Homeless (2 page)

The day started just as any other in the crime-infested area of Detroit. Lonnie, a hard sleeper, fought to wake up in the wee morning hours. Allowing his bare feet to touch the splinter-ready floorboards, the teen wiped the sleep out of the corner of his eyes. With each step he took, he wanted nothing more than to jump back in the bed. Splashing semiwarm tap water in his face, Lonnie lifted up from the small white sink staring into the mirror. Checking for any signs of new pimples, he reflected on his reality. He hated the fact his mother had been cursed with cancer, but sadly, she was. So that meant he had no choice whatsoever but to grow up fast, becoming the man of the house.

The only child did the best he could, yet sometimes, came up short. In between the added medications and supplies his mother needed not covered by welfare, Lonnie, most days, went without eating. But to him, his situation didn't matter. His mother being as comfortable as possible was on the top list of his priorities. Faced with the emptiness of the kitchen shelves, the determined youth managed to scrape a small bit of breakfast together to put something on his growling stomach.

Fighting to make it out of his current living situation and make something more out of himself besides a common thug, he remained focused on the positive. Determined in his faith, he left the small one-bedroom apartment he shared with his sickly mother. As always, he made it to school seconds before the second bell rang. Although considered an at-risk student by his teachers and most of his counselors, the living-below-poverty-level Lonnie stayed on the honor roll as well as the dean's list. Despite it all, he was determined to make it out of the hood.

* * *

“Yeah, hello! Can you send an ambulance to 5328 Leslie Street, Apartment 417 real quick?” Lonnie's panicked voice trembled shouting through his government-issued cell phone. “I just came home from school and found my mother passed out on the floor! Please send some help, please! Damn, please hurry up!”

“No problem, sir, we will. You just have to try to calm down a small bit so I can understand you. Can you do that for me?” The operator recognized his panicked tone and attempted to get ahold of the traumatic situation so it wouldn't get worse.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Lonnie's hand shook as he rubbed the side of his mother's frail face, praying for a miracle. Normally having an even-tempered demeanor and quick on his feet, he was confused on what to do or say to aid his mom. Distraught, he knew his entire world would fall completely apart if she left him. Even though Lonnie knew her cancer was too far gone for any type of recovery, he still prayed every night for God to spare him the awful loss.

“All right now, I just need to type in a small bit of information and help will be on its way.”

“Okay, okay; what information you need? I already done told you the address, now send help! You straight wasting time! Come on now; send help! She's dying!”

“Okay, now, like I said, please try to calm down,” she reasoned using trained skills, easily discovering he was a nervous and frightened teenager. “A truck is being dispatched as we speak. And the information I'm trying to get will aid the paramedics more efficiently when they arrive.”

“All right, operator; but please hurry,” Lonnie openly sobbed, watching his mother's lips turn a strange shade of brown.

“Help is on the way, young man. I know it's hard, but just be patient.”

“Okay, I'm trying, but it's hard. My mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer the earlier part of this year, and I don't know what to do right now to help her.” Lonnie momentarily left his mother's side to get a washcloth, hoping it would cause her to snap out of the unconscious state she was in. While holding the rag under a cold stream of water from the kitchen sink, he remained on the line with 911.

“Okay, I see. Well, did she go to chemotherapy today or have had any other medical treatments in the last twenty-four hours that we need to be aware of?”

Lonnie wasted no time returning to his mother's side. Rubbing her face, he started to cry even more. “No, she hasn't been to the doctors after they made her leave the hospital. Some crazy lady administrator claimed there was nothing more they could do for her and she needed to go to a nursing home or some damn hospice place or something like that!”

“Just hold on a little longer, son. The truck is definitely en route and should arrive shortly.”

