LJ Idol: Rant
-Fuckin' foreigner! I am an American, you fuckin' foreigner!
-The cops will be here any minute, lady, and I'm telling you for the last time: Go.
-Fuckin' illegal!
She was a homeless woman in a dirty olive coat and a pilly pink hat, hunched on the floor with all her possessions spread around her in broken plastic bags from CVS. He was a clean-cut Latino man, twenty-something, in a manager's suit and tie. Her things were on the floor of his McDonald's, and they were angry.
-Ma'am, you need to leave right now. Right. Now.
That was how it started. Maybe if he'd started another way, it would have been different. He walked up to her and he had the power: he was in charge of the store, and he had the phone that could call the cops, and she could be arrested for vagrancy, because her hair was matted and filthy and her hands were shaking uncontrollably and the CVS bags were full of odds and ends that gave her life a sense of continuity and permanence that no sane person would find there. Which all added up to -- she looked like the kind of trash the city would like to sweep under the rug. The manager wanted to sweep her out of his McDonald's, that was for sure. Bad for business. And he was the one running the business, and he was the one holding the cards; so he spoke harshly to her from his first word, and he made it clear to her that he didn't like her kind. And she heard him, both what he was saying and what he wasn't. From that moment she knew she had nowhere to go but out.
I saw him speak to her and I thought of the topic of this week's LJ Idol, and I thought that there, perhaps, was my rant for LiveJournal. A rant on the treatment of the mentally ill and the homeless in this country; a rant on the refusal of those who have had the privileges of good health and good fortune to consider the plight of those who haven't been so lucky. That'd make a good rant for a blog. Yeah. I could get behind that.
-You can't kick me out of here! I'm an American citizen! I have rights!
She yelled back even as she was beginning to pull her things together, and this time the manager heard what I didn't. He heard the word "American" and he knew the color of his own skin and, just as she had known what he wasn't saying, he knew what she wasn't saying. He had told her he didn't like her kind; she was telling him, right back, that she didn't like his. And I revised in my head: perhaps here was my rant for this week, instead. Perhaps the brunt of my anger should lie not with the man who was ordering the woman out of his store but with the woman who found a target for all the frustrations and fury with her life in this Latino man, this woman who seemed to believe that no matter how low she got, this Latino man would always be lower, and he needed to know that. I thought about whether that, instead, was the direction my anger should take, the way my LiveJournal rant for the day should go.
I'm an American citizen too. You need to leave. Now.
She was gathering her things, but slowly, probably because of her shaking hands. He was standing over her, taut and wary. For a moment the scene seemed suspended: I hoped it would end and knew that it wouldn't. I leaned against the counter, trying to process what was unfolding before me, trying to understand what I was feeling about the two of them -- the stories that lay beneath the surface of each of their lives, the way this exchange would become a part of those stories. I thought about saying something. I am white, female, and nonthreatening, well-educated but not obviously upper-class; I might have been able to bridge the gap. I might have been able to interpose myself, speak to the woman gently, help her gather her things and leave the store. The manager might have let me help out because to all appearances I am a sane, pulled-together and upstanding member of society. The homeless woman might have let me help her because I would not have known how to speak to her harshly if I had tried, because if my circumstances of birth had been only slightly different -- if my parents had not had the money or the inclination to pay for the psychiatric hospitalizations I went through in my college years -- I could have wound up exactly where she is right now, and the knowledge of that is with me every time that I see a panhandler on the street.
But they were both so angry, and I was afraid of their anger. The edges of the situation were jagged and sharp, and I feared being torn, so I stayed where I was. I collected four salt packets, one after the other -- not because I needed four salt packets, but because I needed something to do while I was pretending I might do something else, until eventually the chance to do anything at all would have passed and I would have a lot of salt packets and a mingled sense of relief and anger. Anger at the world, for being this way -- anger at myself, for not doing anything to fix it.
-I'm American! You're the problem! You should have to leave, not me!
-You are trespassing on private property, and if you don't get out of here right now I'm calling the cops.
-Trespassing? You're trespassing! You're in my country, you fuckin' foreigner! I'm an American!
Just like that everything had spilled over, and the situation was uncontained. The manager's stance had widened, a defensive stance that was ready to become offensive at a second's notice, and he had gestured to someone behind the counter to call the police. The woman was getting up but it wasn't at all clear whether she was planning on leaving or on tearing some shit up. People in the restaurant were giving the scene a wide berth. Controversy was bubbling in the conversations eddying around me: there was a lot of talk about "those people" and not a lot of clarity as to which people "those people" were. The homeless? The Latinos? Neither of "those people" shouting in the corner of that McDonald's had gotten anything like a fair deal in American society, and both had found someone to hold themselves above, someone to turn into a convenient Other. The clerk behind the counter handed me a bag of something that I'd forgotten having ordered, along with a nervous, apologetic smile. I dumped the salt packets in the bag and found a chair far away from the scene and wondered what the hell was going on.
