I’m looking at the silver lure of the new moon and thinking about Charlie Hawkins.
I only knew Charlie for the fifteen minutes we sat together this afternoon in Fountain Park. It only took seconds to see that he was falling through veils of darkness—he was homeless, addicted to alcohol, and he slumped on the bench as though his spirit had been unplugged. There was a hospital bracelet around his stick-thin wrist, and a pungent cloud of alcohol enveloping him—he seemed to live in a private climate of physical pain and emotional despair.
What’s the most common element two people can share in a situation like this? I wanted to talk with him. I wanted to look past the bloody terrain of his wounded life to see if I could find him in the shadows of his flickering consciousness. Sympathy may have guided me to sit next to him, but it was respect that made me ask, “so what do you do, Charlie?”
He tilted his head trying to focus and hesitated. His body was down to the bone and I was told that he hadn’t eaten or had water for five days. His words were a guttural stream of bruised vowels.
But in that stream I heard, “I was a pressman” and before I let him continue,I said, “Wait, wait.” I knew a little about printing. “What kind of presses?” I asked.
He paused, a slow grin taking shape on his sunken face, his eyes widening for a moment. “Big ones, 30ft long some of them, A.B. Dicks, some two tower presses, and man my feet hurt.” I’d experienced that myself. “You didn’t use rubber matting?, I asked? He realized we shared an experience. His laughter rocked quietly in his chest.
I tried an old printer’s joke, sexist as it was—“So, were you a stripper?” This was a reference to film set-ups and plate-making. This time he laughed. “Hell yes, we had to make our own plates a lot, so I stripped plenty.”
For a moment there was light in his eyes as he recalled parts of his life. Then he slumped back down, slipping under the surface of the summer afternoon. I had to go and told him that I would be back, that I wanted to know him and about his life because I wanted to know more about living without a home.
As I got up to leave Charlie said, “You understand what I did! You know how close the registration (printing accuracy) had to be back then?”
“A hairline,” I said. He nodded and smiled again.
Charlie Hawkins died a few hours later. I do not know the official medical statement, but I knew that when I met him he was falling—falling through time and space and that whatever line keeps us tethered to the gravity of life had been severed, and he was disappearing like a silver lure, its glinting lights extinguished by surrender.
•••
Bill Arrowood, who advocates for Kent County’s disadvantaged, introduced me to Charlie Hawkins with the hope that the Spy might open a dialogue about Chestertown’s homeless. Throughout the year, between 24 and 34 homeless people, including children, seek shelter in our community. Many are helped by the Samaritan Group Shelter during the winter months but when the shelter closes for the season people seek places in the woods, vacant building and backyards in the area.
Unfortunately, in order to offer a safe environment for others, most shelters will not accept homeless people with active, acute drug and/or alcohol addictions. That leaves fewer options for the addicted and mentally ill.
Kathy Bosin, Spy colleague, ex-social worker, and board member of Talbot Interfaith Shelter in Easton, calls attention to the complexity of these issues. “Addiction and mental health issues sometimes converge with—or help create—a type of person who refuses the help offered. For them, right or wrong, their independence is a driving force in their lives even if it’s a destructive path.”
Like Charlie, who moved from town to town and has been chronically homeless in Pennsylvania and Maryland for five years, many homeless people are transient. HUD estimates that on any given day in America upwards of 610,000 people can be counted as homeless, and of these, a quarter are children under 18. The real numbers are probably much higher.
There are no “at faults” in this part of Charlie’s story. I do not know about his past but during his last years a constellation of illnesses kept him beyond reach. The many times that UM Shore Health ER, Chestertown Police, Samaritan Group Shelter, Genesis Corsica Hill in Centreville and probably countless others helped him, testify to the availability of services for the critically addicted/mentally ill and homeless. They should be commended.
But is this the end of the story? Will I be writing another just like it soon?
Or, like so many other positive things happening in Chestertown, could this be the catalyst to help the Samaritan Group work toward a permanent, year round facility for those who are able to accept an offered hand?
And for the Charlies and a half-million Americans with serious mental health issues and no place to go but jail, the ER and the streets due to the paring away of community mental health…what about them?
..
pamela heyne says
This is a beautifully written piece, but shocking since Charlie died so quickly after James Dissette talked to him in the park.
Robert Hall (BobHallsr) says
“I wanted to look past the bloody terrain of his wounded life to see if I could find him in the shadows of his flickering consciousness.”
“His words were a guttural stream of bruised vowels.”
Excellent descriptive word crafting and mastery of using sensory details.
Life is Good,
BobHallsr
Dr. Jim Robinson says
It doesn’t even take being homeless or addicted or mentally incapacitated to be in serious personal circumstances. In Easton, the home of the third highest concentration of millionaires in the country (Forbes, 2011 and 2013), over half of our grade-school children qualify for school breakfasts and lunches because they come from families who qualify “under the poverty limit…” (income less than $24,000 for a family of four). Where do we go from here?
Julie says
Jim, this is a poignant, real tribute to a man whose life has been an unimaginable struggle. The time you took to sit down with him and acknowledge your brotherhood is the best gift you could ever have given him. If only all people could see the common humanity in the faces of our homeless brothers and sisters, and make the time and effort to hear their story, the world would be a more hospitable place. thank you
Kelley Malone says
Amen.
Kelley Malone says
This is so sad. Charlie worked for a while, during a period of sobriety, for us at Trinity Cathedral. I would appreciate knowing if there will be a service or how to contact family so that we can express our sadness, condolences, and share some stories of how Charlie made a difference in our lives, albeit for a short period of time.
Anyone have any information on his burial or contact info for family? Thanks.