~~~~~~~~~~~~page break~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dog that ingested strychnine-laced meat.
Hole dug for mass grave in Amlapura.
You are currently browsing the archive for the Featured Stories category.
~~~~~~~page break~~~~~~~
.
Photo by Kyle Cashulin
This piece is a little dated, and a little artsy for my taste. But I thought that I would share with you my experience working at a hospice in New Orleans last summer, and a few of the people that touched my life during that miserable time. Names have been changed for obvious reasons. Hope you enjoy!
…
The aging pony’s shit tumbles across the floor of Chateau de Angelica hospital. The pony looks Ms. Marie L’Angell in the eye. The eye looks right back. Ms L’Angell’s lips pull back over elongated yellow teeth to a disapproving scowl. The pony does likewise, and exhales hot mist. Ms. L’Angell scratches some canary-colored goo from the corner of her one remaining eye, rolls it into a glob, and flicks it at the pony. The pony flinches, bares its teeth, and backs away cautiously. It shits on the clean linoleum floor. 97 years old and Marie can still win a Mexican standoff against an inbred horse with an irritable bowel.
Photo Courtesy of Equestrian Angels
Ms. L’Angell rolls her head towards me and grins. An orderly takes the wheelchair by the handles and swings it around so violently that Ms. L’Angell’s head whips in the opposite direction, exposing her empty eye socket. She chuckles, and as the orderly whisks her away, she tosses the flyer up in the air behind her, which flutters down to settle on some pony shit. The flyer shows a retarded child wearing a helmet caressing a dew-eyed pony. EQUESTRIAN ANGELS THERAPEUTIC OUTREACH PROGRAM~An Equestrian Encounter is the Best Medicine.
Down the hall is another standoff. Two Gomers, recently infused with the passion of hatred toward fellow human beings, refuse to acquiesce the right of way to each other. They sputter and snap like bratty children. You would think that people whose remaining life can be measured in weeks would have something better to do.
Gomer. Get Out of My Emergency Room. So old that they don’t seem to have any specific ailment. Or rather, they’ve just ordered everything on the menu-cancer, viruses, parasites, neurological disorders, hereditary degenerative diseases, cardiovascular breakdown, diabetes, arthritis, iron overload, mineral deficiency, erectile dysfunction, and restless leg syndrome. They have managed to keep breathing longer than what is healthy for anyone. Usually this is accomplished by a surplus of boredom or spite, as Gomers never do anything remotely worthwhile. They don’t read books or watch television because their eyesight is too poor. Modern radio doesn’t appeal to them, and human contact seems to agitate them. Their time is usually spent thinking about what their next meal is, the suspicious ethnic makeup of their caretaker, and whether any other Gomer is receiving special treatment, say, an extra fruit cup or (dare I say it?) a candy bar.
A diagnosis of this condition is determined by administering a Gomergram. The patient is unable to explain what is wrong with them, so every available test is run at great expense, tedium and irritation all around. Having determined the multitude of symptoms and causes, the Gomer is given a ballpark life expectancy, a few bottles of pills with as many refills as legally possible, and then promptly shipped back to the nursing home to wait for fruit cups and hope they outlive that bitch Lydia down the hall. If they have been given less than 6 months to live, and are so inclined, they accept the services of Involved Care Hospice. And this is where I come in.
……………….
I left New York a failure. My girlfriend had left me for another man. My academics had gone down in flames. Waves of depression engulfed every day. The black dog, as Churchill would say, was scratching at my door. Aimless. Drained of passion. Drained of hope and will.
My car followed one road to the next. Highways and then country roads. Through Pennsylvania. Maryland. Virginia. Kentucky. Tennessee… I stayed in hotels with nicotine-stained walls, and ate the same Subway sandwich day after day after day. Georgia. Alabama. A motor-home engulfed in flames by the side of the road, expelling a pillar of smoke visible for miles. Mississippi. Louisiana.
I finally reached the ocean. The white heat of the sun burned my skin as I stood next to my dusty Subaru. Birds flew in unison, shifting from one amorphous shape into another, as though they shared the same mind. The hotness of the sun made me think of the burning RV. A family vacation gone terribly wrong. Their odyssey had started out with hope and ended with tragedy. Mine had started with failure and I didn’t know how it would end.
…………
My room in the Best Guest House on Canal St, New Orleans is hot. So hot. And I’m out of quarters. Better go knock on the office door, get some more from Sam. I open the door, and get hit with a wall of wet, sticky heat. An ice-cream truck is playing carnival tunes somewhere down the street.
James is leaning on the handrail, looking down at the street. His face is battered from his years in the Golden Gloves. Now he’s a bouncer at the Swamp Juice bar; they had to move him inside, because he never remembers the regulars. I don’t know if his boxing career contributed to his short-term memory problems. Every time I see him, the conversation is the same. And I say his words in my head before he opens his mouth. This must be how a psychic feels.
“Hey buddy, tell me your name again?”
“Howdy, James. It’s Kyle.”
“Carl. Right. I was sleeping, but that goddamn circus music woke me up. It reminds me of clowns, and clowns scare the shit out of me. “
“I’m going to get some more quarters from Sam. Take it easy James.”
“Yeah have a good one buddy.”
Sam’s sitting in his office with his shirt off, showing 50 years of tattoos. After I get the quarters I ask him which is the oldest. He puts his left leg up on the oak desk and pulls back his pant cuff, revealing SAM in faded gray ink.
“I got that when I was 13 years old, down at the docks in Boston. A bunch of us from the swim team went down there one day. They all got Mickey Mouse or cartoon characters, but I got my name. Next swimming competition all the parents saw us with those tattoos and nearly rioted. Most the kids had them removed surgically. My daddy was a Merchant Marine, though, and he just thought I was taking after him.”
A quarter slides into the air conditioner control box in my room, and the unit rattles awake, blowing blessedly cool air. The timer on the control box reads 59:59, 59:58, 59:57….
…………..
I pulled up to the hospital and entered the code. The enormous iron gates swung inwards. I can hear Jacob’s motorcycle before he rolls into view, and walks his bike back into the space next to mine.
Jacob is working for Involved Care because he is a lightweight. In Louisiana, you can get alcoholic slushy drinks at certain drive-through restaurants. They’re called “Hurricanes.” Most people can drink one and drive, because they aren’t drunk. Jacob was drunk, and then he got pulled over. Penance: 300 hours of community service.
I didn’t particularly like Jacob. He was a would-be holistic healer and new-age aficionado. He believed that Western medicine was obsolete, and that George Bush bombed the World Trade Center. Jacob had a very peculiar body. His belly was round and protruding, but his chest was shallow, and his thin, hairless limbs were almost child-like. It was his strong convictions on the topic of health coupled with his wan composure that made me vaguely distrustful of Jacob.
We walk together through the front doors. Jacob is carrying a bouquet of tulips and baby’s-breath for Rosa. Rosa is our darling. Of all the irritable, semi-conscious Gomers, Rosa was special. She always smiled when we came to visit. She was the only person in the hospice system that showed us appreciation, and we loved her for it.
