Life Fragment Out of Nowhere

Maybe more, maybe less

(An experiment in remembering)

I lived in Tacoma once, in a strange sort of ten-month limbo. This particular limbo exists on Hosmer Ave. The area is distinguished by a number of the kind of motels where people can pay a week at a time for a discount. The motels are rundown and outfitted with castoffs from other motels. The first one I stayed in still had the giant sign of the chain it had been previously--Best Western, I think--resting against the back of the building. The street has a Goodwill store, a stripper/sex toys store, two laundromats, some fast food and both a Denny's and an IHOP. It is anchored at one end with a small shopping area which includes the unavoidable Starbucks and a large Winco grocery store where you can buy industrial-sized quantities of cereal and sausage links. The sidewalks start and end without warning, and are sometimes nothing but narrow paths composed of pebbles and dust instead of concrete.

The bus stops are inconveniently placed in order to discourage loitering, and the one with rain shelter smelled, inevitably, of sickness. This section of Tacoma runs beside the Interstate, of course, as these places often do. A walk of about four or five longish blocks from the Interstate will get you to a branch of the Tacoma Public Library, and for a while I had an internet-only card, lacking the permanent address required for a regular card.

You can catch a bus there, in the middle of those motels, which will take you directly in one direction to an outdoor shopping center with the usual big box stores, and in the opposite direction to the mall. There you can eat pizza and shop at Macy's and World Market and Half Price Books as well an ‘everything's about a dollar’ dollar store. I felt almost like a ‘normal’ person living a ‘normal’ life when choosing how to spend the little money I had available after paying my motel. Sometimes I also felt like I was living in the wilderness, trying to make a fire out of two sticks, never having read the boy scout manual. I was homeless, but I was a midwestern, white, middle-class kind of homeless and this was all new to me.

The first motel I lived in (for two and a half months) was called Rothem Inn. The room was filthy when I moved in. Deeply grateful to have a bed, I was undeterred. I walked across the street to the Shell station and bought cleaner and four rolls of paper towels, which I used up immediately--one full roll just on the table which seemed to be covered with mostly dry blood. The family who worked the day shifts seemed pleased at the time to have a concerned tenant. They did a few repairs. I paid in advance and then outfitted my room with a few items, like a one burner hotplate, and a coffee pot. There was no microwave because, as the maintenance guy told me, people put all kinds of things in the microwave, melted them and huffed the fumes. Was that true? I'm still not really sure, but I guess it wouldn't be surprising.

I took down the depressing drapes and replaced them with a deep red curtain I bought at the Goodwill. I bought a mattress cover to protect myself from the questionable mattress, and a very cheap comforter at Target which matched the curtain. And then I was settled in for a while, in this place of dubious comfort. It was at least two socioeconomic levels up from sleeping on a bench outside the QFC grocery store in Mukilteo. I did the math, and I could just make it on the money I had each month from my alimony.

I moved in on Yom Kippur and left during Chanukah, with two paid days still remaining. That was important to me for a reason that I might make clear later. My calendar in which I recorded my daily spending informed me of those facts. That year, Thanksgiving fell on the first day of Chanukah, and I had a meal of sugar and butter as I was out of money.

When I left the Rothem, the night desk attendant called me a troublemaking bitch. I have no doubt this was true as those things go. Admittedly, there were a few reasons for this insult—and, in my defense, I will point out that it was the kind of place where those kinds of things happen.

As unbelievable as it might seem now, there were many days when I was satisfied--maybe even happy. I remember laughing more frequently than I had in quite a while, maybe sometimes over things that only made sense to myself, but still, better to be laughing than not. I made friends with the Shell station attendants (who were all immigrants from Egypt), a few of the other Rothem residents, and briefly a guy named D.

Which led to the first of the troublemaking bitch events...

(But this is not the beginning either. Let me try again. Also, it occurs to me that a little background couldn’t hurt. I did have a life before this, after all. And one after. Just like anyone else who loses everything all at once.)