There was so much anger. The venom spilling from the woman's mouth was a rant if ever a rant had existed. The manager was more contained, having learned, perhaps, that anger freely and publicly expressed was anger that could be turned back on you as a weapon, under a variety of labels -- "unstable" or "militant" or "out of control", it didn't matter. But his anger seethed just beneath the surface, and I could imagine the rant he, too, would have once he was safely out of earshot. And I sat and listened and watched and wondered if I could blame either of them. She was sick and homeless in a country that has no compassion for those things. He was Latino and struggling to make a living for himself in a country in which the ignorant and bigoted had surely made it clear to him more than a few times what they figured his "place" was and what they'd like to do to him if he stepped out of it. And he had seen her vulnerability and she had seen his, and they had hurt each other, and the hurt gave rise to rage.
They had their rants, but I have none. I thought I would, but I don't. I understand their anger and there are times when I would share the anger of each of them, but I walked away from that scene feeling nothing but overwhelming sadness. It all felt so empty, somehow. She was right to be angry that she could be arrested for staying in any one place longer than five minutes, and her right to her anger didn't fix anything. He was right to be angry that she called him a foreigner and an illegal with such disdain, and his right to his anger didn't fix anything either. Rants can be cleansing and they can be healthy, but they can poison and fester, too.
I imagine what I saw today will fester, but I don't know. Perhaps that woman has been kicked out of enough places that she won't remember this. Perhaps the manager will brush her off as just another crazy lady, not responsible for what she says or does.
But it will stay with me. And I will keep wondering why the world has to be like this, and how it is that anger can be so justified -- so natural, maybe even so necessary -- and yet mean so little in the end.
I don't have any answers. Maybe if I had some answers, I'd have a rant, too, a nice solid one full of righteousness and certainty. That would fit more neatly into the topic, for sure. It would fit more neatly into my life as well.
But all I have are questions... and under the questions, pain.
This was written for therealljidol. Thanks for reading.
-The cops will be here any minute, lady, and I'm telling you for the last time: Go.
-Fuckin' illegal!
She was a homeless woman in a dirty olive coat and a pilly pink hat, hunched on the floor with all her possessions spread around her in broken plastic bags from CVS. He was a clean-cut Latino man, twenty-something, in a manager's suit and tie. Her things were on the floor of his McDonald's, and they were angry.
-Ma'am, you need to leave right now. Right. Now.
That was how it started. Maybe if he'd started another way, it would have been different. He walked up to her and he had the power: he was in charge of the store, and he had the phone that could call the cops, and she could be arrested for vagrancy, because her hair was matted and filthy and her hands were shaking uncontrollably and the CVS bags were full of odds and ends that gave her life a sense of continuity and permanence that no sane person would find there. Which all added up to -- she looked like the kind of trash the city would like to sweep under the rug. The manager wanted to sweep her out of his McDonald's, that was for sure. Bad for business. And he was the one running the business, and he was the one holding the cards; so he spoke harshly to her from his first word, and he made it clear to her that he didn't like her kind. And she heard him, both what he was saying and what he wasn't. From that moment she knew she had nowhere to go but out.
I saw him speak to her and I thought of the topic of this week's LJ Idol, and I thought that there, perhaps, was my rant for LiveJournal. A rant on the treatment of the mentally ill and the homeless in this country; a rant on the refusal of those who have had the privileges of good health and good fortune to consider the plight of those who haven't been so lucky. That'd make a good rant for a blog. Yeah. I could get behind that.
-You can't kick me out of here! I'm an American citizen! I have rights!
She yelled back even as she was beginning to pull her things together, and this time the manager heard what I didn't. He heard the word "American" and he knew the color of his own skin and, just as she had known what he wasn't saying, he knew what she wasn't saying. He had told her he didn't like her kind; she was telling him, right back, that she didn't like his. And I revised in my head: perhaps here was my rant for this week, instead. Perhaps the brunt of my anger should lie not with the man who was ordering the woman out of his store but with the woman who found a target for all the frustrations and fury with her life in this Latino man, this woman who seemed to believe that no matter how low she got, this Latino man would always be lower, and he needed to know that. I thought about whether that, instead, was the direction my anger should take, the way my LiveJournal rant for the day should go.