Jacob and I turn left and walk through the enormous dining hall. Gomers in wheelchairs sit at long tables, accompanied by nurses or attendees. Whoever’s idea it was to carpet this room was a jester or a sadist. The green carpet has a Van Gogh-esque smattering of stains from years of shaky hands and dribbling lips.
Up three flights, we take the left turn down the hall and walk to Rosa’s room. She shares it with another Gomer, who always smiles at me but doesn’t talk. Jacob pulls back the curtain, and Rosa’s bed is empty. Jacob and I look at each other. Rosa can’t be out of bed. Her rectal cancer makes it unbearable for her to be in anything but a reclined position. An empty bed. She died. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Jacob drops the bouquet on the bed.
We jog down the hall, asking orderlies and nurses when Rosa Beliveau died. “Oh, she’s not dead yet.” One nurse says with a smirk. “I think Nurse Simmons took her to sit by the window somewhere on the fourth floor.”
Now we’re running, dodging wheelchairs and bursting into the stairway. We take the stairs three-at-a-time. Walking down the fourth floor ward, we open the door to each room that faces West, as only those have windows.
In a room at the end of the hall we find Rosa. She’s parked by the window, just like the nurse said she would be. Her body is twisted to the side, and she sobs and groans. I pick her up and we walk back down to her room. She had shat herself some time ago.
The nurses had left her sitting there for four hours before we found her. Rosa sobs into my shoulder (the pain was so intense it didn’t ease for several days). She sobs that she’s sorry that she relieved herself. The loss of dignity is nearly as bad as the physical pain. She’s beginning to feel heavy, so I rush to lay her down on her bed, crushing the tulips. Jacob stays with Rosa, who won’t stop weeping, and I go to find Nurse Simmons, my shirt still smelling like Rosa’s shit.
Once I find the bitch, I’m going to rip her goddamn lungs out.
Nurse Simmons doesn’t give an inch. “Every day at 8 the patients are supposed to be moved around so that they don’t get restless.”
“Didn’t you read her FILE? SHE. CAN’T. BE. MOVED.”
“It’s hospital policy.”
“You fucking cunt. You read her file. You’re just a sadistic witch. I’ll make sure you lose your job.”
“Listen, sonny, you are a volunteer here. You have no authority, and if you use such profanity in my vicinity again, you will see consequences.”
I call the hospice home office and talk to Sharon, my supervisor. Sharon hangs up the phone, and drives to the hospital. I wait with Jacob and Rosa until Sharon arrives, and tells us to go home.
I wait outside for Jacob, using one cigarette to light the next. He emerges ten minutes later with red eyes. He asks for a cigarette, and he takes it with a shaking hand. We sit outside in the shade of the gothic hospital for some time. Jacob tells me that the Hospice is going to get Rosa a new mattress to compensate for the hospital’s negligence.
One week later I’m scheduled to visit Rosa again, and notice she is still laying on the stiff spring mattress on the hospital’s metal bedframe. I call the home office, and they assure me that the new mattress had been sent. Nurse Simmons. I track her down within an hour, and corner her by some IV stands.
“Why isn’t Rosa Beliveau laying on her new mattress? Don’t say it didn’t come, because I know it did.”
“Yes, it came. But in order to switch mattresses, Ms. Beliveau would have to be moved. And as you pointed out, she can’t be moved, can she?”
…………
We open the door, and the bar is overwhelming.
Hi, welcome the Brewhaus, can I get you a table? Right this way please. It’s hard, man. You’re supposed to be cool, you know? I told him to leave. He brings this girl over, and she has this attitude, you know, and I just didn’t appreciate it. Like, be able to see anything with your own two eyes and take it in stride. Is this booth okay? Great. Your server will be Dianne, she’ll be right with you. Everywhere I turn there she is! Be professional. Now, how are your hush puppies? Can I try a bite? Mmm, those are good. Like when that Gomer coughed blood in your face. You just wiped it off, no big deal. No, if you’ll just listen to me I’m telling you you’re wrong. The public option makes sense. And if you don’t want it, you don’t have to use it. I don’t get what the big damn deal is about the whole thing. Tell you the truth, I’m just sick of talking about it. Let’s change the subject. I’m trying not to worry about it too much. There’s no time to think about expansion when Tim can’t get his shit together. I believe it’s pronounced Muffalleta. There’s no reason to get snippy with me, young man. Doctors go through this in med school all the time. NO! Well then send it back if you want it on the side. You think surgeons are born with the ability to peel back someone’s skin-no problem? Yeah, so I had a plan along those lines. A man without a plan is not a man. Actually, she’s very good. I’ve been systematically desensitizing myself to death and gore. HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW! It’s all on the internet, if you look for it. GogogogogogogogogogogogoYESSS! You can look at some of the worst, most horrific things imaginable online. I know it sounds like a really bad idea. I spend all day around death, and I don’t really want to go home and watch that ugly stuff. Refill darlin? Have you ever heard of “Faces of Death?” That’s child’s play. If she wants to be a part of this family at a fancy restaurant, she’s gonna have to use the spoon for what it’s designed for. It’s not every day we get to go out, and I don’t want to look like a family of chimpanzees. Try men pumping their scrotums so full of saline that they swell to the size of basketballs. So you’re tellin’ me that the world’s gonna end because of some movie? Tell you what: I’ll bet you 500 bucks right now that not a damn thing happens in 2012. It’s just a bunch of Y2K bullshit all over again. It goes down from there. No, it’s this ancient Mayan calendar system that’s kept perfect time until 2012, but they made a movie about it. How about guys slicing open their scrotum and exposing their testicles to the air? God-bless you. Sounds like horseshit. Have you ever heard of the pain olympics? I seen a lot of folk come back since the flood. There are whole groups of people devoted to making themselves eunuchs with scissors or hatchets. I need your truck, I still got that storage shed in Metairie with all that crap to sort through. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tuesday? Did you know that child pornography is a 6 billion dollar industry? John and Sam haven’t come back. There’s a popular method of suicide called de-sleeving, where a man sticks his penis in an industrial vacuum cleaner, and it sucks the skin off. Now as far as I’m concerned, Glenn Beck is a goddamn phony. They bleed to death. Oh my god, I did a semester at Liberty after Katrina, and they don’t let you drink beer even if you’re over 21. Have you ever seen a prolapsed uterus? That is so unfair. Or a prolapsed colon? When is the next time you’re headin’ up to to Baton Rouge? For years the FBI has been looking for a genuine bonafide snuff film. Let me think about it first. They even had a department specifically designed to look for snuff. My boyfriend was pissed at first. But for years they couldn’t find any. I mean, there are plenty of videos of people committing suicide. But a “snuff” film has to satisfy certain parameters. Someone put some fuckin quarters in the jukebox. There’s a line at the women’s restroom and it’s an e-mer-gen-cee! It needs to be a movie featuring a murder, where the production is aimed at making a profit. Hello? Hello? Nevermind. The closest anyone came to were the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs. They were a couple of Ukrainian teens that killed 21 people, and videotaped the torture and murder of some poor man. I heard they aren’t even going to accept my art credit. They hit him in the face with a hammer, poked his eyes out, and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach with a screwdriver. All on tape. God, I can’t hear myself THINK in here, you want a cigarette? The man drifts in and out of consciousness over the course of the video. Well you have my support. Sometimes this job makes me feel like there is no hope for anyone. Hey! Someone left 20 bucks in the ATM! There can’t be a god... I hate that bitch… that allows teenage kids to kill 21 people, and videotape torture and murder. I don’t see why I need to fix the damn windshield wiper when I just bought the damn thing three days ago. And what are we doing every day? There’s right, and there’s wrong, there’s good and there’s bad, and he’s just plain bad. They’re all dying! We can’t stop it. Someone change the music, I hate Santana. We don’t even like any of them! I want to die. It’s a digital jukebox with thousands of songs and all this asshole has played is 5 bucks of Carlos-fuckin-Santana. No, I’m serious, I want to die. There has to be something in the relationship scale between dating and just being regular pals. I’m not going to kill myself. I dunno what you’ve heard, but that Zach Nance’ll take the shirt off your back. I think that if he went to Church more, he’d realize that he has a family. But I thought that I could numb myself to anything and everything. Will Smith, is he that colored fella from the UFO-catcher movie? I like him! But I can’t. There has to be something for her to live for, and her husband isn’t it. No, I can’t leave. No one knows. Because I still have 250 hours of community service left. And then he says “My name is now……. Betty” HAHAHAHAHA. This job is killing me. Holy hell, they have beer from Vietnam here, Chuck! I need more beer. I wish they would all die. I’m sick of taking Gomers to the bathroom, and then having to look to see if there’s blood in the stool. You’ll know what to tell him when the time comes. I’m sick of the smell. I know what you’re trying to do. And there’s no appreciation. Every day you come in and tell me it’s my turn, well it’s your turn now! There is no way I’m going in front of that Nazi again to save your skin. I’ve been here for five months, and no one has said “Thank you, Jacob.” I wish they would all die.
