Don’t give him anything, she said to me. Who, I asked? That dirty man out there. He’s here all the time, begging. I tell everyone not to give him any money, he’s just going to spend it on drugs.
Hard to tell on his age. If I had to guess, I’d say he was around 55-60 years old. Vietnam Vet, his sign said. Hungry, please help. God bless. I gave him $20 and told him he’d better find a new corner store to hang out near. That woman inside is telling people not to help you out. Well, you did it anyway, he said. You are a good person. There are other good people around here. I’m okay, despite what she says. Ok, well take care of yourself, I told him. You too darlin, you too.
I managed to make it to my car, before I started sobbing.
Every time I saw my Uncle Mark, I always said that to him, take care of yourself; and that was his exact reply.
My uncle had a hard life. When he was seventeen years old, he drove his car over Mulholland in Los Angeles. There weren’t seat belts in cars back then and he and his buddy were thrown threw the windshield. His friend died instantly, but my uncle survived. However, his car rolled over his head. He spent months in the hospital, but all they could really do was wire his jaw back together and wait for him to heal. His hearing was shot to hell, but they thought he made a full recovery.
He didn’t. Close head injuries cause so many more problems. Especially back then, when they knew nothing about the brain. I mean we’re talking 1968 at the latest here. After awhile, my dad and his other siblings just started calling Mark, eccentric. Because he was. He did and said strange things that no one understood. But he built himself a successful business and they just figured he’d be fine. He was 24 years old when he had a psychotic break. He put air plane fuel in his motorcycle and drove out of LA. At some point the cops started chasing him, but they couldn’t even begin to catch up. We laugh about it now, but his bike engine melted right outside of a mental hospital. The cops took him to jail. My dad and mom bailed him out the next morning. He sat in the floor of their car, in the backseat, with a blanket over his head, talking about the little people coming to get him. My mom suggested they take him back up to the Psych hospital.
He made it there six weeks, before he checked himself out. He was highly intelligent and could charm anybody. He wouldn’t shower (the soap was poising him), or take the meds (they were stealing his soul) and he was competent enough to prove to them that he wasn’t a danger to himself. His diagnosis was acute schizophrenia due to head injury.
From that day forward he lived on the street. No one knows what happened to his business. One day he had it, the next there was no record of it. All we know is that when he applied to Disability, they were shocked at the amount he’d get every month. (Nnot that it was much towards the end of his life, when my dad was supporting him, but as a 25 year old, it took good care of him.) It’s based on how much you put in when you work and he’d put in a lot in 8 years of working.
He lived under a freeway on ramp for the 405. For my entire childhood, he lived under freeway on ramps. He liked that life. He felt safe in that life. Brought inside for a family function, he stayed in a corner with his back to the wall and shouted at people across the room. He brought me presents at Christmas and never forgot my birthday.
At my dad and step-mom’s wedding, my other uncle and my grandpa held him down to shower him. He asked them too, because he didn’t want to miss the wedding and he knew that was the requirement. At the ceremony, which was on a boat in the marina, he stood outside and took pictures of the sunset. But he was there. He loved his family.
My uncle was a bum until I was 15 years old. He wasn’t one with a sign, but that’s because he got a check each month. He didn’t drink, nor do drugs; he never smoked or caused any trouble. He was mentally ill.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of people on the street are not druggies. They are the mentally ill. There is nothing in this county for the mentally ill, unless you have money. Most of them are just ignored. We pretend they don’t exhist. There is no place for them; Ronald Regan did away with those places in the early 80’s. Before then, there were places where they could go. State funded places. Yes a lot of them do drugs and drink, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they are mentally ill. Drinking keeps them warm in the winter, it helps them survive.
Mark lived in an apartment that he took over after my Grandfather died in 2003. Before then he’d lived in my grandmother’s backyard since 1995, because he kept getting run out of his favorite spots by younger bums. He still didn’t shower, nor take meds. He collected toilet paper rolls, which he kept in his clothes for warmth. He had seven toothbrushes, one for each day. He didn’t eat right and he only washed his clothes, because the cat told him too. He had seven couches in his one bedroom apartment. Because the people needed a place to sit. The people, were the people in his head. He lived there, until his death in January of this year. He died from heart failure, a product of the diabetes that he wouldn’t take care of.
But he was my uncle. He wasn’t harmful. He never hurt a soul. He was just a guy with a mental illness. A bum, who preferred the open air, to a closed in space. He was my uncle Marky.
I have always given to bums and I always will. Money, clothes, food. Even if I have nothing, I will smile and be kind. Because each and every one of them, is a human being. Each one of them, could be someones Uncle Mark.
