Story Archives 2011

Saturday, July 17, 2010;

“Our worst men lock up our best men”

--Charles Bukowski

It was my Goddamn Frisco sweatshirt.  I didn’t even buy it.  I found it on a banister, tried it on.  It fit like my own skin.  Maybe it was my own skin. I was riding my bike down Market Street on the way to meet a friend for coffee—a half block from my destination—the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), where my friend works.  I think of Market Street and how many times I’ve walked its face, balanced myself on its spine.  I see faces of all kinds—faces that have stories that come from places so deep that I am often saddened that most of those stories go untold.

I was on my bike in my city on my way to meet a friend. Between the both of us, we have a combined 87 years of residence in the city.  I glided past houseless folks, landless folks, elders, Filipinos, yuppies, bikers, artists, office workers, recyclers etc.  As I got closer to the PUC, I saw a group of 6 or 7 goofy looking folks in blue uniforms.  They were gathered near the entrance of Trinity Plaza.  I am a Children’s book author.  In my book, “Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel”, Trinity Plaza was the inspiration for the “Makibaka Hotel”—the site where elders and youth come together to fight their eviction by a greedy landlord. 

The 6 or 7 goofy looking folks were members of the San Francisco Police Department—all men and one female officer.  There’s something about uniforms I’ve never liked.  Perhaps it’s the starched quality or perhaps the dullness of it.  I wore a blue uniform once while working at a fast food establishment, and I currently wear one in my present job as a security officer—guarding the property of a landowner—while, I myself, own no land (The uniform isn’t mine either). The uniforms aren’t fit for Bozo the Clown (which was one of the reasons why I was wearing the Frisco sweatshirt…I wanted something more flattering).  The polyester pants are uncomfortable and my underwear always ends up in my ass.  The cops look as if they have the same problem, although they obviously do their best to conceal it (I think).  A uniform is a convenient thing to hide behind, much like a flag.  The shirt I wear as a security officer is sky blue as opposed to the SFPD’s dark blue (blue, blue…my love is blue), making me look more like a meter maid or MUNI fare collector. 

On this day I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the word “Frisco” emblazoned on it in red letters (Why not Frisco…I was born here).  The cops looked at me cruising on my bike and ordered me to stop, saying: “You know you’re not supposed to be riding on the sidewalk”.  I told the cop that I was less than half a block away from the PUC to meet a friend.  The female officer asked to see my ID. I produced it.  “Have you ever been arrested?” she asked.  “No”  “Are you on parole?” “No” Oh really, she said, as if surprised.  She checked my ID with some faceless person over her radio.  The male officer stood close by, to make sure I knew he was there.  The ID check was swift, performed before I had the chance to bow, do the sign of the cross or slip into a compliant yoga position with my neck fully exposed (lucky me).  Her official sounding radio communication was reminiscent of a Harrison Ford Movie (Without Harrison Ford).

It’s true--I’d never been arrested.  I’d never gotten anything heavier than a parking ticket.  I am a children’s book author and co-editor of POOR Magazine—a fact that doesn’t make me better than anyone else, but certainly doesn’t make me any worse either.  But I know folks who have been arrested and incarcerated—some of the best folks I know.  For some reason I get along with them—often times better than I get along with people who have not served time.  We sit, talk, laugh and eat donuts while watching the world go by.  I stood waiting for the cop to return my ID.  A few yards away were 6 or 7 youth of color, mostly African descended, sweeping the streets and leveling dirt at the base of trees lining the sidewalk.  The female officer returned my ID as if she was disappointed I hadn’t lied about not being on probation.  I looked at her and her nightstick which was almost as big as she was.  She looked like a typical American born Chinese girl from the Richmond District (I shouldn’t say that, I know…it’s profiling), that hotbed of resistance (Thank God for Eric Mar).  I had a sense that it was her first taste of power—but I could be wrong.  The male officer tried to be friendly, thanking me for my time in the same way a prospective employer does when he knows you don’t have shot of getting the job.  I took my ID and as I pushed my bike to the PUC one of the young street sweepers said, “Man, they ain’t got nothing better to do”.  I nodded thinking that it was an injustice that these young people have to sweep streets for officers to walk on.