After following proper procedure in gathering all the required information needed to dispatch a rig, the sympathetic woman, a mother herself, continued to speak with the worried youth. Trying her best to reassure him everything would be fine and that help was on the way, she allowed him to vent as he waited. She knew the young man was at odds and remained as calm as possible as he went all the way through it. The operator understood he was caught in his emotions and bit her tongue as he ran back and forth to the window, looking out for the promised ambulance. After the first five minutes and it had yet to arrive, Lonnie lost the small bit of self-control he did have, calling the innocent 911 operator any and everything, excluding a child of God. He accused her of not truly sending for help to being in cahoots with the devil himself to let his beloved mother die. Over the years, she'd heard folks say many of things and launch various threats, but Lonnie's conviction in tone was strangely different. However, she didn't let that deter her from doing what she was trained to do.

Eleven to twelve long, grueling minutes later, her mentally broken-down verbal attacker heard the paramedics' siren closely approaching their destination. With medical bags in hand containing basic supplies, the bare-minimum medically trained technicians entered the five-story dilapidated building. Opting to use the stairs not the elevator, the pair of white shirt-wearing man and woman team was at Lonnie and his mom's apartment. Flinging the door open wide, Lonnie threw the cordless phone across the room onto the couch. He then wasted no time directing them to his now-barely responsive mother.

The minutes to follow were like a dreadful horror movie playing out in slow motion to Lonnie. The ride in the rear of the ambulance was bumpy and reckless. It was as if the woman driver deliberately ran over every pothole in the city like she wasn't transporting precious cargo; his sickly mother. He overheard her yelling at someone on her cell phone while she was en route to the medical facility instead of concentrating on the road. Only a few minutes after arriving through emergency, Lonnie McKay's cherished birthing vessel and first love of his life, his mother, was pronounced dead at the local hospital. The paramedics claimed they'd done all they could do, but secretly, Lonnie felt differently as they stood around casually drinking coffee, joking with some of the staff on duty. The woman driver in particular showed no remorse or sympathy as she laughed the loudest. It was if no one truly cared what had just happened; the life-altering tragedy that had unfolded in his once-happy existence.

In a trance, speechless from what the doctor had just said, the teen's throat grew increasingly dry. There he stood, pitifully all alone in a room. Staring down at his mother's lifeless body stretched out on a steel, thin-mattress gurney, he trembled. With a winter-white sheet pulled up to her chest area, she appeared to be resting peacefully, but that didn't ease his pain. Lonnie pleaded for her to open her eyes, but she didn't.

“Mom, look at me. Please, please, look at me! Open your eyes, Mom, please!” He begged her to wrap her arms around him as he hugged her tightly. Unfortunately, she couldn't. “Hold me back, Mommy! Please hold me back! I wanna feel you hug me! Please!” Lonnie wanted her to call his name and wake him out of the terrible nightmare he was trapped in, but she didn't. “Please tell me this is a joke. Don't leave me; don't leave me by myself! Please, Mom, please, don't go! Oh my God, please, please, I'm begging you!”

Rubbing the side of his temples, Lonnie faced reality breaking all the way down. As the tears streamed down his cheeks, he became dizzy. His head was pounding. Feeling like there was nothing left for him to live for, he wanted to die too. At this point, anything that he felt could reunite him with his mother was all the devoted son cared about. Lonnie wasn't thinking clearly, and, of course, that was to be expected. His world was turned upside down just like that. Although he and his mother had discussed her losing her battle with the beast named Cancer, Lonnie was still not prepared for her to leave.

Caught in a tangled web of sorrowful what-if's, remorse, and regret, the sad-faced youth was soon interrupted from grieving. Forced to deal with yet another hurdle for the evening, Lonnie wasn't ready physically or mentally to cope with much more. Saddled with the unwanted task of being a strong young man while all he wanted to do was be a weak little boy, Lonnie's heart raced. Now, bombarded with numerous questions pertaining to possible burial arrangements, the only child was spent.

“Hello, are you a relative of the deceased?”

“Huh?” Lonnie shrugged his shoulders as if the woman should've known the answer.

“I'm with the in-house Social Services department here, and it's our job to make sure our patients are cared for even after they have expired. So are you and deceased related? Is she your mother, by chance?”