………………
The next day Jacob called in sick.
………………
I shot a rabbit once. Al pointed to the nibbled tomato plants and bought me my first pellet gun. I lay down among the pine needles and waited for almost an hour before the gray cottontail lopped into the garden, and lounged behind a fencepost, obscuring my line of sight.
The rabbit hopped into my line of sight, and I squeezed the trigger. The pellet gun made a soft crack. The rabbit tried to run, but fell over and clawed the earth. I picked it up in my shirt and looked for the hole in its side. At first it was hard to find through the dense fur, and then I felt the wet spot. I took the wounded animal into the cabin, and put it in the big plastic container Mom used to make cheese, and gave it some lettuce. It just looked up and breathed hard.
I thought that the rabbit would recover. It even ate some of the lettuce. But after the third day blood started coming out of its nose. It died that night, and I gave it to my dogs.
The whole crew was in Bali, and we decided to eat mushrooms on the beach. Wyan knew some kids that picked the right mushrooms in the rice patties. The cows defecate in the water, and the mushrooms grow out of the damp stool. So we each kicked in a few Rupiah and bought a salad-bowl of the small mushrooms.
Francis insisted on saying a short prayer to Mother Gaia. Francis is known as the Gay Prince of Bali. He obtained a decades-long lease on a palace from the bankrupt royal family, which he then decorated with a large collection of handsome Balinese men. My dad (who doesn’t have much patience for the New Age after a particularly dippy girlfriend) said “To hell with that! Let’s just be honest and say we’re gonna get really ripped on shrooms!”
It was a fine day. The mushrooms made the sky an intense blue, and the forest the greenest green. My stepmother Barbara ran around taking pictures of everyone while the children frolicked in the waves. We ate barbecued fish burgers, and swam in the ocean. The water was clear, so we could see the coral garden on the bottom.
The next morning I woke up feeling a little out of sorts. My stomach was squirming like a toad, and my head felt screwed on a bit too tight. Barbara was in a cheery mood and asked how I was feeling. I stuck my tongue out in the “blech” expression. My stepmother did a violent double-take. “Sticking out your tongue one more times.” she commanded. Her Italian accent was very thick in those days.
My tongue was black. I stared at myself in the mirror in mild disbelief. I brushed my teeth, and wiped my tongue on a towel until it was dry and rough. Dry and rough and still black. By now my headache was getting worse, so I popped two of the Vicodin I always carry with me when traveling. A doctor had prescribed a bottle for a nasty ear infection, but I hadn’t used them all, and you never know when you’re going to need a strong pain reliever.
My father insisted that David, who was a medic, take a look at me. David said to watch the symptoms, but that since I wasn’t in too much pain (thanks to the Vicodin, but I neglected to give them that information), there was no emergency.
The headache got worse as the day progressed, and by nightfall my entire spine was on fire. I tried to lay perfectly still on my back on the hard teak floors. If I moved my head even a centimeter in any direction it sent agonizing bolts of pain town the whole length of my spine, and my head felt like someone was hammering a railroad spike through it. My tongue remained black.
We called an ambulance out to the remote village of Jasi, and six hours later it arrived. The ambulance was a red Volkswagen convertible with a hitchhiker in the passenger side. The ambulance driver waited while my dad and David carried me on stretcher to the car and bundled me in the back seat. I’ve been in auto accidents, been bitten on the face by snakes, and had an accumulated 11 hours of tattooing, but nothing came close to the agonizing pain of the ride to the Denpasar hospital.
My dad had kicked the hitchhiker out of the front seat and talked to me the whole way. I told him about the Vicodin, and he was angry and suspicious about where I had obtained such a controlled substance. Between bumps I told him about the ear infection, but he didn’t believe that any doctor would think such a trivial ailment would warrant the Vicodin. I told him I’d show him the bottle when we got back.
The avocado-green hospital room very large, and almost empty. The doctor did a test for spinal meningitis, and after I tested negative, he said I had typhoid. This didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I was too tired to fight it. They wanted to pump my stomach, so they stuck a thick plastic tube up my nose and down the back of my throat. “Now you need sallow.” The doctor instructed me. “Keep sallow. Yes. Sallow, sallow, almost done…”
After the contents of my stomach were in a plastic bag, which the nurse took away, they pulled out the tube, which burned my throat and sinus. I had been asleep for a few minutes when I involuntarily rolled over, jerking the IV bag off its perch. It fell, yanking the tube out of my arm. The nurse put it back in its place and scolded me for moving too much. I didn’t care. Morphine revealed the humor of the situation.
The next week in the hospital was very touching. I never spent a night by myself. Katut, a good friend and local cop, stayed two nights in a row. He sent his wife to stay with me when he finally went home. He was feeling awful that Balinese mushrooms might have made me sick. Though marijuana is punishable by death in Indonesia, mushrooms are perfectly legal and a source of local pride.
Several months later my dad got an ear infection from surfing and driving home in a convertible. The pain was driving him crazy. He apologized for being suspicious about the Vicodin, and apologized for wanting to see the prescription bottle. He said if I suffered ear infections like his all throughout my childhood without ever crying, I was a tough bastard.
