Fayth, Hope, and Charity

I first saw her from a distance, a lone figure standing in the middle of an immense, nearly empty, dirt parking lot on the north bank of the San Diego river, not far from where it emptied into the ocean. The tide was exceptionally low, so that the woman could walk across the channel to Dog Beach, if so inclined.

But she wasn’t. She just stood there looking away from me as I slowly approached in my van. She seemed to be waiting for someone, searching for sight of a car to come pick her up. Maybe they were supposed to meet, and the other party was late.

As I drove closer, planning to spend a quiet day of writing here, where I knew Scout wouldn’t see any dogs or feral cats to bark at, I could make out some details. There were two rounded bags on the ground next to the woman. She wore a light gray coat. Her short hair was dark. She was still watching the other direction, I thought, for someone to come for her.

I stopped and turned off the engine, deciding to read Facebook posts on my phone and wait for whoever it was to come and take the woman away. I couldn’t concentrate on writing with her there. I decided that if she didn’t leave soon, I would find another spot to park.

In a few minutes, I looked up. The woman was still there, now sitting on her haunches in the dirt next to her bags. I wanted to drive away and get on with my plan to write all day but it just didn’t seem right to leave her there. What if no one came for her? The nearest store, or any public facility, was two miles away across a heavily-traveled bridge.

I sighed and got out of the van. Scout came forward from her nap on the bed, curious. More details became clear as I walked closer. The woman looked to be in her 40s. Her gray “coat” was actually a velour bathrobe. The bags on the ground were two pillowcases apparently stuffed with clothing. Her short hair had been clipped into a haphazard faux hawk.

What was I going to do? I didn’t know, but I called from fifty feet away so as not to frighten her.

“Hello?”

She didn’t seem to hear me so I stepped closer and called again. She turned and looked at me. I walked closer.

“Hi,” I said. “I saw you standing there and wondered if you needed help.”

She stood up, her face tan and weathered. A large, pink-and-blue tattoo peeked out from under her bathrobe sleeve. She was barefoot. She looked dirty. Homeless.

“Hi,” she said.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

The woman looked again toward the street.

“No,” she said, tentative.

“My name is LaVonne,” I said. “I live in that van over there.”

She looked past me at El Milagro and back at me, seeming confused. Scout watched us from the driver’s seat.

“Do you need help?” I asked.

I need to be honest here. I am not a saint. I did not want to help this woman. I’ve tried to help people in the past and had them glom onto me so hard that it was difficult and expensive to get free of them. It’s like they tell you, Don’t feed feral cats; they never leave. But those experiences have taught me enough about boundaries that I was sure it wouldn’t happen again.

“Can I do anything for you?” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask for a ride. I did not want her in my van.

“Um,” she said, scrunching up her face like a kid afraid of the answer, “do you have anything to eat?”

I was surprised and also mentally face-palming: of course she was hungry, why didn’t I think of that?

“I don’t have any food that doesn’t require cooking,” I said, feeling lame. Then I remembered: “Except apples. Do you want an apple?”

She didn’t respond.

“I have some eggs,” I said. “Would you like some scrambled eggs?”

She looked at me and said yes.

“I’ll go fix them and bring them to you,” I said so she wouldn’t follow me.

Scrambling eggs is easy, even in the van. I have a propane stove and everything else I need: utensils, frying pan, paper bowls, oil, salt and pepper. I got two eggs out of my new fridge, and grabbed a few grape tomatoes too. I looked at the avocado I’d been planning to eat in my salad for lunch and decided the woman could live without it.

In a few minutes, her breakfast was ready. I looked out the window. She’d moved closer and was stuffing one of her pillowcase bags into the other. She had put on a pair of white, knee-high socks but still wore no shoes.

I stepped out of the van and handed her a plastic fork and the paper bowl of scrambled eggs and tomatoes, along with a small cup of salsa that I’d saved from a visit to Jack-in-the-Box.

“Do you want salsa?” I asked.

“Is it spicy?”

“No, just mild salsa.”

“Okay,” she said, and I poured it over her eggs, just the way I like it.

Stop it, I told myself. Stop being so controlling. I stepped back to let her eat.

She took a bite and looked at the food, skeptical, picking at it with her fork.

“This tastes funny,” she said.

“Oh, no,” I said, worrying that I’d left the eggs in the fridge too long. “Let me taste them.”

I pulled off a small chunk of egg with my fingers and put it in my mouth.

“It tastes okay to me,” I said, but she didn’t look convinced.

She continued picking at the eggs with her fork, looking at them closely. I could see that she wouldn’t eat them, no matter how hungry she might be. It was starting to rain.

“Why don’t I take you to Jack-in-the-Box?” I asked, making a quick mental inventory of the van’s contents. There would be enough room for the woman and her bags—just barely. “It’s not far from here.”

I  was committed now.

“Okay,” she said, her voice blank.

“Give me a minute to make room.”

I took the bowl of scrambled eggs from her and went back to move things around to make space in the van, a giant Rubik’s cube of my belongings. When I’d finished, I opened the door to invite her in, holding my exuberant, 70-pound dog back by the collar. Scout was, as usual, thrilled to see a visitor, and wanted nothing more than to climb into the woman’s lap and lick her face.

“Sorry,” I said, but the woman seemed to come alive as she sat in the backward-facing passenger seat. It makes a nice easy chair when I’m not driving but turning it forward for a passenger is something I’m not sure how to do. This was the first time since I got the van, a few months ago, that I’d had a passenger.

