tai-chi-one.com

I disconnected the phone at the farmhouse, and contracted with an answering service in Ocean City to where I moved the line. I no longer needed call forwarding as long as I had my phone card and a pocket full of quarters. I had a staff. Decker let me camp out in a room above the Café which had turned into a gathering place for many of the year round local residents. I was also given the opportunity to pick up a few shifts waiting tables and tending bar until the water began to flow a little more. The opportunity of living another summer in the Whaleysville farmhouse was kaput since there were windows and the place was cleaned up the owner wanted it back.
The Ocean City Library was the shelter for the Honly black homeless person in Ocean City and with the exception of workers who commuted there, the only black person. She wore many layers and very often would spend the entire day in the library. Otherwise she could be seen pushing a shopping cart—not very verbal—not really caring what anybody thought, making her statement as an activist for the homeless.
I continued my contact with Friends of Maryland Libraries and learned that book and author luncheons were a way to raise money for Friend’s groups and the libraries they supported. A librarian from Charles County gave me the home phone number of Tom Clancy whose book HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER had recently gone paperback and was flying off the shelves. She suggested that as a Marylander he may consider the luncheon. I attended a NO NUKES march in Washington DC and read the book for the first time on the train ride to the march.
Among others Carl Sagan of COSMOS was one of the speakers. After the march I called Mr. Clancy and asked as president of Ocean City Friends of the library if he would consider being the guest speaker at the book and author luncheon. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. I told him I had read his book on the way to the NO NUKES march and he replied, “You’ve got to be kidding.” I told him Carl Sagan was one of the speakers. “Carl Sagan is an ASSHOLE.” He said. “Everybody is an asshole in some other asshole’s eyes,” I answered.
The head librarian Andrea contracted Rhea without Sunshine of Maryland Public TV fame as the first speaker for the luncheon that was to be held at Glasseye’s former restaurant.

Residents were welcomed to stay and watch SUPERBOWL XXI in the warehouse in Little Tokyo or at the square across from City Hall. I had no interest in the game though it had provided the shelter over the preceding week. There were 37,000 homeless in the LA area and the national attention temporarily gave the spotlight to homeless activist radicals like Black Moses of Aberdeen.
In Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union speech he stressed that “Competition, competition, competition…” is what made our country great. The man who broke the unions and ripped the safety net and ran illegal wars was in charge. On Monday morning I went back to the blood bank on skid row and sold another pint of plasma for eight bucks. I called Sally who claimed to work for the Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner to find out about my meeting, the reason I had ventured out to LA, leaving my business in the hands of another. “I didn’t fall down—it’s an adventure,” I answered. I was sleeping with people on cots in a warehouse where the adventure was a way of life with no way out. “Maybe next week,” she told me.
I called Decker in Ocean City and he assured me that things were fine and still very cold. There wasn’t much call for expensive bottled water in the seaside resort. February was the next week and I had to get back to get ready. I called my mom and asked for two hundred dollars for the flight back East and then called Sally and asked for a ride to Dominic’s and then to the airport. She told me she could help me out on Thursday. There wasn’t enough time passing to sell another pint of plasma at the same blood bank. The breakfast on the square and the box lunch chicken at the shelter was sustenance for the bum. The work to simply survive without a familiar safe harbor to rest up was exhausting. I could see why people pan handled though I couldn’t bring myself to do it from strangers though asking Mom for money was pretty much the same thing.
On Thursday morning Sally picked me up at Dominic’s and drove me to LAX, apologizing for having dragged me across the country for a meeting that didn’t happen. “I’ll call you when things change,” she said. Damien picked me up at the airport in Baltimore and I drove back to Ocean City after retrieving Iris the water truck at Mom’s house and a load of water from Mr. J who was clueless about selling water to a homeless person. “You lost some weight,” he said.