It was 1988 and my father was shooting “The Serpeant and the Rainbow” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was a miserable shoot. At any given time most of the crew were sick with typhoid, dengue fever, or diphtheria. More than a third of the crew elected to leave the country early, forgoing the rest of their salary. Some got too sick to continue working; others couldn’t cope with the reality of daily Haitian life. A supporting actor left the country after seeing a half-exposed corpse. The rain had washed the soil from his shallow grave, revealing the dead young man buried in his baby-blue Sunday suit.
Others left for more personal reasons. The key grip, for instance, had a thing with a local beauty, who happened to be the daughter of a voodoo priest. One drunken night the happy couple was blessed by the old priest in a simple ceremony. There was much drinking and dancing and lovemaking. The next afternoon when the poor grip groggily came back to reality, his beloved informed him that they were now married and tied together for eternity. The grip went out of his mind and tried to break it off. The words “You’ll never escape me.” were the last he heard from her as he boarded the next plane back to Los Angeles. Upon arrival he got onto his motorcycle and was promptly run over by all 9 left wheels of a careless semi.
But my dad stuck it out, dealing with problems as best a young producer could. He replaced the crew with Haitian workers, and tried to keep everybody happy. Their time in Haiti was winding down, and they only had one large-scale scene to shoot before they could pack it up and finish in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic.
The aforementioned scene featured a true Haitian tradition. Thousands of Haitians parade from the city up, up, and deep into the mountains. The ceremony starts out looking very catholic, with people carrying shrines and flowers and great big blue Blessed Mothers. But as the thousands of singing families proceed deeper into the mountains, it slowly shifts to the other Haitian religion. Voodoo. The religion that came from Africa with the slaves and collided with the local Caribbean cults. In the mountains the Haitians dance and chant and beat on drums for hours and hours. The dancers become entranced, and then possessed by gods. Men eat coals and glass and stick needles into their eyes. Chickens are slaughtered and their blood is smeared on bare chests.
Wanting to capture this miraculous progression, the crew set up recruitment tables and budgeted for one thousand marchers. Each Haitian extra would be given a voucher, which they would turn in at the end of the day for five dollars. The vouchers ran out by the end of the morning.
Five dollars in Haiti was a big deal in 1988, when the average income was less than a hundred dollars per year. The extras told their friends about the financial opportunity, and those friends had told other friends, and by the next morning fifteen thousand extras showed up for the parade. They shot the scene, and it was very beautiful. But when it came time to pay up, and only one in fifteen extras had their vouchers, they got mad.
The Haitians started rioting, and suddenly there was a machete, shovel, pitchfork or lead pipe in every hand. The crew retreated to the police station and barricaded themselves in. There were only eighteen cops in the station, and they were terrified that if they used their weapons, everyone would be swarmed and slaughtered. My father used the phone to call the base production office and screamed above the cacophony outside to empty the movie vault and take the cash by helicopter to the police station. It was a good thing he called when he did, because the mob outside cut the phone line before he hung up. The rioters didn’t want the police to call the army; hundreds would probably die.
The mob was starting to break through the barred windows, so everyone hurried up to the roof. Just in time, the helicopter arrived flying low. The production coordinator dropped a duffel bag filled with fifty-eight thousand dollars to my father, who began throwing handfuls of money into the seething crowd that had completely surrounded the building. The rioters’ attention shifted from attacking the crew to attacking each other to get at the money. Slowly, very slowly the violent crowd began to disperse.
Photo by Peter Rivera
Photo by Peter Rivera
Twenty-five wishbones hung above a bar. You have to look closely to verify that they are, indeed wishbones. 90 years of dust hangs on the old bones like dead bayou moss. The turkey bones were hung on the ancient brass gas lamp by enlisted men departing for Europe in 1916.
Behind the bar you will find not an inch of unoccupied wall space. Thousands of curios spanning 200 years collect dust and rust and water damage. A wanted poster for the “Murderer John Wilkes Booth” sits beside a photograph of Abraham Lincoln himself. Abe was a patron. As were the men in the frames next to his: Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. The last photograph taken of Babe Ruth hangs partially obscured by an original sketch by John McSorley himself. A pair of unassuming old handcuffs sits on a cabinet. No one would guess they once meekly attempted to restrain the great Harry Houdini.
The light is very dim, but there is great warmth in the bar. You spin around slowly taking in the information that hits you like a sandstorm. Freshly strewn sawdust grinds under your heel as you turn to face the large pot-bellied stove. The stove is black, but the coal is red. You summon the ghosts of great men who stared into the same stove and warmed themselves. And I say great men because women weren’t admitted to the bar until the 1970’s.
You walk to the back room, away from the stifling coal heat and embrace the cool air on your skin. There is an hour wait for a table, but that just gives you more time to take in the bar. A cabinet reads “CPR kit.” Maybe it’s a bible. Finally, you take a seat at one of four enormous wood-slab tables. Alcohol flowed in this back room during prohibition. This alcohol has always come in only two varieties: light house ale and dark house ale. A wild-haired Irishman in a blue shirt takes your order and returns holding 24 cups of ale in two hands. He slams the lot down on your table with a wonderful crash and clink. You help divvy up the ale by sliding light or dark cups down to your neighbors.
A fat man with a “Yankees” cap stands on a chair and starts chanting at his friend. The Irishman runs over and screams “GET OFF THE FECKIN’ CHAIR! I’M WARNIN’ YEH!” But the fat man doesn’t listen, and is dragged to the ground by the smaller but much stronger waiter. The man is then dragged to the door screaming uselessly and literally thrown out onto East 7th St. His hapless friend follows him out throwing dirty looks and half-hearted insults at the staff. The waiter walks back muttering “I warned him” under his breath. The man should have observed the scorched-wood plaque and bar motto “Be Good or Be Gone.” The waiter walks over to a shocked looking college couple and politely says “A seat just opened up. Follow me.”
Edited by Kyle Cashulin
I was living in an SRO, which means a single room occupancy hotel, which the city of New York pays for. They have an organization that’s called HASA. That’s the HIV and AIDS Service Association. And people with HIV and AIDS who need emergency housing, like for some reason you find yourself out on the street, they house you automatically that day. They’ll find a place for you to go. They don’t want you to go to the regular homeless shelters because, you know, you have exceptional circumstances. Or whatever.
So I was living at this place at 101st and Broadway called Broadway Studios Hotel. And I was smoking crack, because most of thethose buildings are basically just crack houses now. And I was hanging out with this guy named Amado Penia who lived down the hall from me. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and he had two Jack Russell Terriers, a male and a female, and they had just had pups. Now this is in the afternoon, I was in my room, my ex-boyfriend at the time, and another female friend, and Amado came by. He said “What’s goin’ on? What are you guys doing?” And I said, “Well, we’re hanging out.” And he wanted to get high, and I said “Listen, I don’t have enough drugs to give you.” Then I remembered that he had puppies, and those Jack Russell terriers, those things are expensive. I could never afford one of those. So I thought, “Why not take advantage of a crackhead?”
So I said “I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a hit of crack for one of those new Jack Russell Terriers that you have!” So he said he’d be back, and he goes down the hall to get the dog. And he comes back twenty or thirty minutes later. And then I told him that in the meantime I had smoked the drugs and I didn’t have anything to give him. So I said “I’m sorry, but the deal’s off, I don’t have anything to give you.”