“No, that’s all right,” she said, laughing at Scout’s antics. “I love dogs.”

I let go of the collar, and my canine companion bounded forward, eager to play. I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Just so you know,” I said as I started the engine, “if we see any cops, I’ll tell you to bend forward so they don’t see you sitting backward like that. I don’t want a ticket.”

We got to Jack-in-the-Box without incident and pulled in to the drive-up window. The rain had stopped. The woman ordered a fish sandwich combo with french fries. I asked what she wanted to drink. She scrunched up her face again like she was afraid I would say no.

“Can I have a chocolate shake?”

I smiled. Why wouldn’t she want something special, if she could get it?

“Sure,” I said, though my budget was tight this near to the end of the month. I’d figure it out.

The food came, and we parked. While Scout watched intently, sitting on her best behavior in hopes of a bite, the woman combined packets of barbecue sauce and honey mustard, and dipped handfuls of french fries into the result. She ate with gusto, stopping to drink her shake between bites.

It seemed like a good time to ask her name.

“I’m Faith,” she replied, chewing her fries, “only it’s spelled different: F-A-Y with the T-H up at the end, like 4^th or 5^th. Fay^th. ”

“Oh,” I said, not knowing what to say. “Cool.”

As she ate and drank, Fay^th grew more talkative. I asked if she was from San Diego.

“No,” she said.

Where, then?

“Everywhere. But mostly Florida.”

I wondered what kind of life she’d had. By her expressions and mannerisms, she seemed younger than she looked, almost childlike. Was there trauma in her past? Almost certainly. She looked like she’d been on the streets a long time. Who had left her in that desolate parking lot, and why?

“I’ve been on the streets since 2012,” she said casually. “Before that, I lived in a car for five years.”

Fay^th bit into her fish sandwich and then looked at it, suspicious.

“This doesn’t taste right.” She took the top half of the bun off and picked at the breaded fish patty. “It doesn’t look right. Do you see the purple?”

She looked at me.

“Um, no…”

She picked up a corner and looked underneath.

“It doesn’t look like fish.”

Now, I could see that distrusting food was a thing with Fay^th. Did it have something to do with what I was beginning to suspect, that she was mentally ill? But she had happily eaten the fries and drunk the shake, so she clearly trusted some food. Maybe living on the streets makes a person more careful about food that spoils quickly.

After giving the sandwich a thorough examination, Fay^th folded the paper wrapper around it and put it back in the bag.

It seemed like a waste. For a moment, I wanted to ask her to give it to Scout but decided against it. She hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to share her food with my dog, in spite of blatant begging; this, too, might be a sign of hard times. When you’re frequently hungry, you’re not going to share when you do get food, even if you don’t trust it enough to eat it yourself.

Satisfied, Fay^th was in a good mood. She baby-talked to Scout, who wagged appreciatively.

“Sometimes, I wonder,” she mused, “if my memories really happened. Do you ever feel that way—like when someone shows you pictures and you think that happened?”

I thought for a moment.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Like, someone shows me a picture of me when I was a kid, and I think I remember it but I don’t.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I know what you mean.”

“‘Cause that wasn’t even me.”

“Oh.”

“They’re just making it up.”

“Okay.”

She went back to baby-talking at Scout. Then, she laughed.

“She just said something funny,” Fay^th told me.

“Scout?”

“Yes, I can understand her. Like Dr. Doolittle.”

“Okay…” I said, deciding I’d better cut things short. “I have to get going. Is there somewhere I can take you? A shelter, maybe?”

But she didn’t seem to hear me. Now, she was talking gibberish out the window to someone I couldn’t see.

“BAH RAH GO RUM!”

Then, she laughed uproariously and yelled more of the same.

“Who are you talking to?” I asked.

She turned back to me, seeming normal again.

“You,” she said. “I was talking to you.”

Abruptly, she started shouting angrily as people and cars went by. I began to feel nervous. Would she get angry with me? Could she be dangerous?

“I really have to go,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Where would you like me to take you?”

“Back where I was.”

“There’s a small park near there,” I said, “with a covered pavilion in case it rains again, and a bathroom. Do you want to go there?”

“Okay.”

I drove to the park and pulled in next to the pavilion, but I could see Fay^th wasn’t happy.

“This isn’t right,” she said. “Can you take me where I was?”

“Where I found you?”

“Yes.”

It seemed wrong to leave her there, in the middle of the huge dirt lot, but I was anxious to get her out of the van now. So I drove to the lot, a football field’s distance away. She could always walk back to the park if she needed to, or—what? I didn’t know.

“By chance,” Fay^th asked, “do you have a pair of shoes you could give me?”

I’d forgotten she was just wearing socks. I remembered a pair of sandals I never wore, and gave her those. She put them on, and picked up the Jack-n-the-Box bag with the fish sandwich inside.

“I’ll throw that away for you,” I offered.

“No,” she said, holding it close. Maybe she would eat it after all.

She picked up her pillowcase bag, gave Scout an ear scratch, and opened the door.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “Good luck.”

I turned the van around and drove slowly away. Fay^th waved, and I waved back, feeling both relief and guilt. I hoped I wouldn’t run into her again but I worried about her too. What would happen to her?

I see so many lost souls on the streets, and I pass right by. Why did I stop for her? And what good did it do? I told myself that at least she got a meal.

The next day, I drove by the lot. Fay^th wasn’t there. I hoped she was all right.