I watched the news report that said Johannes Mehserle wept on the stand during the trial for the murder of Oscar Grant.  He thought he was reaching for his taser.   I thought of way Oscar Grant was brutalized before the shot was fired--forced down face first, knees on his neck.  He was just a young black man whose life wasn’t worth anything—that’s the message—broadcast on TV and all over the internet for the world to see.  For young men of color, people of color—particularly black people—the blue uniform doesn’t mean truth and justice—it means death—namely theirs, especially if they speak out or resist being violated.  I think of my grandfather who came here as an immigrant from the Philippines in the 20’s.  The Filipinos were brutalized by the police in the cities.  My grandfather was among them, handcuffed to a lamppost on Kearny Street near the Hall of Justice and, ironically, not far from the International Hotel--where our elders resisted eviction while mounted police forced their way through a human barricade 8 deep.

I was upset at being stopped by the cops like that.  Their attitude is that they own you.  My grandfather’s story, my story, my children’s story or anything I’ve written, in that moment, didn’t seem to matter—as well as the stories or lives of the street sweepers that are written in the streets.  The arbitrary manner in which I was stopped, because of my sweatshirt and race, is indicative of the race and class profiling that is perpetrated upon communities of color in our lovely and wonderful city. 

My experience is nothing compared to what happened to POOR Legal Scholar Marlon Crump—in his SRO hotel room when officers stormed in with guns drawn on the wrong person.  To Edress Stelly, Oscar Grant and many others who have died or sustained serious injury at the hands of the police.  I walk my city and look at the big buildings—designed to make you feel small and powerless—in much the same way law enforcement is designed.   Who put those big buildings there to make us feel small? Who are these people that are here to “serve and protect”?  What are they here to protect and who put them here?  Who is profiling them?  Who?  And why do I have to respect them when they do not have an ounce of respect for me or my skin?

© 2010 Tony Robles

Monday, June 7, 2010;

To close a gap we pull together

hold it tight lash it glue it weld it

chain it nail it screw it kiss it

to close a deal we shake it sign it

pay it cash on the barrel take it

make sure you don't break it

to close a job we check it fix it

pack it sweep it detail it play it

invoice it then haul out and bless it

to close a heart we hit it slash it

stab it in the back till we lose trust

so openly given then we regret it

to close a wound we open it clean it

cover it tender bind it not too tight

hold it safe take good care of it

too close this love outside the comfort

zone we kicked it tried to forget it

but it keeps on coming no way to stop it

to close this gap we learn to love

to give up the power over another

to take power over fear and anger

to close this poem we say thank you

we pick up the pieces glue them together

parts get mixed as hearts heal to surrender

Patty MacDonell and POOR Magazine writer Thornton Kimes worked together, in the 1980's  in the Washington, DC homelessness and poverty activism and action organization, The Community For Creative Non-Violence, and in Des Moines, Iowa in a Catholic Worker-ish intentional community called The Kindred Community--doing the same stuff on a smaller scale.  Thornton's raising hell with POOR Magazine, Patty MacDonell is still making trouble on the east coast.  Patty's article is about something POOR Magazine's poverty skolah superbaby mamaz know well, the never-ending attack on women in America.

"They tried to pass a law like that here in Virginia where any woman who miscarried would be required to contact the police. I emailed the legislator who wrote the law and asked, 'Would I be required to call the police when the bleeding began at the stage where I wasn't sure that I miscarried, while on bed rest? Or would I get to wait to contact the police after I got the devastating news?' He responded angrily indicating that all us angry women who had miscarried and were emailing him misunderstood what he was trying to do."
--Patty MacDonell, commenting on her note in a facebook conversation

When I was 11 or 12 I got obsessed with Henry VIII and his six wives. Henry rejected his first two wives because they kept having miscarriages, still births, and their only living births were daughters and Henry wanted a son. I remember a show on PBS where Henry's first wife had a stillbirth and Henry had a temper tantrum and put all the blame on her. After the stillbirth she understood that her life was in danger. At that age I understood how terrible it was to blame a woman for losing her baby. 

Currently, lawmakers in Georgia want to turn abortion into legal murder and want to ensure that all miscarriages are subject to police investigation.  What this means is that all women who suffer the trauma of miscarriages will then be subject to criminal, murder investigations. 

