Street Spirit by Andrea Medrado
It’s a gray, rainy day in Berkeley. Many people dislike days like this. Not Vanessa. “People get nicer to us on rainy days… oh yeah, and of course on Christmas and Thanks Giving.” It was on a rainy day that Vanessa made 50 bucks by singing “Raindrops are falling on my head”. “I started singing and dancing, and everybody started buying the paper.”
43-year-old Vanessa lives on the streets with her husband and her two dogs Ebony and Ninja. Shattuck Avenue—one of the town’s busy streets—is her home and her office. She has a spot right next to Tikkun Magazine, where she works as a vendor for the Street Spirit, an independent newspaper about “justice news & homeless blues”, published by the American Friends Service Committee. More than 100 homeless vendors now sell the Street Spirit in Berkeley and Oakland, receiving 50 papers a day for free, and earning income without having to panhandle. “When I get something, I like to give something back. I’m not begging, I’m asking. You can’t be embarrassed to ask anything.”
Vanessa also explains to me the rules behind being a vendor for the Street Spirit: get an I.D, attend the meetings run by a program with the uninviting name of BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency), and (write down this one, she tells me) respect other vendors’ spots. The rules do not stop here, as she hands me her badge with the following series of “don’ts” written on the back: “Don’t sell under the influence of alcohol or drugs; don’t ask for donations beyond the $1.00 selling price; don’t sell without proper ID; don’t fight with other vendors, don’t obstruct the public way; don’t sell other products; don’t supply papers to non-badged; don’t use racial, sexist, foul language while vending; don’t verbally or physically harass.”
I read the last instruction out loud, and Vanessa stands up from her basket-turned-into-a-chair and does a convincing impersonation of a breaking-the-rules vendor. She runs into a skinny, dreamy guy, and starts screaming on his nose: “street spirit, street spirit, help me out, I’m hungry, man, I got nothing to eat!”. Vanessa’s newly formed small audience, whom she calls her “street peers” and I laugh it off. The harassed customer laughs too. She continues: "I am serious, girl! You can’t do that! That’s why everyone likes me around here. They want me to be here. They call me a neighbor. They were wonderful for my birthday. The owner of the restaurant gave me a free meal, the people at the bar gave me cocktails.”
Then, Vanessa reveals to me the secret of keeping a good reputation with street peers: “The thing is you should be invisible, 6:30, 7:00, you should be packed up a long time ago. People don’t want to have to step on you on their early coffee. When I go, I pick up everything, nobody even knows I was here.” Vanessa’s belongings accompany her everywhere on a stroller, though sometimes she and her husband have to hide a few things here and there. “I always carry a roll of toilet paper, a change of clothes, some clean panties. There ain’t no excuse to be stinking on the streets, girl. You can go to the shelters and they’ll let you shower, give you soap and towel.”
Wait a minute: invisible is almost inaudible. The word comes out of Vanessa’s mouth so naturally that the reaction to it takes a few minutes to strike me, just like a TV show with a delay in sync. I stop to think about it. In the Bay Area, the homeless are more visible than in most American cities I’ve been to. Yet being invisible is a key strategy for survival. As a kid, being invisible would be my favorite super-hero power… maybe not.
From the top of my sheltered body and mind, I attempt to understand what it’s like to be invisible like Vanessa. She suggests I read some of the poems in Street Spirit. “Some deep stuff”. Not being much of a poetry fan, I still manage to find a valuable verse on O.V Michaelsen’s “A Cast-Off in Throwaways”:
“He carries his wealth in a makeshift bed.
Misfortune has always found him.
His home is where he lays his head,
as life goes on around him.”
Misfortune did find Vanessa. Misfortune punched the economy on the stomach so that Vanessa could no longer make profit out of the jewelry she used to sell, losing her vendor license. Misfortune played cupid, hooking Vanessa up with an abusive boyfriend who beat her up badly back in Las Vegas. Misfortune convinced Vanessa to leave her four children with her sister. And then, convinced her sister to send the youngest daughter away to an equally violent ex-husband. For that, Vanessa cannot forgive misfortune.
But life goes on. Just like the constant flow of people walking their way to work through Shattuck Avenue, Vanessa keeps on loving her children who are no longer children, even if they no longer love her back. She keeps on hoping she’ll be soon prepared to go back to them and to the way she used to be. She keeps packing up and leaving at the end of the day, making sure no one steps on her on their early coffee, coming back to the same spot in the morning. Free Spirit, have a nice day! Nice day after nice day after nice day.