And he got pissed. Later on he was on the elevator and had the mamma dog, the bitch, on a leash. And he was furious. He was big, like 6’5” and must have weighed 350 pounds. And he was yelling at me, screaming at me, cursing me out. And I was getting off the elevator at my floor, and he had the dog on a leash, and he was so busy yelling at me that he didn’t realize that the dog was behind him and the doors of the elevator closed on the dog! And the dog was like “YELP YELP YELP!” These high-pitched screams! And he just “WHAP!” bitch slaps me up against the wall. And I’m like “What the fuck?” I was shocked. And scared.
So I go back to my room. And I’m in shock. I was really angry. And I’m sitting there and for the next hour I’m furious. Fuming. I couldn’t believe this guy slapped me. So I go, with an omelet pan and a serrated steak knife and a can of mace. And I went over, and I bang on his door, and ask him to come out. And he was like “What do you want? Fuck off!” And I say “Open the door! Come out! You owe me an apology!”
So he comes out, and he starts beating the shit out of me! Just kicking me, and pounding me into the ground, you know. Not even caring, just really livid. So then he goes back in his room. And I make this mistake of banging on his door, and I bang off the door handle. And he comes out and comes at me with this table leg. A wooden table leg. Like two feet long. And I had my can of mace, and I try to mace him. And….and it’s empty! So he beats me down with a table leg. He has me down on the ground, and he’s choking me out. I stop breathing, twice, and I can’t breathe, and I lose consciousness, and then he lets up, and then he chokes me and I lose consciousness again.
And the second time I woke up I look over and realize I had this steak knife in my hand, and I reach up and WHAM, WHAM, and I caught him twice in the shoulder. And he takes the steak knife from me and he’s holding me down with one hand this time, and I’m screaming “NO NO PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!” But the knife was broken, it had broken when I was stabbing him with it. Hahahaha. I guess it was a flimsy knife. It wasn’t like a Bowie knife or anything. It’s not that violent of a tale. Hahaha.
So I got charged with attempted murder. In the first. $75,000 bail. Then they reduced it to assault. First degree assault. $50,000 bail.
And I got sent to Rikers Island prison. I was being sexually assaulted left and right. Knowing that I was HIV positive, this one guy, a notorious rapist, kept cornering me. He got me in the law library bathroom and sodomized me. He was hung like a mule. I said “Fuck it, okay you bastard! If you make me bleed, if you catch AIDS, it’s your fault! You deserve it, you fucking rapist!” That happened a couple times.
My first night in jail was a nightmare in itself. They didn’t know what to do with me because I had a psych history. So they were taking me around, they took me to Queen’s House, which wouldn’t take me ‘cause I was on psych meds. Then they took me to Brooklyn House, which wouldn’t take me because I was on psych meds and had a seizure disorder. Then they tried to take me to that boat in the Bronx, that floats, and they wouldn’t take me for some reason. Then they take me to Rikers Island. There’s this policy, they have like 24 to 72 hours to have you in a bed somewhere. Or else you can sue them. So they exceeded that time. I was scared. I was petrified, it was horrible! Rikers Island is the world’s largest penal colony! They have tanks there, and helicopters, and riot gear, and tear gas, and they have their own boats, and ferries, it’s horrible!
It’s called “Gladiator School.” And they don’t call it that for nothing. You go in, and you’re in this dorm room called Broadway. And anything can happen. Guys get their bed linens set on fire with them in it, or urine and feces thrown on you. Or a blanket party, where you’re tied down with your blankets and everyone beats you up. You go to the store once per week and people steal everything from you. They’re selling drugs. The trans-gendered ones are selling themselves, prostitution is alive and well. Selling blowjobs and ass, and whatever you can afford. Everything’s for sale.
I got mixed up with leaders of the Blood gangs. I was having sexual relationships with Bloods, Muslims, Latin Kings, Nation of Islam, 5% Nation, Jamaicans, Caribbean African Unities, all these guys. I was running, I was hiding in this prison. All these guys were coming at me all the time wanting to have sex, sex sex. Unprotected sex. Sex. Sex. That’s why they should hand out condoms in prisons, because it’s happening! I mean it’s STUPID! It’s HAPPENING. And guys are either giving it up willingly or some guys are gonna take it from you. And it’s not like they prey on someone who’s meek or a little guy. Anybody’s game. But what did they expect? I’m a homosexual male in prison with a thousand other guys, so what? I’m as happy as a faggot in Boy’s Town.
I was in Solitary for fighting. It’s not preferable in any way. It’s sensory deprivation. You don’t know what time it is, you don’t know what day it is. You don’t know if it’s about to be sunrise or sunset or what. You know. It’s horrible. It’s horrible.
The worst thing that I witnessed in prison was when they beat this guy up. Lit him on fire and threw feces and urine all over him. And when he was screaming and screaming, the guards did nothing. Nobody does anything. He offended the Bloods. It’s always the Bloods.
Dogs
There is a singular dog seen most places. Her ears are tattered; her fur is rusty and mottled with black. Her teats hang close to the ground and sometimes drag on the dirt. Though she is a mean and fearful dog, she belongs to everyone. One day she’ll get a rock to the ribs. Another day she’ll get a skinned rabbit. Sometimes she’ll get a round of buckshot to her face.
Cars
The Dodge Ram is the most beautiful object, and only desired in Inferno Red. Subaru doesn’t end up on the yard, because it survives winter after winter after winter. Most cars end up on the yard.
Noses
Richard Blackowl has a flat nose. No bone. Fetal alcohol syndrome. Not uncommon among the Blackowls. Looking at the Punt, Pass, Kick competition you can see bone, bone, no bone, bone, no bone, no bone, bone, no bone.
Tobacco
If Tobacco is the Red Man’s Revenge, then two holes must be dug. Tahoe brand was my favorite when I was 10.
STPUD
South Tahoe Public Utility District. Condemned land that encompasses Diamond Valley, which holds the reservoir as well as the res.
The Reservoir
Treated sewage from beachfront houses in Lake Tahoe, slushing down Snowshoe Thompson’s irrigation ditch to pool in the big cement reservoir. In the summer we jump off the bridge to swim and cool off. Occasionally swallows leave their mud nests to black out the sun. They dive and intimidate us.
Cats
So many cats. Under every house you can hear the mewing of the next generation. Coyotes come and eat them, but they don’t have large enough stomachs.
Bears
A gunshot in the night means Greg shot another bear. Mean black bears that eat up all the camp food in Yosemite that the nice people brought from San Francisco. The ones that ate too many bags of marshmallows; they’re caged and released less than one mile from the Res. Killing them would be inhumane.
The Reservoir
Maybe swimming in treated sewage causes some of the noses to be flat?
Res Ball
Full-contact sport. The rules go:
Houses
Built decades ago with promise of renewal. Without foundations, they slump to one side or another. It’s a good thing building code violations aren’t applicable on Reservation land.
Sheriff
He’ll stay out of your business unless your meth lab explodes.
Skippy
Ask why she’s called Skippy and, smirk wink, you’ll hear a story about a dog and peanut butter.
