It was night. I was sitting in a borrow pit (ditch to those of you who didn't grow up in the valley) with an old mexican style lap blanket I was trying to pull all around me because it was starting to get cold. I could get it around my shoulders but not to meet up in the middle and I was tugging and pulling as best I could when a car, dark in color - maybe the color of bondo, or dark grey matte spray paint. The headlights shone in my eyes blocking my vision of who ever was inside. A younger guy opens the door and is leaning into the crook in the door.
He says, "Hey, let me help you. I've been homeless before and I know how it feels to be where you are at."
Leery, I calmly ask him what time it is. He says he doesn't know. I tell him, "thank you for trying to help but I am ok, really."
He gets very angry that I have rejected his offer. Anyone who gets mad when you refuse their offer to help isn't there to help you. He gets into his car and slams the door. He yells out the window, "you have to do something about your hair, that's the only reason I saw you."
I know that my hair is platinum blond and I think seriously about what I might look like as a brunette. I look up at the moon and time passes. Next thing I am aware of is standing with Liz at the bus stop. (Liz is a woman who works in my HR department - if we were both homeless, I would want to be homeless around her, no matter what kind of day she is having she just has one of those personalities that makes you glad you saw her today.) At any rate, Liz and I get on the bus and it turns left into a little village area. I tell her and a third part of our party about what had happened the night before.
When I got to the part about asking the time a Liz asked, "What did he say?"
I told her, "He said he didn't know. I mean what self-respecting homeless person can't look at the moon and tell you exactly what time it is."
Since everything had changed (I don't know exactly what changed) it had become common to revert to the way things used to be before technology. I knew the guy was lying to me because it was a basic skill to know what time it was at night based on the distance between the moon and the north star. It was around 1 am. That man had intended to hurt me but I knew he wouldn't if I didn't get into his car.
I started formulating a plan. A plan to be able to use my apartment again. I had an apartment but I couldn't use it unless I paid the daily fee. Every third day or so (which was kind of the weekend) I would be able to get in to shower ect. I had a plan but I needed a roommate so I was trying to enlist the help of Liz. She didn't seem too keen on the idea. I appealed to her sense of safety and she gave me the "I'll think about it" brush off.
The bus stopped and everyone got off and went inside a dimly lit building. It was like going into a night club in the middle of the day. I was behind Liz and the other woman. An older gentleman caught my elbow and I started to just walk on by. He had a scraggly red and grey beard and the wiry red and grey hair to match. It was short, the beard that is. He did have a head full of hair but I knew he was older than that. I wasn't attracted to him, though I knew he was trying to get "that sort" of attention from me. I walked two steps past him and figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to have someone else buy my first drink.
I took the two steps back and said hello. He began, "I am a preacher from Slidell, Louisiana. My family isn't from there they are from Cody, Wyo." Instantly I knew he was my great, great uncle.
I told him, "Well then you need to stop talking to me right now for two reasons."
"Why is that?" he asked.
"Cody, Wyoming is a really small town and there ain't but one red headed family that's from there." Even as the words came out of my mouth I knew how 'old west' they sounded but it was one way to let him know I was familiar.
"How do you know that?" He asked.
I said, "and that would be the other reason, I am related to them." I immediately began trying to recall my mother's maiden name. The weird thing being the red headed part of the family didn't have her maiden family name but he knew who I was talking about when I finally blurted it out. I told him, "That'd make you my great, great uncle."
We started carrying on in the wake of an unexpected family reunion. As I left my uncle he hollered after me, "I'll send you a tropicana on your first tray." I went to sit with Liz and the other woman. I started to tell them what had just happened half expecting them to make fun of me for getting hit on by my own relative but they weren't responding to anything I was saying . . .
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