People get nicer on rainy days, reminds me Vanessa smiling as raindrops are falling on my head. Unlike Vanessa, I don’t like rainy days. It’s my turn to pack up and leave. But I obey the rainy day rationale and give Vanessa a donation for the Street Spirit and for her time. Then, I ask her: what would you guys like for me to bring you? SOCKS.
43-year-old Vanessa lives on the streets with her husband and her two dogs Ebony and Ninja. Shattuck Avenue—one of the town’s busy streets—is her home and her office. She has a spot right next to Tikkun Magazine, where she works as a vendor for the Street Spirit, an independent newspaper about “justice news & homeless blues”, published by the American Friends Service Committee. More than 100 homeless vendors now sell the Street Spirit in Berkeley and Oakland, receiving 50 papers a day for free, and earning income without having to panhandle. “When I get something, I like to give something back. I’m not begging, I’m asking. You can’t be embarrassed to ask anything.”
Vanessa also explains to me the rules behind being a vendor for the Street Spirit: get an I.D, attend the meetings run by a program with the uninviting name of BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency), and (write down this one, she tells me) respect other vendors’ spots. The rules do not stop here, as she hands me her badge with the following series of “don’ts” written on the back: “Don’t sell under the influence of alcohol or drugs; don’t ask for donations beyond the $1.00 selling price; don’t sell without proper ID; don’t fight with other vendors, don’t obstruct the public way; don’t sell other products; don’t supply papers to non-badged; don’t use racial, sexist, foul language while vending; don’t verbally or physically harass.”
I read the last instruction out loud, and Vanessa stands up from her basket-turned-into-a-chair and does a convincing impersonation of a breaking-the-rules vendor. She runs into a skinny, dreamy guy, and starts screaming on his nose: “street spirit, street spirit, help me out, I’m hungry, man, I got nothing to eat!”. Vanessa’s newly formed small audience, whom she calls her “street peers” and I laugh it off. The harassed customer laughs too. She continues: "I am serious, girl! You can’t do that! That’s why everyone likes me around here. They want me to be here. They call me a neighbor. They were wonderful for my birthday. The owner of the restaurant gave me a free meal, the people at the bar gave me cocktails.”
Then, Vanessa reveals to me the secret of keeping a good reputation with street peers: “The thing is you should be invisible, 6:30, 7:00, you should be packed up a long time ago. People don’t want to have to step on you on their early coffee. When I go, I pick up everything, nobody even knows I was here.” Vanessa’s belongings accompany her everywhere on a stroller, though sometimes she and her husband have to hide a few things here and there. “I always carry a roll of toilet paper, a change of clothes, some clean panties. There ain’t no excuse to be stinking on the streets, girl. You can go to the shelters and they’ll let you shower, give you soap and towel.”
Wait a minute: invisible is almost inaudible. The word comes out of Vanessa’s mouth so naturally that the reaction to it takes a few minutes to strike me, just like a TV show with a delay in sync. I stop to think about it. In the Bay Area, the homeless are more visible than in most American cities I’ve been to. Yet being invisible is a key strategy for survival. As a kid, being invisible would be my favorite super-hero power… maybe not.
From the top of my sheltered body and mind, I attempt to understand what it’s like to be invisible like Vanessa. She suggests I read some of the poems in Street Spirit. “Some deep stuff”. Not being much of a poetry fan, I still manage to find a valuable verse on O.V Michaelsen’s “A Cast-Off in Throwaways”:
“He carries his wealth in a makeshift bed.
Misfortune has always found him.
His home is where he lays his head,
as life goes on around him.”
Misfortune did find Vanessa. Misfortune punched the economy on the stomach so that Vanessa could no longer make profit out of the jewelry she used to sell, losing her vendor license. Misfortune played cupid, hooking Vanessa up with an abusive boyfriend who beat her up badly back in Las Vegas. Misfortune convinced Vanessa to leave her four children with her sister. And then, convinced her sister to send the youngest daughter away to an equally violent ex-husband. For that, Vanessa cannot forgive misfortune.
But life goes on. Just like the constant flow of people walking their way to work through Shattuck Avenue, Vanessa keeps on loving her children who are no longer children, even if they no longer love her back. She keeps on hoping she’ll be soon prepared to go back to them and to the way she used to be. She keeps packing up and leaving at the end of the day, making sure no one steps on her on their early coffee, coming back to the same spot in the morning. Free Spirit, have a nice day! Nice day after nice day after nice day.
People get nicer on rainy days, reminds me Vanessa smiling as raindrops are falling on my head. Unlike Vanessa, I don’t like rainy days. It’s my turn to pack up and leave. But I obey the rainy day rationale and give Vanessa a donation for the Street Spirit and for her time. Then, I ask her: what would you guys like for me to bring you? SOCKS.
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