The Walker
You’ll see him along 95. Picking up cigarette butts. Every day; walking and picking up cigarette butts. They say he lives with his aunt.
Cal-Trans
The savior of us all, California Transit employees and feeds the community. You need to buy your own reflective vest. Avoid drunken drivers.
Non-Serrated Knife
Never leave home without it. And make sure it isn’t someplace hard to get to, like in your backpack. Tape it length-wise to your belt in the small of your back. They won’t wait for you to fish it out of your backpack.
Indian Tacos
Dale Bennett’s Indian Tacos would have ended the first and second world wars. Frybread, sour cream, rabbit meat, chilies, diced tomatoes, lettuce and cheese. Once a year she makes them for everyone at school. After that, you need to wait for Christmas, David or Nicole’s birthday, or the Candydance. But definitely not Thanksgiving.
Groping around in my camo cargo shorts, I pull out the roll of athletic tape. As an amateur fighter, I need to wrap my wrists myself. The tape feels very different from the cotton wraps that I use in training. It feels solid and impermeable. Next I look in the mirror. I smear Vaseline over my face so that any blows will slide off instead of rupturing my skin. My only thought is how bad this will be for my complexion, which makes me laugh. After a few minutes of shadowboxing and working on the bag, my friend tells me it’s time. Anxiety blossoms in my stomach, but I shake it off. Why am I nervous? I’m going to win, god damn it! I’m going to impose my will!
The private gym is high-ceilinged, dirty, and only has a few metal folding chairs strewn around the ring. It’s an underground fight. Two-dozen people mill around the ring. No one sits. Everyone here is an amateur fighter, a trainer, or both. It’s the best kind of audience, but a tough crowd to impress.
My nerves might be a little frayed, but I’m confident and composed. The same can’t be said of my opponent. He looks shaken. Head bent, he listens to his trainer give some last minute advice. I notice that his tattoo, a simple tribal arm band, is smaller than mine and isn’t colored in. For some reason this makes me smile, I know I’m going to win.
My first fight happened when I was 12, after my mother moved us to Northern California. Markleeville, a depressing town of 200 residents, sits in the dark foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Completely isolated, the nearest grocery store was a 20 mile drive through the woods. We decided to live 10 miles outside Markleeville next to the Washoe Indian Reservation.
As a chubby white boy from a wealthy family, I was a dead boy walking. The first day a tall kid threw me to the ground and kicked my face, knocking out two of my teeth. But I’m a fast learner, and wanted to be tough as much as the Res kids. I choked back tears, stood up, and spat a wad of blood and mucous on the ground. This impressed the gathering crowd, but I knew that adolescents’ memories or short. I had to learn how to fight. The strength, toughness and will were there, I just needed the skill.
After a few games of Res Ball (a combination of basketball, football and boxing), the tall kid who kicked my ass decided that I wasn’t a bad guy, and we became friends. His father was once a professional boxer, and between rounds of drunkenly beating his son, taught him how to fight. This tall Indian kid would smoke my cigarettes, and teach me boxing and streetfighting. I became passionate about boxing. After five years of training and living on the Res, I completely forgot what it was like to be the underdog.
It was during the summer after my freshman year in college that my interest in fighting was rekindled. My father’s friend, a screenwriter, was doing research for a film about mixed martial arts, and so got the three of us tickets to the Ultimate Fighting Championship 63. Mixed martial arts (or MMA) is a recent phenomenon that has become the world’s fastest growing sport. It allows fighters of different disciplines to test who has the most effective style. Previously, matches were only held within respective styles. A fighter can discover whether his Karate is superior to another man’s kickboxing. For many martial artists, it is the ultimate truth. And the Ultimate Fighting Championship is the place to find out.
Many people compare professional fighting to football or hockey. While these are both intrinsically violent sports, they are fundamentally different in spirit and practice. Other sports have a set objective, such as carrying a football to the end zone. There are rules, regulations, and players act as a team. In fighting, there is no team. When the fighter is in the ring, he is completely alone; he has only himself to rely on. I have heard it referred to as “the most unfiltered form of human competition.” People often refer to sports as a game. A man will say “I’m going home to watch the game.” It’s rare to refer to any kind of professional fighting as a game.
The UFC event was held in the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The tickets cost more than a thousand dollars a piece, but it was courtesy of Universal Studios. Just walking to the seats was a show in and of itself. Dennis Hof, owner and operator of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (as seen on HBO’s “Cathouse”), sat next to us accompanied by three stunningly beautiful prostitutes.
A portion part of the crowd were obviously fighters. Every fifth person seemed to have a swollen nose or cauliflower ears. In the restroom, one amateur fighter was serenely draining his cauliflower ear with a hypodermic needle. The beer flowed at a constant rate. Fighters danced with their gorgeous girlfriends to high-energy rock, and everyone was generally having a fantastic time.
The fights were incredible to watch. We were very close to the octagon, so each connecting strike sounded like a baseball bat hitting a hunk of meat. After each fight the opponents would hug (if both were still conscious), congratulate each other, and retire to drink beer and watch the next battle. The most anticipated fight was between Matt Hughes and Renzo Gracie, two of the most famed fighters in the UFC. Gracie made the mistake of giving his back to Hughes, and the fight was over quickly. Gracie was on his stomach on the ground with Hughes mounted on his waist. Hughes cocked back his arm, paused, and let loose a barrage of knockout punches to the sides of Gracie’s head. It was electrifying to see such professional fighting in person. These men were one hundred percent efficient, and showed me the obvious difference between a real fighter and a street brawler. More than ever, I wanted to improve. I decided to try a real fight, in front of a real audience. The question was, how?
I started training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is a modern martial art that is a hybrid of streetfighting and wrestling. It is just as technical as wrestling, and as a sport, has its own rules. It is a technique that is favored by many professional fighters in MMA. My trainer once made a great observation: “If someone who knows Brazilian Jiu-jitsu takes another fighter to the ground, and he doesn’t know Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, it’s like falling into a lake and not knowing how to swim.” This is very true. A skilled Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighter will have his opponent tapping out before he even registers that he is totally incapacitated. It teaches you how to move on the ground, and how to maneuver your opponent into submissions. If a fighter is trapped in an arm bar, for example, it only take two inches of motion to break their arm at the elbow.
I also took intensive Krav Maga (Hebrew for “combat fighting”). Krav Maga is best described as systemized streetfighting. It is designed to be utterly efficient and wholly destructive. Rather than trying to submit your opponent, the goal is to kill him. Krav Maga was developed by the Israeli Defense Forces, and most professionals regard it as the most effective no-holds-barred fighting system. This method is not accepted in mixed martial arts fights, but gives excellent training on the fundamentals of fighting. It teaches you how to move, hit and punch in all their variations.
I returned to college in New York State, and found a great gym. I committed to training for a real fight. It’s quite difficult to train at the level of intensity needed for a true MMA fight when you’re a student. Real fighters train up to six hours daily, and keep to a strict high-protein diet. Such a regimen was quite impossible for me, but I did my best. Every day I would practice striking for an hour. I would deliver a seemingly endless stream of knees, kicks, elbows and punches until my muscles screamed. On alternate days I would lift weights and develop core strength. Taking a 45 pound plate in each hand, I jogged laps around the school sports center to build a “death grip.” For cardiovascular training I ran from my apartment up a long steep hill that I dubbed “insano-slope.”
