Real America: A street level perspective

November 6, 6:24 AMAnchorage Conservative ExaminerFranke Schein

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Every morning Mr. John "Big Jon" Rogers, a 56 year old balding man, awakens in his rented room, boils some hot water for his coffee on a single burner hot plate, microwaves a steaming bowl of instant oatmeal for his daily breakfast, and then trudges outside to patiently wait under a star filled cold dark morning for city bus #18 to arrive-his ride to work

Inside the bus it’s warm and comfortable, but there’s a certain tension in the air. Rarely does anyone speak, other than the customary "morning Joe" as the riders pass the bus driver-dropping the obligatory dollar ten into the slot in front of the bus.

As usual the bus is filled with other people just like him. The people that arise just as early, doing everything in an almost repetitive manner. Like the guy with the New York Yankee’s baseball hat that always sits in back of the bus on the right side- John had spoken to him a few times, and learned that "Mr. Baseball hat" had just been released from prison after serving five years for writing bad checks. He worked as a dish washer down in that new fancy restaurant across the street from the courthouse-the place where all the lawyers and reporters hung out.

Across the aisle another familiar but unknown face. The guy John had dubbed "Preacher" because even though he appeared to be in his mid-sixties, the guy always carried a dented and beat-up old Mickey Mouse lunchbox , and a small Holy Bible protruding from his upper left coat pocket. He always got onto the bus three stops after John, and throughout the next twelve stops "Preacher" never looked around or spoke to anyone-he just looked down at the lunch box with near vacant eyes, holding it with both of his massive scarred hands like some treasure.

Half way down the aisle, a small fragile looking older woman sits where she has been sitting every morning. Her makeup is always caked on, her fake diamond studded glasses too thick, and wearing the bright yellow down filled coat that was given to her by her daughter three years ago. Her gray hair, as usual, is wrapped in a shawl that reaches around her shoulder like some phantom from the Sahara desert . John didn’t know much about her, but he heard that after her husband died twelve years ago-the "ol’ lady" kind of went off the deep end. He’d also heard that she really didn’t have a daughter. For most of the trip she would talk to herself, sometimes gesturing wildly as though there were somebody actually sitting beside her-other times she would laugh hysterically, and just as quickly, quietly sob her way through another eight stops until she got off at the Broad Street transit center. Where she went after that was anybody’s guess.

A few stops and several bumps later, John hops off the bus into the blistering cold -walking the last five blocks through the near dark alleyways. A few times he’d been accosted by some of the people that live in cardboard boxes set among the dumpster and mounds of rusted old equipment. Once, two years ago, he’d ended up in the Emergency Room when two guys had pounced on him, stole his bus pass and the pack of smokes he’d bought the night before. Luckily, this morning’s cold weather kept the scavengers inside of their makeshift homes.

The garish yellow faded sign read; ACME Distribution-a dark and dungeon like warehouse set among the sprawling ruins of a once polished industrial center, now an area filled with over flowing garbage dumpsters, broken streetlights, and abandoned cars-relics of a bygone era when the industrial center was a thriving place. A place that provided much needed jobs for the residents living in the area. A place where the " roach coach" lunch truck made it’s rounds every morning dispending hot coffee and donuts, and again later at lunchtime. These days the lunch trucks didn’t exists anymore, except for the occasional "Julio’s Famous Tex-Mex Burger" truck that passed through once or twice a week. Something that John avoided like the plague-due largely to the fact that it surely felt like he’d contracted the plague the last time he morphed down a couple of Julio’s specials, and spent the next few hours agonizing in the Men’s room.

Margie greeted him politely as she had every morning for the last eight years, except when she was on vacation, and they used Tina from up in accounting. Margie was a great person, the kind that always brought little things to eat from home-sharing it with everyone at the warehouse. John was particularly fond of her salmon salad on crackers. He could never get enough of those, and always had to restrain himself from eating all of them in one swipe.

He scanned through the twenty odd time cards in the green metal rack nailed in front of the door leading into the warehouse-located his then sliding it across the time clock’s slot, hearing the "Beep Beep- satisfied that the new electronic gizmo had actually clocked him in this morning.

A few minutes later he donned the requisite hardhat, safety glasses and , ear plugs, and changed into his steel toed work boots. Things that he kept in his battered wall locker mounted in the break room by the toilets. Equipment that he hated to wear since it constricted his movements while he pulled around the heavy orange pallet jack through the long aisle inside of the massive warehouse.

