Nobody's slave

“In a book you can go anywhere. Nobody rules you. You can put the book down. You’re in control, but you can get swept away. It’s perfect.”

Elden has been unhoused for twelve years. He’s an Iraq veteran, and in the beginning of his time on the street he suffered from PTSD, anger management problems, and alcoholism. But he quit drinking nearly three years ago because he felt he’d become a slave to alcohol, and he's nobody's slave. He’s been seriously looking for work for several years now, and so far, no luck. “If you have no address and no work record, they’re afraid to hire you,” he explains. “I’ve had people rip my application up right in front of me. ‘You’re homeless,’ one guy said. ‘Forget it.’ I left there thinking I’d like to kill that guy if I could get away with it.”

The various agencies that are supposed to help homeless people find jobs have been no use to him, but he recently got what he calls an Obama Phone (it’s a program of the Obama administration to provide cell phones to poor Americans), and since he got the phone he’s been getting odd jobs: yard work, small construction, handyman projects. He puts up a sign on bulletin boards and sometimes he gets calls. He’d like to get housing before winter starts with its endless rain.

But what he likes best is reading. Today he was reading a mystery he found in the trash, and he says it’s worth what he paid for it. He prefers fantasy to mysteries, and when I asked him to name his favorite authors, his face lit up. “I’d have to say Patrick Rothfuss is number one for me these days. He’s got a way with a story like nobody else. I really dig that guy.” But he rattled off a list of other favorites: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Margaret Weiss. I asked him if he’d ever read any Ursula LeGuin, and he started laughing.

“I’ve read everything she ever wrote!” He slapped his leg and pointed to the sidewalk in front of us. “She stood right there one day. I didn’t know who she was, but she saw me reading her book, and she said, ‘Good afternoon, young man. I wrote that book.’ I said, ‘Oh yeah?’ It was a paperback, and I flipped it over and there was a picture of her on the back. Sure enough, it was her. I stood up. She said she’d sign the book for me, maybe I could get a little more money for it when I sold it back to Powell’s, but I told her no, it was a library book. She liked that. She said she’d like my honest opinion on her work. I figured nothing to lose, so I told her sometimes I think she gives a little too much description, like I don’t want to know everything she knows about herbs. She was great about it, didn’t take it personally, just thanked me and went on. At that point I hadn’t read all her books. Now I have."

This blip is my first contribution to Booky Goatherd’s thread, “Readers’ World.” The dog was an unexpected bonus.

P.S. Katherine Ellis's brother Tom has written a great non-fiction essay on life, death, and being in a cancer ward. It's tender, wise, profound, beautifully written, and illustrated with a Max Ellis photograph that's perfect for it. I think everybody alive ought to read it. Really.