My diet consisted of fish, red meat, protein supplements, and gallons of water. The hard work paid off. My strikes became harder and my grip stronger. Most importantly, my endurance seemed endless. I felt that I had tapped newfound inner physical strength.
Finding a way to fight in a controlled setting proved to be difficult. The big problem being that it is illegal to fight in New York without a permit, which means submitting to an endless process of physical examination and bureaucracy. This was impossible for me, as licenses are usually reserved for professionals. A stroke of luck came when I was chatting with a new friend after a workout at the gym. With some reservation, the man told me that he knew a group of amateur fighters who, faced with the same dilemma, organized a monthly fight night. I told him that it sounded like the book “Fight Club,” to which he responded: “Jesus, I knew you’d say that.”
This man became my go-between and found me a place at that month’s fight night. This took more than a little convincing on my proponent’s part, but he vouched for me and I was granted a provisional membership. My assigned opponent was a first-time fighter as well, which was a great comfort. The prospect of fighting a seasoned mixed martial artist was daunting. I thought that if he was a first-time MMA fighter, and didn’t have previous streetfighting experience, I would have an edge.
When Jason said fight night he wasn’t kidding. The night of the fight I was told to meet my friend at a parking garage at two-thirty in the morning. There he handed me directions to the gym where it took place. Thirty minutes later we arrived at a sizable craftsman-style house, comfortably isolated from neighbors. Next to the house was a garage that could have served as a hangar for small aircraft. Cars were parked outside, so I assumed it was the right place.
There is a difference between believing you can win a fight and actually fighting. I’m locked into a staring match with my opponent across the ring. My confidence and adrenaline are spiking. I should have avoided this mental showdown, but it’s too late to back out. I try to make myself badass and intimidating, but the head games seem pointless. We’d see who was tougher in a minute. The referee calls it, we bump gloves, and begin.
My opponent is over-anxious and come out throwing fast, chaotic punches. Several of these connect, and I feel rage swell inside me. Ignoring the attack, I start throwing my own strikes, and we trade punch for punch. But this is a rookie mistake. Swapping punches is like playing “chicken,” where the last man standing only wins because of the thickness of his skull. The unprofessional turn this fight has taken is reflected in the catcalls of the audience.
Backing off, I clear my head and keep my guard up. Advancing cautiously, I throw a few jabs. His guard drops for a moment and I swing for a knockout punch. But before my fist reaches halfway I find myself on the ground, scrambling backwards. My stomach is throbbing. He must have landed a side kick to my abdomen while I was concentrating on the knockout punch. Another rookie mistake. My eyes should have been on been on his chest so that I could see his entire body movement. Instead, I was concentrating on his head and lining up punches.
But he obviously isn’t comfortable on the ground, because I scramble to my feet without any interference. We circle for a few seconds, and I focus on keeping my eyes from looking at where I want to strike. Without thinking I lunge under his guard, grip his right leg and shove forward driving my shoulder into his stomach. My opponent goes down, and the fall knocks the wind from his lungs. He doesn’t raise his legs in time, which allows me to mount his waist. Unable to buck me off and unable to effectively strike, he freezes into a protective guard. By this point I know the fight is over. I throw hard, heavy punches and elbows around his guard until the referee pulls me off. My gloves are smeared with blood, and sure enough, my opponent has a cut across his forehead. Some blood drips from my own face as well, but I couldn’t care less. I throw my arms out, my head back, and breathe deep. I have the option to stay and watch the last fight, but I’m too sore and too full of adrenaline. I drive home, smiling like a maniac the whole way.
The next day everyone I see asks what happened to my face. I dismiss the subject with vague but taunting replies like “let’s just say it’s been a rough night” or “well you should see the other guy!” But I don’t want to publicize my night’s exploit. This is partially because I want to avoid uncomfortable questions about where and who I fought. I can’t bear the thought of my friends patronizing me for doing something they can’t possibly identify with. Growing up in a fight culture has instilled in me, for better or for worse, a mindset that is completely alien to most students of East Coast liberal arts schools. But it’s alright. I didn’t fight for bragging rights. I fought to become a better fighter.
Photo of Shanghai Beggar by Michael Robinson
Asleep on her cotton mat, Yi Chun Yan was awoken by tearing, burning pain and the sounds of a hundred small children screaming. She crawled through the smoke and fire to the door, where the bodies of suffocated and burning children were strewn along the hallway. Coughing and crying, Chun Yan half crawled and half dragged herself towards the stairs. She almost made it down the second flight when the ceiling, supported only by glowing beams, collapsed. Lying on her back and kicking with her legs, burning timber and concrete plummeted onto her body. Believing herself to be dead, Chun Yan lost consciousness.
Chun Yan awoke to strong hands, tearing her scorched skin, dragging her from the building and across the red dirt road. Her unknown savior lifted her into the back seat of a sedan. Blackness again.
Blinding fluorescent light woke her for the third time that night. Lying on a gurney in the Mahan hospital, she took stock of her surroundings. Her eyesight was strangely impaired. She could only see if she closed one eye. Her preschool students, the children she knew so well, were unrecognizable. A girl’s face was bandaged, though blood seeped through in the area of her eyes. A boy’s legs were crushed, almost flattened by the falling debris.
She tried to look at herself, but her neck was braced. In her peripheral she could see her arms splayed beside her. Her right arm had splotchy burns but otherwise looked unharmed. That was good. She looked to the other side. Her left arm was bent at a strange angle, and her hand was ripped apart. She counted her two remaining fingers before nausea and pain forced her, again, into oblivion. The next time would wake, her arm would be gone.
I meet her for the first time on the steps of an underpass on the historic Bund, Shanghai. The rain is relentless, and though it is a warm night I can feel my wool shirt wet against my chest. It is still early enough for moderate traffic through the pedestrian tunnel, but people walk briskly with down-turned faces masked by dark umbrellas.
Xiao Yi is a vision of suffering. The burn is a broad diagonal stripe across her face where the flaming timber landed. Her lips are gone, melted off, revealing her upper palette which is at an almost 90 degree angle from her face. Her nose is an angry stump, that snarls upwards.. Above her eyes, which are set too far apart and at different height, is one lonely eyebrow. Her naked arm is amputated slightly below the elbow.
Although I ignorantly question her ability to speak, I approach her and ask if she would tell me her story. She attempts a smile and agrees. Xiao Yi gives me a piece of cardboard to sit on. But before I even ask where she was born the foot traffic slows, and we acquire a semicircle of spectators. They interrupt our conversation with questions directed toward me. “What are you talking to her about? And why?” Xiao Yi is becoming more and more withdrawn and I don’t blame her for it. I curse myself for my stupidity. Any spectacle in China will inevitably draw a crowd of gawking rubberneckers.
A woman produces a digital camera and takes a picture. Xiao Yi leaps to her feet and violently attacks the woman, grabbing the camera from her hands. “You think you can just take a picture of me? What gives you a right to just take pictures of people? Get rid of it! Do you think you’re going to make money from my face? Your heart is black!”
