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by Carol Harvey/PoorNewsNetwork
Christmas 2001. I slid through the slipstream of the Powell Street foot
traffic past Barnes and Noble towards Union Square where the flood light
from the Disney store shone on Carolin Jack. I looked for her feet and
>the footrest of her wheelchair projecting out from behind the red
>newspaper boxes happy at the thought that maybe generous shoppers would
>donate money to her and her cats.
On Halloween night, a woman gave her a headband with an orange pumpkin
>stalk on top. Would she be sporting a red Santa Claus hat? I approached
>and caught my breath. The air got cold. Where were her feet sticking out
>on her wheelchair footrest? A black hole opened in space where she should
>have been.
Returning at 9:30 p.m., I hoped Caroline would be there. A figure
>hunched over on the sidewalk. "Oh, no! They stole her chair. Now she has
>to sit on the ground." In Carolin’s place a sad young girl enveloped in a
>dark blackish-blue aura kneeled, head bowed, eyes closed, praying. I
>realized how much light and color Carolin leant that corner sitting in the
>glow of the Disney store like Mrs. Claus. When I finally caught up with
>her, she said, "Oh, I know that girl. The guy she’s with beats her."
She told me that, as she lay on the cold sidewalk trying to sleep, nothing
>about this year resembled Christmas. She disappeared because, "I was
>hiding from that cop. I just couldn’t afford to lose my cart or any more
>cats. A couple days before Christmas, the Animal care and Control drove
>by here. I didn’t have a single cat with me in the daytime. She waved at
>me, and clapped her hands. She was making fun. She said, 'Ha. Ha.’ She
>was saying she finally caught me out here without animals." They also
>came down where I sleep. They have my file confused with another woman
>who abused 30 cats. I never even had 30 cats. So, I had to hide under the
>freeway."
"She has no conscience. My kitty cats love me, and I love them, and I
>don’t let anything happen to them. "Tomorrow this guy’s bringing me a
>little black kitty. It’s about five or six pounds."
I asked, "Where is this little black kitty coming from?"
"From his backyard, I believe. She’s been in and out. Let’s see if he
>catches her. He doesn’t want her."
She reached down and petted the tiny black head poking out from her
blanketed lap. "This is the little Queen of Egypt. See how delicate her
>features are? Me and black kitties get along just okey-doke. I always
>love little orange kitties, and little black kitties love me." Carolin
>pays $10, $20, $40 to animal salesmen who care only for the money, not the
>cats.
She talked about police harassment. "The older cop told me, ‘Go down to
>Geary, off my beat.’ He told me, 'You just use the cats to make money.’
>That cop never asks if I’m a fake. He runs off High Smiley who has
>something wrong with his legs. He’s got something against wheelchairs.
>He’s seen too many stand up from wheelchairs and walk. He thinks they are
>all trying to scam the public."
She said, "There are people who scam in wheelchairs, but they leave them
>because they are not making any more. Some homeless guy on TV or radio
>said he makes $75 more a day because of the wheelchair. Guys like that
>say stuff like that, and it makes people think all people in wheelchairs
>are scams."
"People have been scammed a lot for diseases. Even Jerry Lewis has to go
>into the background of each person extensively and say exactly where the
>money goes before they will give."
After that Examiner article two weeks ago saying how the homeless are all
>scam artists and drug addicts, I tell people, 'I’ve been written about in
>the paper. You believe that bad story. Why can’t you believe a good
>story?’"
"That article made Willie come unchained. Within four days, he came out
>on the carts and everything else. He said, 'Get all of the carts off
>>Market Street,’ so DPW has been sweeping the homeless out ever since."
"The younger cop told me, 'Somebody’s got something against you,’ a
>powerful woman on the Board of Supervisors for the downtown businesses.
She’s the boss of the little security men in red jackets and caps." Sure
>enough, in late January, Carolin said they are cementing the newspaper
>boxes in place next to her spot, and no one can sit on that corner
>anymore.
"There’s been too much loss," said Carolin, shaking her head, "Too much loss."
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