For the next nine hours he would be inside the warehouse. He’d been hired to fill customer orders. A job that required him to pull the pallet jack, stack various boxes and products onto it, and then take the completed order to the shipping area where he would wrap the order in shrink wrap, and attach the order label to all four sides. It was a difficult job, since many times the product wasn’t available, or had been stored in a different shelf and bin. But John took the extra time to insure that his orders were done right-the last time that he’d screwed up, the company had fined him twenty five dollars for his mistake.

Regina Blankenship, an 89 year old widow wheeled herself down the narrow hallway, across the polished tile floor-and parked the wheelchair next to the back wall of the William Ebbert Senior Center. With her blanket wrapped tightly around her skinny legs, and her favorite white sweater, she stared out through the double glass door looking for her friend; her best friend in the world-hell-her only friend. Regina had outlived all of her siblings, and after her "Donny Boy’ had suffered a heart attack and went to be with God, she’s slowly slipped into a different world. A world where she was content to live out her youthful memories. The two children that she’d raised where all grown up, and living in another state. Both of them married with their own children and successful careers. They came to visit her on special days, and at Christmas time-but that was about the extent of it. For the most part, except for the nurses aides, and doctors-she was alone. But it gave her much joy to see her best-best friend every day. It was a reason to wake up, and a reason to go to sleep. Annie’s visits every morning promptly at 7:17 am were a God-send. She’d never missed a day in fourteen years. It was something that Regina looked forward to-this morning it was no exception as she spotted the bright yellow goose down coat, the diamond studded glasses, and the smiling face of her best friend Annie as she struggled to open the heavy glass plate doors.

***

The afternoon sun was setting as Archibald Summers, a 73 year old retired carpenter stood up and brushed off his grass stained knees. He placed the small tattered and worn Bible back in his coat pocket-gingerly replacing a small rubber-banded stack of old black and white pictures inside of the Mickey Mouse lunchbox-gently closing the lid, and said another "see ya’ tomorrow after work honey". Making his way across the marbled headstones in the small cemetery, he took one more look behind him at her gravestone. The stone that had her picture carved into the front of it-a very nice picture that captured her in all of her beauty and youthful smile. A smile that he experienced for fifty-three years, until the night that she’d quietly passed away in her sleep. A night that Archie just stopped living. For the last three years he’d managed to teach carpentry for a few hours each day at the local community college-on his way home he would stop and spend the afternoon with "Wilma" the love of his life, the one that had given him the lunchbox fifty years ago when he got his very first construction job. The box was his most intimate memory of a lifetime’s worth of love and devotion.

John Rogers was tired. It had been a long day at the warehouse. He estimated that he’d probably pulled that pallet jack the equivalent of six or seven miles today. On top of that, his back hurt like crazy. The warehouse supervisor, a young guy the company had just hired- had pulled him to the side and "counseled" him about the low product count. Seems that picking up and stacking eight tons was below the production quota, and that He would have to "hustle it up" or a call would be made to the temporary agency requesting somebody quicker.

John shrugged, it had been like that for years now. Every other week they wanted more "production’ from him. The boxes were getting heavier, and the breaks shorter-and last year he had to agree to take a twenty five cents an hour pay cut, or the temporary service that he worked for would have lost the contract.

It didn't  matter-he adjusted his hair net and plastic gloves-smiling as the next customer came into view. He ladled another helping of mashed potatoes and gravy onto the tray, and looked up, seeing for the first time that he was serving one of the guys from the alleyway that had put him in the hospital a couple of years ago. He smiled once more, and watched as the guy in front of him averted his eyes, and turned away. That didn’t matter either. He shook his head slightly and got back to the business of serving the hungry and homeless people that poured through every evening. A job that he enjoyed immensely, since it wasn’t too many years ago that he was on the other side of the counter, a foul smelling vagrant drunk, in and out of jail, getting beat up by other drunks. It was the Rehab center across the street that gave him his life back. This was his way of giving something back.

Outside of the old red brick Saint Francis Church, the food line was slowly snaking its way through the ornate back doors. A light snow was starting to fall. A small nondescript building across the street with a hand painted sign "Central City Foundation", the only rehab center in town-closed due to city budget constraints.

Be kind to those that you meet-their lives have a unique story...

[All characters, names, and individuals are fictional. Any coincidence to actual person(s) or place(s) is coincidental ]