The commotion attracts the attention of the two traffic guards above us. The situation is getting out of control. Xiao Yi, bless her, looks at me and says “Come back at 11:30 tonight. We can have some privacy when the street is deserted.” I am filled with gratitude, as it was painful to see this woman change from cheerful to withdrawn and then to anger. My unrequited entourage follows me up the steps (now resembling tiny waterfalls), and I disappear into the Shanghai night.
Yi Chun Yan, nicknamed Xiao Yi (Little Yi), was born into vagrant poverty 1975. Her mother, an elementary schoolteacher, traveled constantly. Sent out to the countryside like millions of other Chinese after the Cultural Revolution, Xiao Yi’s mother found love in the arms of a fellow schoolteacher in Hunan. The relationship lasted long enough to produce two daughters, and then they separated. Xiao Yi lived with her mother, while her younger sister went with her father.
The nomadic lifestyle was difficult for little Chun Yan. She was never in one school long enough to forge lasting friendships, and she received no tenderness from her mother. To her, Xiao Yi was nothing but a reminder of an ill-fated and bitter marriage. But her tenacity in school, useful contacts and glowing compassion gave her excellent prospects for teaching.
After graduating in 1995, Xiao Yi took a probationary job teaching preschool children in rural Hubei. Finally claiming independence and stability, she aggressively embraced her new life. She loved her work, and her students were a daily source of joy. Surrounded by friends and suitors, working a job she loved, away from the coldness of her mother, Xiao Yi was, for the first time in her life, happy.
At precisely 11:30 I return to the underpass with bated breath. I sorely hope that Chun Yan has not reconsidered her proposal. If she had, I would surely not find her. But as the tunnel comes into view, there she is. Her canvas bag is packed and slung in the crook of her amputated arm. In her other hand she is carrying an open umbrella. She proposes that we go to one of the many cheap bars that litter the streets off of the Bund. Her head barely reaches my chest, but I still need to walk briskly to keep up with her. She tries to hold the umbrella over my head as we but gives up, exasperated. “You’re too tall. My arm is tired.”
She guides me up the thoroughfare, negotiating through oncoming traffic, under a broken gap in an iron fence, across more traffic, and finally up an encouraging side street. We enter a dark bar that promises privacy, and make our way to the back. The nonplussed waitress brings a menu, which Xiao Yi takes one look at before proclaiming the audacity of the scandalously high prices. I tell her that the I will pay for whatever she wants, but she is inconsolable. She rises and charges down the street to another bar. We enter and find seats, but it is not meant to be. Again, she finds an insurmountable fault with the establishment and leads me, once again, to the rainy street. Just as I’m wondering whether we would actually find a place that met Xiao Yi’s lofty criteria, she finally settles on an open-air restaurant with suspiciously low-priced soup.
After the school boardinghouse fire that killed 19 children and shattered the lives of many survivors, Xiao Yi spent three years in and out of the hospital. The most delicate procedure was resetting her eyes. Her eye sockets were crushed by the debris, and had shifted downwards. She lost the sight in her right eye during surgery.
Her various operations cost a total of 60 thousand RMB. Though the state contributed some funds to her medical costs, the bill was greatly paid for by friends and relatives. While under care, the Civil Affairs office promised her a monthly allowance of three thousand RMB for the rest of her life. They have yet to pay her anything at all.
Once she was able to spend some nights at home, Xiao Yi was transferred to a hospital in Hunan where her mother could look after her. Unfortunately her mother soon lost enthusiasm for the difficult task of caring for her recuperating daughter, and abandoned the responsibility completely.
Abandoned by her family, hideously disfigured, and without hope, Xiao Yi attempted suicide for the first time. Fortunately, the hospital staff spotted her before she jumped from the building’s roof. They caught her in a makeshift net, but she still hit the pavement hard enough to give her severe head trauma.
The injury to her brain temporarily robbed her of the ability to speak, and so Xiao Yi spent the next year relearning her own language. The neurological damage also made writing a difficult endeavor-a condition that persists to this day. Whereas before she might have retained her profession as an educator, it was now impossible.
Her friend, who saw the empty bottle of sleeping pills and forced Xiao Yi to throw them up, thwarted her second suicide attempt. Determined to end her life, she found an old well, with the intention of throwing herself down it and drowning. But as she stood on the edge, looking down into the black promise of death, Xiao Yi found she could not bring herself to jump. Defeated, she resigned herself to her new life, such as it was.
As she tells her story, Xiao Yi commands the attention of everyone in the tiny restaurant. When we first entered together, the other diners were disgusted by her face; affronted by the prospect of eating while looking at such extreme ugliness. But now they hang on every word. As she describes each terrible moment, their faces fall and they look ashamed. The chef, his white apron stained by blood and grease, comes out of the kitchen to lean against a wall and smoke a cigarette.
Xiao Yi moved to Shanghai in 2002 to take residence with her grandmother. There she learned to make jewelry to sell on the street. She offers me one of her handmade bracelets -she has a few left. Her business was successful due to the beauty and quality of her wares, and was able to buy greater inventory of materials.
One day a policeman stopped, and admired her jewelry. The man demanded protection money from her, and threatened violence if she refused. Not willing to give into the corrupt policeman’s demands, he kicked her in the stomach and left.
Not long after the incident, a man supposedly hired by the policeman seized all of her jewelry and ran. Xiao Yi chased him, but could not run fast enough. All of her money was invested in the jewelry. She pleaded with the corrupt policeman, but he denied her assistance. From that day, Xiao Yi has been a beggar. She does not hold a sign, or clutch at passersby, but just sits quietly with a bowl.
The community of beggars in Shanghai is not a friendly one. Shortly after she started begging, Xiao Yi was severely beaten by other amputees for intruding on someone else’s territory. The competition is fierce and few pedestrians are generous. Many beggars are young and able-bodied, but draw sympathy by carrying children. These children are usually rented or loaned by impoverished parents.
Police and thugs are a constant problem to the begging community. Many have no qualms about seizing money from begging cups or demanding protection fees or “lucky money.” Xiao Yi has learned to avoid the police by learning their rotation schedule and positioning herself where she can see trouble coming.
Though sometimes unusually generous, foreigners can also be a source of danger and extortion. An Australian journalist tried to photograph her as a part of an article about Shanghai’s homeless. When she refused, he hired a young boy to take a picture of her, which he sold to an online news site for a large sum. Another foreigner tried to rape her.
Through the entire story, the only time when she looks genuinely pained is when she recounts the story of her image being put on display by the deceitful journalist.
Life is getting increasingly worse for Xiao Yi and the beggars of Shanghai. When the Olympic Torch was in the city, she was threatened with prison if she appeared on the streets. And there are rumors that begging will be entirely outlawed in the near future. If this happens, Xiao Yi will throw herself at the mercy of her sister for survival.
She tells me “I’m saving up so that one day I can get surgery to become beautiful. But my story isn’t so bad. There are people here who have had it worse.”
She insists on escorting me to the nearest taxi. She says that she hopes I’ll visit her whenever I’m in the neighborhood. She says, “Welcome to the Bund.”