I'm an American citizen too. You need to leave. Now.
She was gathering her things, but slowly, probably because of her shaking hands. He was standing over her, taut and wary. For a moment the scene seemed suspended: I hoped it would end and knew that it wouldn't. I leaned against the counter, trying to process what was unfolding before me, trying to understand what I was feeling about the two of them -- the stories that lay beneath the surface of each of their lives, the way this exchange would become a part of those stories. I thought about saying something. I am white, female, and nonthreatening, well-educated but not obviously upper-class; I might have been able to bridge the gap. I might have been able to interpose myself, speak to the woman gently, help her gather her things and leave the store. The manager might have let me help out because to all appearances I am a sane, pulled-together and upstanding member of society. The homeless woman might have let me help her because I would not have known how to speak to her harshly if I had tried, because if my circumstances of birth had been only slightly different -- if my parents had not had the money or the inclination to pay for the psychiatric hospitalizations I went through in my college years -- I could have wound up exactly where she is right now, and the knowledge of that is with me every time that I see a panhandler on the street.
But they were both so angry, and I was afraid of their anger. The edges of the situation were jagged and sharp, and I feared being torn, so I stayed where I was. I collected four salt packets, one after the other -- not because I needed four salt packets, but because I needed something to do while I was pretending I might do something else, until eventually the chance to do anything at all would have passed and I would have a lot of salt packets and a mingled sense of relief and anger. Anger at the world, for being this way -- anger at myself, for not doing anything to fix it.
-I'm American! You're the problem! You should have to leave, not me!
-You are trespassing on private property, and if you don't get out of here right now I'm calling the cops.
-Trespassing? You're trespassing! You're in my country, you fuckin' foreigner! I'm an American!
Just like that everything had spilled over, and the situation was uncontained. The manager's stance had widened, a defensive stance that was ready to become offensive at a second's notice, and he had gestured to someone behind the counter to call the police. The woman was getting up but it wasn't at all clear whether she was planning on leaving or on tearing some shit up. People in the restaurant were giving the scene a wide berth. Controversy was bubbling in the conversations eddying around me: there was a lot of talk about "those people" and not a lot of clarity as to which people "those people" were. The homeless? The Latinos? Neither of "those people" shouting in the corner of that McDonald's had gotten anything like a fair deal in American society, and both had found someone to hold themselves above, someone to turn into a convenient Other. The clerk behind the counter handed me a bag of something that I'd forgotten having ordered, along with a nervous, apologetic smile. I dumped the salt packets in the bag and found a chair far away from the scene and wondered what the hell was going on.
There was so much anger. The venom spilling from the woman's mouth was a rant if ever a rant had existed. The manager was more contained, having learned, perhaps, that anger freely and publicly expressed was anger that could be turned back on you as a weapon, under a variety of labels -- "unstable" or "militant" or "out of control", it didn't matter. But his anger seethed just beneath the surface, and I could imagine the rant he, too, would have once he was safely out of earshot. And I sat and listened and watched and wondered if I could blame either of them. She was sick and homeless in a country that has no compassion for those things. He was Latino and struggling to make a living for himself in a country in which the ignorant and bigoted had surely made it clear to him more than a few times what they figured his "place" was and what they'd like to do to him if he stepped out of it. And he had seen her vulnerability and she had seen his, and they had hurt each other, and the hurt gave rise to rage.
They had their rants, but I have none. I thought I would, but I don't. I understand their anger and there are times when I would share the anger of each of them, but I walked away from that scene feeling nothing but overwhelming sadness. It all felt so empty, somehow. She was right to be angry that she could be arrested for staying in any one place longer than five minutes, and her right to her anger didn't fix anything. He was right to be angry that she called him a foreigner and an illegal with such disdain, and his right to his anger didn't fix anything either. Rants can be cleansing and they can be healthy, but they can poison and fester, too.
I imagine what I saw today will fester, but I don't know. Perhaps that woman has been kicked out of enough places that she won't remember this. Perhaps the manager will brush her off as just another crazy lady, not responsible for what she says or does.
But it will stay with me. And I will keep wondering why the world has to be like this, and how it is that anger can be so justified -- so natural, maybe even so necessary -- and yet mean so little in the end.
I don't have any answers. Maybe if I had some answers, I'd have a rant, too, a nice solid one full of righteousness and certainty. That would fit more neatly into the topic, for sure. It would fit more neatly into my life as well.
But all I have are questions... and under the questions, pain.
This was written for therealljidol. Thanks for reading.