As abortion is legal in the United states, the purpose of the creation of state laws like this is to go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Women who lose the babies they want should be comforted rather than prosecuted. This law and others that involve the right of hospital workers to refuse to give an abortion that would save a woman's life, as well as the attempt to defund Planned Parenthood life-saving and abortion prevention services, are proof that the so called "pro-life" movement is indeed a misogynistic, anti-woman movement. It's a throwback to the 16th century, similar to Henry VIII's use of women as decorative, disposable birth machines.   

I have a daughter. This anti-woman, forced-birth movement could endanger her well-being and her life. There isn't a lot I wouldn't do to stop this from happening. Compassionate people, particularly those with daughters, should not ignore this hateful, hypocritical, anti-life movement.

Friday, July 16, 2010;

Bruce-

In May 2010, from the 21st to the 25th, the Arnieville IHSS encampment appeared

to protest Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts to In-Home Supportive

Services (IHSS) and other programs. June 22nd, 2010, the anniversary of the 1999 U.S.

Supreme Court’s “Olmstead Decision”, ruling that “the unnecessary segregation of

individuals with disabilities in institutions constitutes discrimination based on disability”,

brought Arnieville back to life. The participants in the encampment intend to keep it

going “until a just and fair budget is signed”.

I arrived early, June 22nd, 2010, to scout out the area, at Adeline and Russell Streets,

one block from the Ashby BART station in Berkeley, and walked right by the location

of the “Arnieville” encampment. A man in a wheelchair, Dan McMillan (co-founder of

Disabled People Outside), appeared to help a port-a-potty truck driver, and me, figure

out where to find it. Arnieville was started because of California Governor Arnold

Schwarzenegger’s actions, taking $75 out of monthly SSI checks, removing foot care,

chiropractors and acupuncture from the list of allowable health care—among other

We started talking. We discovered we have many things in common, like getting our SSI

faster than usual. Dan was denied SSI for 10 years, being told his amputated leg would

re-grow in a year. He slept on the streets until someone told him to sleep in front of the

Social Security office and apply again—he got the first ticket the next day. Rinse and

repeat 12 times until the director of that S.S. office told him he’d get his case expedited to

get him out of their hair.

At Noon, other campers arrived. I helped put up three tents, despite the written

instructions. We broke for lunch, and began to get to know each other. We were an

eclectic bunch of people: the KPFA radio station “Pushing Limits” disability program

host; an anarchist named “Fireball Dragonspit”; and an 80-year-old deaf activist named

Bob (a member of ADAPT: Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit). Three

people in wheelchairs from the neighborhood rolled in to give support.

At 2 p.m. we had a staff meeting to talk about the next day’s activities, who would do

what (washing dishes, greeting the public, etc). We also wrote a letter to the rest of the

people living in the neighborhood, explaining Arnieville and that we didn’t want to cause

them any problems.

At 6 p.m. we had a vegan soup dinner enjoyed by around 20 people. This elderscholar

reporter isn’t a vegan skolah, but the soup hit the spot. We had a mic-less poetry reading

and went to bed.

Day two, in the morning, an unfriendly passing driver (the day before the score was 100

friendly toots on car horns) told us “Communists” to get outta Dodge. We (including

new friends who showed up to serve breakfast) laughed. Strangers walking by during the

day were shocked by our information about the threat to eliminate In Home Supportive

Services altogether, and other nastiness.

Thornton-

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010, before going to the poormagazine office, I heard on the radio

(National Public Radio) that a class-action lawsuit brought against Skilled Healthcare

Group, Inc (SHG), which runs many eldercare facilities in California, was not only won

by the plaintiffs, but a massive penalty, $600 million, was levied against the corporation

for failing to have enough staff to give even barely adequate care of elders. The case was

brought because SHG didn’t meet state standards for staffing levels in such institutional

housing.

Of course, SHG is “vigorously” defending itself against having to pay that much money,

$500 per affected elder per day they had to suffer choosing either to sit in their own pee,

or get staff to help them and then sit alone where they got the “help”, for hours--or other

outrageous indignities.

The “Governator” can’t, or won’t figure out how to do this stuff either. The corporate

folks don’t care, why should he?

