Under the Pierce Elevated

We set out January 16 to talk to some people on the street.

It was a hard day for me, because it was the birthday of my mother, who had passed away unexpectedly 18 months earlier. Her presence and her loss still shadow me hourly. It was rocky for my photography partner as well, as he tries to persevere and raise a young family despite his changeable work situation. He’d just had a setback, so was anxious and wanting to administer the medicine of busy hands and good work. I was crying and shaken, but pulled myself together and bundled in the car, game to face whatever fate and the cold wind placed in front of our lens and our pen.

It was a cold day, and still damp from the rains that had poured on the city all night long. With Ben driving, we circled over to where the freeways crisscross on the south and east of downtown. Ben is drawn to this area, for the Pierce-Elevated freeway had served as a 24/7 refuge for the city’s homeless throughout the 70s and 80s, sometimes 200 people at a time. There used to be a public park under the freeway. What a quintessentially Houston thing, a park under a freeway.

It was here that Ben met Judy, when she was just a little over 18 (now she’s in her late 30s) and bursting with ragged heart-broken vitality as she panhandled, her sign reading “Please. Just a little help,” an impish grin on her face. Nevermind that her parents had ditched her in a hotel room when she was 10, and she’d been mothered by a tall tribe of Montrose transvestites – she had the freewheeling joy of a 16 year old swaggering through life enamored with her innocent-jaded carny gusto, even as the free fall of her days terrified her when she stopped long enough to notice.

Now the park and its residents are gone, thanks to a tall metal fence erected by the city. When we drove the area a few days earlier, several clusters of homeless people were still to be found, pushed past the limits of the fenced area. Ben had been particularly struck by a couple nestled with blankets up against a chain link barrier, their choice of situation as seemingly aimless as a tumbleweed caught by a prairie fence.

But today, fewer people were out, hardly any, it was so damned cold. We guessed it was just the rookies, the newbies, who didn’t know where to find refuge when the Houston winter sent its occasional bitter chill. We passed one woman, an African-American woman who looked better groomed than your typical street citizen. Her clothes weren’t faded yet by exposure and dirt. She also looked dazed or maybe even terrified. She was crouching by a fence, the freeway above protecting her from the penetrating drizzle. We parked close by.

As we approached her she nodded her head and smiled in welcome, part friendliness, part shock. There were so many things in that nodding and those smiles. If you had been abandoned at sea, surrounded by unknown and dangerous creatures, no source of food or shelter, and occasionally boats passed by your outpost but did not pick you up, you might give this sort of nodding and smiling to another boat as it approached. Hello, hello, the nods and smile said, I acknowledge the approach of a fellow human. I’m out here in the cold for all to see, I’m lost, I need help, I terrified, but I’m not assuming that you are going to do anything. I’m really cold, the nodding said, but I am still civil. This is just the surface of what those big eyes — that contained hysteria, that look — all said to me.

Ben asked if it was okay to approach her and she nodded nodded nodded and smiled. We crouched down beside her and told her that we are journalists working on a book. Her name was Jacqueline. She would reach out and touch my shoulder as if she couldn’t help herself. I reached back. I felt like we communicated with touches and eyes, but when we talked we were less successful. I was shy, I didn’t want to impose. I felt badly that I couldn’t give her what she needed – I was just going to talk and leave. It was very hard to hear with the freeway overhead.

In the first minute I was aware of other people approaching. Not wanting to be trapped in Jacqueline’s alcove if they had ill intent, I stood and turned to talk. It was a man with a suspicious look, probably making sure that we weren’t hurting Jacqueline, and an overweight woman who looked like she might have Down’s syndrome. I talked to the man for a bit and he seemed somewhat satisfied.

When I talked to Jacqueline again, I asked her what brought her to the streets and she looked stricken. I said if it was too painful she didn’t need to say. She’d been there three weeks, and it was her first time. I didn’t know what else to ask her. All I felt like doing was patting her. I would have liked to take her someplace warm for a meal. Maybe next time.

Another man started coming towards us. I didn’t much like his look – he was young, and looked distant. When he saw me taking notice of him, he turned around and left again. I did not have a sense of how to be safe here. If what we were doing was foolish in terms of danger. Just didn’t know.

Another man roused himself from a bundle of blankets. He was friendly and interested. His name was Frank Smith, and he said he’d been taking care of another woman, who still lay bundled. He said her name was Ms. Smith, although I don’t think they are married. He told us she had COPD, that difficult impairment of the lungs, and she looked miserable and sick. I approached her and first she said, “I’m not doing anything, I’m not doing anything.” When I reassured her I wasn’t with the police or going to endanger her, she said she didn’t want to be bothered. She looked in a bad way. Frank offered to help us in any way he could, for which I was grateful.

After a while we rose to leave, bidding adieu of Jacqueline, the Smiths, a deeply dirty old man with thick dirty fingernails who asked for some change. I gave him a little. About 30 cents, then off we drove.

We got on the freeway, for we needed to go to the Galleria. A minute later we were soaring on the Pierce Elevated, a hundred cars a minute passing over where Jacqueline and Mr. and Ms. Smith and the old man were huddled, ourselves among the endless river of cars. We drove out of downtown on the Southwest Freeway, caught the 610 Loop, and quickly arrived at the exit for the upscale Galleria mall, driving down and around through the labyrinth of the parking garage, leaving our car and making our way through Marshall Fields department store. The entrance was through the perfume section, and as we wove our way through the various twinkling displays and kiosks, I was aware for the first time in my 46 year old life how very polished the floors were. My boots still have mud from underneath the freeway, and I worried that I was leaving marks as I walked. I tried to be incognito, but I felt like the faces I’d left were shining out from mine. Look at Jacqueline, look at Mr. and Ms. Smith, look at this old man. They’re over there, underneath that freeway. They’re easy to find.

All week everywhere I look there are homeless people. There are a LOT of homeless people. Of course I know this. Of course they are always there. And of course I have done what so many people do who have homes, who have routes, who have a lot of things to get done, who are good and kind and bewildered, I have trained myself not to notice this part of the world. Why? Oh, that is a desperate question. Because I don’t know what to do if I do notice them. I can’t hear you, the freeways’ too loud. I don’t know how to help you. I only have 30 cents in change. I feel half crazed myself. I am just barely hanging on by my own fingernails.

To be continued…

Photograph by Ben Tecumseh DeSoto