Lonnie watched the woman closely hold her clipboard to her chest. Trying to appear sympathetic, he could see a cold distant gaze in her eyes; one that said
hurry up and get on with the get on
so she could move on to the next unfortunate family on the list needy of her department's services. Angry at the entire human race, Lonnie wanted to knock her to the ground for repeatedly referring to his mother as “the deceased.” Glancing over at his mother's body, his to-be-expected rage depleted some, knowing he had to be brave. “Yes, this is my mother.”

Lowering her guard, she reached over on one of the counters retrieving a small box of tissue. “Well, on behalf of the hospital and I, we are extremely sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” He gladly accepted the tissue and wiped each of his beet red eyes.

Feeling she was being extremely fake, he still allowed her to continue. The woman automatically went into what was probably her regular routine about who was next of kin, who would be responsible for any outstanding bills, and what funeral home was going to be called to pick up the body. Not ready for anything other than being grief stricken, he didn't have the answers she was looking for; well, at least not at that time.

The social worker then asked who would be assuming responsibility for him since he was still considered a minor, which caused him to have chills. Looking over at his mother once more to gain some sort of courage, he tossed the used tissue onto the counter, then stepped out into the hallway. He was overwhelmed. The woman's voice sounded like fingernails scraping a chalkboard or an old alley cat getting its tail slowly twisted off. Lonnie couldn't take it. He wanted to yell out that God had just cheated him. His head was spinning. His heart was broken. His soul felt like it had left his body. He wanted to just lash out and go all-out nuts. He was fighting off the urge to tell all the doctors, nurses, social workers, and other people he was coming into contact with at the hospital to kiss his black ass. His reason for living was gone; so, now, was all his rhyme and reason. The honor roll student's mother definitely didn't teach him to disrespect his elders, but at this moment, Lonnie knew she'd understand his inner wrath.

After finding out the visibly distraught youth had no immediate plans of what he or his knowingly terminally ill mother had mapped out in what they knew was the inevitable, Mrs. Bishop had no other recourse but to inform Lonnie he'd be placed in emergency foster care if no responsible relative stepped up to the plate.

“Once again, Lonnie, I'm so very sorry for your loss. I know this is one of the worst days of your young life. My prayers are with you.”

“Thank you,” he managed to say with his head held down and a continuous flow of tears streaming down the side of his face.

“Your mother seemed to be a very strong woman to battle cancer in such a late stage from home. She should've been hospitalized, so I know she must've loved you very much, young man, to have opted to stay with you until the end.”

“Yeah, she did,” Lonnie solemnly stared over at the double doors they'd just wheeled his deceased mother through en route to the basement morgue. Using the bottom part of his T-shirt, he wiped his eyes once more. “And you right, she should've been in the hospital, but the old white bitch that runs this motherfucker felt differently! She didn't care about my mother getting better!”

The social worker knew that there had been major budget cuts over the past few years and insurances were paying less and less for patients' extended care. Knowing she was left to face more and more infuriated family members such as Lonnie that felt cheated her heart ached for them. Even so, that didn't mean she didn't have to do what she needed to do or say what she needed to say. Hospital policy was hospital policy. “Once again, young man, I'm very sorry for your loss. But you have to tone your voice down and please refrain from using profanity. I'm quite sure your mother loved you very much and wouldn't want you to behave in a manner that disrespects her teachings in any way. Wouldn't you agree?”

“She did love me, no matter what. She meant everything to me. We was all we had; just me and her. Now she's gone.”

Mrs. Bishop had been on staff at the hospital for over eight years. With her Christian faith, she absolutely hated this part of her job; however, this was what she was paid to do to earn her paycheck. Holding the small clipboard in one arm, she leaned over, offering Lonnie a few more pieces of tissue that he readily took. After rubbing the youth's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, she regretfully got down to the business at hand. “I know you are in terrible pain right now, son. And I have definitely been where you are now, having lost my own mom to an illness not too long ago, but we have to come up with a plan of action for you.”