Bruce-

Later on the encampment population shot up to 30-ish. We were visited by a wheelchair

and ventilator-equipped Disabled Studies Professor from Stanford University, and we

all talked about the press conference planned for the next day. Disability activist Jean

Stewart, author of the novel THE BODY’S MEMORY, read from the “Swimming in the

ocean” chapter (and discovered new fans of her writing) during the poetry part of Night

Day Two’s dinner had a choice between carnivorous and vegan diets via a professional

caterer. This elderscholar won’t complain (much) as long as the food tastes good!

The press conference happened at Noon on Day Three, drawing a 100-person crowd.

Channels 2, 5 and 14 interviewed Arnieville participants (and put the encampment

on their 6 p.m. newscasts), Channel 7’s crew was there until a murder in Vallejo sent

them racing for a more “interesting” “if it bleeds, it leads” story. Night Three we saw

THE PEOPLE SPEAK, a documentary based on historian Howard Zinn’s celebrated

alternative history book A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Day Four I left (concrete and 60-year-old bones don't get along for very long...), returning July 4th weekend (Saturday) after getting info for a future story.

All the usual suspects were there, plus some new friends, including a college student

who nicknamed me “the Noam Chomsky of In Home Support Services”, which had to be

explained to me. I found out later it was a compliment.

Arnieville continues. Anyone who wants to be part of the encampment, help

out with food, etc, has several ways to contact the camp. The email address is

arnieville@gmail.com.

It can also be reached at the CUIDO (COMMUNITIES UNITED in DEFENSE OF

OLMSTEAD) website at

www.cuido-arnieville.blogspot.com

or at

510-684-5866
 

June 2000

Trent Hayward died nearly within spitting distance of the gleaming,gold-bedecked dome of San Francisco City Hall. On the evening of Friday, June 2, he laid his head to rest on a ragged patch of earth one too manytimes. He never arose from his final sleep. We close our eyes, a poet dies.It was a lousy place for a great writer to die, a shabby, vacant lot on thecorner of Larkin and McAllister that had become a last-ditch sleepingquarters for those who couldn't pay their way into even the worst slumhotel. Trent Hayward, an outspoken and prophetic writer who tried to rightthe wrongs of this rotten, corrupt system, slept on this street corner formonths, a place where his dreams were invaded by the roar and toxic exhaustof passing traffic, his inner peace assaulted by the mind-bending chaos ofstreet life.

The ultimate mockery is that he died in full view of the golden dome ofCity Hall, where San Francisco officials, in their ice-cold arrogance,invested hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build a decadent replica ofthe opulent Palace of Versailles, presumably so all the unsheltered, unfed,and, in too many instances, unliving bodies of homeless people sprawled onthe unforgiving ground all around could be comforted by thismultimillion-dollar monument to Mayor Willie Brown's ego.

Every night when he bedded down, every morning when he arose, Trent couldsee where the city had blown all its shelter money, its drug detox money,its mental health money - instead of wasting it on the destitute likes of him.On June 13, about 100 of Trent's friends gathered at the street cornerwhere he slept, and dreamed, and died. We held a memorial service organizedby Lisa Gray-Garcia of Poor News Network and Connie Lynch of the GeneralAssistance Advocacy Project. As I offered flowers and a tribute to Trent, Iwanted to say, "Trent still lives in our hearts and is resurrected in ourstruggle for justice."

But those words just wouldn't come out. His death seemed too sad forsolace. All I could offer was a curse to the world of injustice where helived and died: "Fuck you, San Francisco, for spending your money to coverCity Hall in gold while your people live and die in poverty and misery onthe streets all around it."

In my heart, Trent Hayward is absolutely irreplaceable, the finest writerto grow out of the homeless movement. I mourn his loss tremendously. He wasthe most passionate and dedicated writer out of the hundreds who havewritten for Street Spirit in the past five-plus years.

Trent was the one with the guts and the nerve, the one with the spirit andthe sarcasm and the spunk and the style, the one who would not be silenced.The one who could rescue comedian Doug Ferrari from the oblivion of povertyby the sheer humanity of his writing. The one who could use that same pento hurl thunderbolts at the agents of injustice in positions of power. Itis heartbreaking that his voice will be silenced forever.

