stared off into the park. A few seconds passed then he looked over at me and said, “I’m turning 74 (years old) in a few weeks. I used to be a truck driver.”
He’d been living in the San Bernardino area for about 20 years when out of the blue in July 2016, a friend called him with an attractive proposition. He asked Dave if he would be interested in coming up to be the caretaker of a 600acre ranch just outside of Walnut Grove. Dave said yes and quickly packed up to head north. “I came up for the fishin’” he cackled. He lived on the property in a 38-foot trailer and would toss his line in the Sacramento River across the road from the ranch any chance he could.
That all changed a year later. He and the friend were inside a barn working on a large roll-up door. Dave was high up on a ladder and began to feel dizzy. He lost his balance and crashed to the cement floor below. He passed out and eventually came to at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Doctors told him he’d shattered his left leg and they had inserted a steel rod into his femur. He would have to stay in the hospital for another couple of weeks and undergo a long physical therapy program. He told them he understood and would make the best of the situation.
He was nearing the end of his second month of treatment when he received a phone call from the owner of the ranch. He told Dave that he was no longer welcome on the property and that he had to move out as soon as possible. Within days the owner parked Dave’s truck and his belongings in the hospital parking lot and left. Facing a long rehabilitation and with little money to his name, Dave was suddenly homeless.
He tried finding a place to live but quickly found out that he did not have enough income to make it work. He received $873 a month from Social Security but discovered the rent for “low income” apartments in the area was near $800 a month. He had no mental health or substance abuse issues so he did not qualify for any of those programs. He hadn’t served in the military so the Veterans Administration was not an option. He checked the local homeless shelters but learned that he could only stay there for a few weeks at a time. He eventually decided to simply park along the side of a country road near the river and make the best of it. He lived that way for about a year and a half but somewhere along the line he heard that Lodi was safer for the homeless than other cities. He scouted the industrial area near DMV and ultimately took up residence at the spot where we first came in contact with him.
He went on to lay out his financial difficulties for me. He spoke in precise numbers and I could tell he’d spent a great deal of time examining his options. He prides himself on paying his truck’s registration ($128) on time every year. In addition, he is on the hook for a $120 a month cellular phone bill. He’d never got around to taking advantage of the government-supplied phone program. He said, “I’ve seen the tents (where they enroll people in the program) but didn’t take the time.” He smokes a little over a pack a day of Pall Malls. They run about $9 a pack so cigarettes alone are costing him over $300 a month. Once he’s done paying for cigarettes, gasoline, registration, food, truck repairs and other essential items, he’s left with about $200 for rent.
He sighed and said, “I have to decide on the first of the month what I’m going to spend my money on. I’m basically broke after I pay my bills. There’s nothing left over. Just like her.”
He pointed across the lot to a silver Dodge van with the front doors open. A woman in her early 30s was sitting in the driver’s seat looking at her phone. The van was packed tight with her belongings.
“She’s my friend Rhonda. She gets $600 a month. She’s got nowhere to go but she’s got my back.”
I’d noticed a curious phenomenon taking place while I was speaking with Dave. Drivers would pull into the lot from Stockton Street, look directly at us as they drove past slowly, then exit the lot and head off down the street. It happened three times in the 20 minutes I’d been speaking with him. I pointed out a fourth car as it slowly crept past us and he muttered, “Oh yeah. It’s like we’re in the zoo. They drive by then complain about us on Facebook.”
He paused for a second then said, “Some people will come by and ask me if I’m hungry, then give me five or ten dollars. Sometimes they’ll give me a sandwich. Some will come by and try to talk religion with me. That’s OK. I’ve heard it all before. But sometimes they’ll come by and take pictures of us.”
His pleasant face grew hard. I asked him how that made him feel. He looked away and replied in a voice an octave lower than before, “It makes you feel this big.” He brought his right hand up to eye level and showed me his index finger was about an inch from his thumb. “I can understand if there was garbage around my truck but I’m not a guy like that. I know that makes people mad. The stuff in the back of my truck is there to trade or so I can build something. People assume I’m lazy and I’m not. I don’t do drugs and I don’t bother anyone.”