Andrea Buffa of Media Alliance and Lisa Gray-Garcia (Tiny) called me withthe awful news after Tiny found the cops putting Trent in a body bag on thevacant lot where he died. That night I was shaken at his loss, rememberinghow vital and enthusiastic he had been in the days before his death, askingme constantly for new writing assignments, wanting to take on a whole worldof injustice with his pen.

But as much as it hurt to contemplate his senseless death that first night,the next morning was far worse. I felt such a heavy sense of irreplaceableloss, a feeling I can't get over to this day. I felt then, I feel now, thata part of our hope has been stolen. In Trent's absence, many life-and-deathstories on the mean streets of poverty will never be written - not with asmuch passion and outrage and investigative zeal as he would have mustered. On the morning after his death, it felt like the world was a lesser place,drained of vitality. I have not been able to fathom to this day how to makeit right again. In spite of well-meaning platitudes, life doesn't always goon again, and not all wounds are healed by time.

Like a setting sun

Neil Young's haunting song of mourning and loss plays in my mind for Trent:

"I've seen the needle and the damage done,

A little part of it in everyone,

But every junkie's like a setting sun."

Trent's sun set gloriously. He was writing furiously for Street Spirit,Street Sheet, and Poor magazine. His powerful moral indictment of themismanagement of Hospitality House came out in the June issue of StreetSpirit the very day he died. On the last day of his life, when Trent wasfading away and becoming permanently voiceless, the fates granted him thisone last chance to be a voice for the voiceless. It felt like an unquietghost was still raising hell in our publication, disturbing the peace ofthe unjust. With Max Nolan, Trent had spent months researching thisinspired piece of muckraking journalism that spoke out for all the homelesspeople and artists who got shafted by the agency.

His first on-line column for the Guardian was reportedly in his backpack,the same backpack his mother Connie Connell wrote about in a farewell prayer:

Trent, oh Trent, my only son

You left this world with only a

backpack by your side

And as you laid down upon the ground,

Earth mother hugged you and cried.

At the June 13 tribute to Trent, it was overwhelming to see how manyhomeless friends, activists and media colleagues came to pay tribute to afallen warrior. Connie Lynch read a beautiful, wake-up call of a letterthat Trent's mother had written especially for the service (the full textis reprinted on page five).

Perhaps the most heartfelt tribute was paid by Doug (Dougzilla) Ferrari, agifted comedian who had undergone a harrowing descent from the top of thecomedy world down through the end-of-the-line slum hotels and emergencyshelters of San Francisco.

When their paths crossed fatefully on the tough streets of the Tenderloin,Trent threw Dougzilla a lifeline, disguised as a pen. Writing in StreetSpirit under the pseudonym Harpo Corleone, Trent wrote a vivid account ofFerrari's life story so that you could feel the exhilaration of Dougzilla'scomedy career, and also the anguish of his addiction and mental disability.Trent made you see the hellish plummet into hellhole slum hotels.

Trent's story in the May issue of Street Spirit lifted Doug Ferrari out ofthe silence of poverty and got him onto the front page of the San FranciscoChronicle. Kevin Fagan picked up the story, wrote about Ferrari's plight inthe Chronicle, and enlisted Doug's old circle of comedy friends to come tohis aid.

With his voice full of emotion, Ferrari said at the memorial service thatTrent had saved his life by writing his story. Ferrari had been laid so lowby poverty and disability that he had resigned himself to enduring thelousy, unspeakable conditions in slum hotels, and had resolved to nevertell anyone who he really was, or ask for help. Then Trent stepped in, andeven though he was busy battling his own demons, he found the heart towrite an uplifting story about a world-class comedian struggling to survive.Despite his essential role in rescuing Ferrari, Trent's own rescue nevercame. In one of his last acts on earth, Trent - a bright spirit savagelyeliminated from our midst - may have helped save another spirit from thebrutality of the streets. This is how instant karma repays him?Harpo Marx in the Tenderloin

Trent's pen name was Harpo Corleone, an uneasy alloy of two very differentpeople, Harpo Marx and Don Corleone. Trent was an anarchic spirit, a HarpoMarx stepped down from the movie screens into the hard-edged streets of theTenderloin, there to unleash the Marx Brothers' subversive, surreal attackson the status quo.

Harpo, Trent's hero and namesake, was the most wildly imaginative Marxbrother, a riotous and lawbreaking role model, brazenly stealing everythingthat wasn't nailed down from the pompous stuffed shirts, then outrageouslymocking the police who came to bust him.

Trent was as free-spirited and out of control as his alter ego, Harpo, yethe was simultaneously something tougher: a raw-edged, blunt-spoken fighterfor the rights of the poor. Harpo Marx's musical instrument was the harp;Harpo Corleone's chosen instrument was the harpoon, thrown with greatrelish and piercing accuracy to puncture the bloated egos and moneybags ofthe rich and powerful.

The needle and the damage done

"I know that some of you don't understand

"Milk-blood to keep from running dry."

Trent was facing double jeopardy as a sensitive soul and a destitute streetperson. Blessed and cursed with the hypersensitivity of the artist, Trentwas shoved out of society and onto the streets, there to face everydehumanizing hardship and soul-crushing indignity imaginable.

He turned to alcohol and to an even stronger anesthetic, the "milk-blood"of heroin, to numb out the pain of the streets and to find shelter underthat comforting chemical warmth. It's not just homeless human beings whofall prey to the death-trip of addiction. Countless creative artists,writers, poets and musicians have ended or shortened their lives becausethey turned to alcohol or drugs in stupefying amounts for solace orinspiration or numbness or unconsciousness.

A shield from the pain of life, self-medication with drugs and alcohol isone of the surest ways to be delivered from pain for all time. It's arelatively short journey from numbness to anesthesia to feeling nothing atall ever again.

"I watched the needle take another man,Gone, gone, the damage done." The heavy street drugs are natural born killers. They comfort in the shortterm and destroy in the long run. Once you're addicted and living on thehopeless streets, fighting your way out again is like frantically sloggingout of quicksand. The harder the captive thrashes about trying to escape,the more powerful becomes the deadly pull downward. At the very moment oneseems to be making it to the surface, the quicksand of addiction cansuddenly pull one down into oblivion - all the way to nothing.

Truffaut's film, The 400 Blows, shows how a series of hard knocks finallylands with the cumulative power of a knock-out punch and sends a derelictboy reeling right off the face of the earth - the final frame freezes on ahaunting image of the youth running blindly into the ocean.

So it was with Trent. Enduring the 400 blows of poverty islife-threatening. Many of his friends wondered at the timing of his death,for his life seemed to be on the ascent, his spirits lifting. But thestresses and burdens of poverty, substance abuse and disability aren't laiddown so easily. Just when it seemed an escape hatch from homelessness hadopened up, when Trent's writing career was taking off, one final, fatalblow landed. That's all it took.

That's what we did not see or suspect. Didn't Gandhi warn us that povertyis the worst form of violence? Didn't the 169 homeless men, women andchildren who died on the streets of San Francisco last year teach us thatpoverty is lethal?

Somehow we did not see it coming.

We lower our guard, a friend dies hard. We close our eyes, a poet dies.

June 2000

In a world where optimism is hard to come by, Trent was the embodiment of hope. A couple weeks back I figured: a guy with such a huge talent, with such sharp intellect will undoubtedly pull himself from the depths of despair. The streets that have devoured so many of my friends won't get this one, I thought.

Trent, I assumed, would use words to skewer the demons that chased him. He'd teach us all a lesson in personal fortitude. He'd be tougher, stronger, more compassionate, smarter for his days on the streets -- a Nietschian hero who once dwelled in the maw of darkness. Like Lee Stringer, the soul-touching New York writer who wrested himself from a decade in the clutches of crack, Trent would tell the world his story, and his words would send shivers through us. Harpo would thaw out some of our frozen dreams, fuel us with inspiration to keep on living.

Knowing him put a wry -- yet earnest -- smile on my face and a warmth in my heart.

But the story is cut mid-sentence -- I now add Trent to the list of friends who killed themselves. (Even if he didn't, on that day, mean to off himself.)

And like all of us, I ask what I could've done, lambaste myself, get Catholic about it.

And I am uglier and angrier, my fingernails digging crescents into my palms.

And I look at my comrades who are still with us and try to appreciate them a little bit more.

June 10, 2000

When I heard Trent died it seemed both unreal and inevitable. I look at his picture and he looks so alive, so energetic so vital. So young.

Yet his death also feels like peace, rest at last. I remember my years and years of endless homelessness, homelessness with its wall-to-wall nonstop brutal reality with no time out. I just wanted off, to rest, for it to be over, to die. Heroin was not in my toolbox, but I have met many people who told me they were going to get some and OD because they just couldn't take it any more. It's a pretty easy way to die. Maybe that's what Trent was doing. Or maybe it was just a mistake.

He was having a hard time with his success, of getting the gig writing a column for the online Bay Guardian. Many street people can't handle "success", Food not Bombs has had a lot of people who can't. Perhaps because it is associated with such ugly behavior by those who have our society's definition of success. The flip side of failure and punishment, success and the right to fuck people over. The fear of losing it. Trent's drinking seemed to escalate after he got the job. I had rarely seen him drunk much before, once at a housing meeting he came really out of it. Periodic scabs on his face from some long night. He mostly seemed ok when he came to the ROV writing group this past year. He worked hard and he was a bit crazy, like the rest of us.

He was supposed to start writing a column about the world from his view as a homeless person. I think about that: having a job, writing: but did he have to stay homeless to keep it? What if he got housing with his salary, would the SFBG still find his edgy, sharp writing exciting? Then, what I remember that was so painful for me in my years of homelessness, was how could people with housing work with me politically, claim to believe that homelessness was politically wrong, claim to be my friends, and yet neither offer a time indoors nor help me find housing. Only those with the least shared it. It made me very crazy, and cynical.

And the double life of having to look meek and scruffley to get what I needed to survive, and to look neat and confident and together to get what I needed to get out of the trap. The situational insanity of poverty. Perhaps some of these things were going on with Trent.

At the same time other things happened. His good friend Tom Gomez left town a week before, apparently ran off with some people who wash feet; and his friend Max lost his housing which was a place Trent had been able sometimes stay indoors. Losses in a fragile support system can be the tipping point.

We may never know what was really going on for Trent, but we do know it's not all right for people to live like this in the midst of the great, obscene wealth of San Francisco, of the USA. So maybe it was murder.

Trent was always a pleasure to be around, his vitality gave me a lift, perhaps some hope. I am sad he is gone, but I still suspect he may be relieved to not have to work so hard and endure so much pain anymore.

I am touched by the outpouring of responses to his passing. I am charmed and saddened by the range of people's reactions, functional and dysfunctional. Death, our great companion and taboo.

I thank you great spirit that we had Trent in our lives while he was here. His family told people he died because he had a bad heart, but we know he had a good heart. Goodbye, Trent.

Thursday, June 1, 2000

"Yeah its gonna be an opinion column, online for now but we'll see about print they said. They are trying to do more online stuff cuz it is cheaper than paper. I also found out that I got the internship as well, so I am super busy all of a sudden...Im going to work the internship on Mondays and Fridays so Thurs and Tues are open for POOR and ROV. Right now I am scrambled due to the first column, so forgive me if I have been flaking on the newsroom. As soon as my schedule gels into some amorphous semblance of rigidity, I will be more regular.

(I hear bran muffins help also) Peas, Trent

June 2000

Trent Heyward was one of the most creative people I've ever had the honor of knowing.He possessed a wonderful sense of humor and an exceptionally keen mind. He was a good friend and I'll miss him a lot.

June 2000

Dedicated to Trent Hayward...
You are...
A screaming memory reborn in a whispering connection.
So much strength
sheltered beneath your travelling eyes.
I have learned the intensity of loss,
and the propensity for madness
re-occurring.
So tonight I light another candle
the smoke from nag champa burns like a blazing fire
and another joins the ancient burial ground in my soul
where the sacred at rest never die.
I may never understand the earths claiming
of street prophets, and works of art.
I will never comprehend...
but I will place all my faith in your next journey...
and hope I see you around in the next life.
Take care sweet Trent

One can never get used to loss, I have learned this over and over again.
It only gets deeper, and harder every time. Sometimes I hope I will get colder... because each passing becomes a mourning for everyone I have lost.

We will all miss you...