****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS*****
Frustrated I go to the grocery store to get yogurt for my stomach but when I get to the register I can't find my EBT card. Fucking great. I'm pretty sure Kitten Lady has it because I handed it to her when we were running from the police. I feel like I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown with all of this. It sounds small but I really feel overwhelmed and spent right now. Not to mention that I'm starving and I missed lunch.
I start to walk back up to #1 to make myself a PBJ. As I pass the grocery store's deli someone bangs on the window to get my attention. It's an older guy that I don't recognize immediately. When I look at his name tag I see that he is a former boss of mine. He was my first employer when I moved to Portland. He owned a little hole in the wall deli shop. It was actually a fun job but he closed down the shop when he and his wife had some health issues.
In all honesty I don't want to talk to him. I'm more than a little stressed out and I look really homeless. I'm not going to be rude though so I go down to talk to him. He hugs me and asks where I live and how I'm doing. I tell him half truths; that I live in downtown and I'm doing well. He encourages me to apply for work in the deli and use him as a reference. I tell him I'll think about it but I'm afraid they already know me at the store and my homeless status will once again get in the way. Not to mention that they've seen me with Kitten Lady and she's banned from there for stealing.
At #1 I make a sandwich and eat at the computer. Houdini walks in so I ask him if they have my EBT card. He says KL has it at the library. We walk back together and find her then go back to the grocery store. I plug my phone in the secret outlet on the ceiling and let it hang down to charge while I crochet and wait for Houdini to come back. KL nods off and I'm hardly paying attention. The next thing I know my phone is gone, stolen by some other street kids. I just can't win lately. I'm so over everything I can't even bring myself to care.
"It's what I get for stealing," I say.
We leave and try to find Houdini. KL asks a guy for a cigarette. He says if we walk him to the nearest convenience store he'll give us some smokes. We agree. After there are four cigarettes in our hands he offers to smoke a blunt with us. I'm suspicious of his desire to hang out with us but again KL agrees. We go by the shelter to smoke. I choke on the smoke and start coughing. I hear a pop in my left ear while I'm coughing. Then nothing.
The next thing I know I'm stumbling to the fountain. I'm so disoriented I don't remember walking there and I'm dizzy. KL notices I'm acting funny because I'm stumbling, can't hear, slurring my words and acting funny. We go to shelter to ask for help but they offer none. We scrounge up bus passes and get ourselves to Good Sam hospital. We still have to walk several blocks to get to the hospital so I lean on the wheel chair. We pass a guy pushing a stroller propped up on the back to wheels. His son sits with a fohawk wearing sun glasses and drinking a bottle. "I feel we are in such similar places in life right now." the guy says.
"Trade you," I say and laugh.
They immediately take me back to a room. We just tell them about the ear and dizziness. We intentionally leave out the confusion and pot. I am slightly worried the pot may have been laced even though I know it's unlikely since KL is fine. Laying down I don't feel nearly as sick.
The doctor comes in and uses the kid sized light to look in my ear. I scream and squirm on the bed as even the tiny sized one hurts. He says my ear canal is so swollen he cannot see inside even when the smallest sized one and therefore he can not determine what is going on. He gives me a pill for the vertigo feeling.
We are released at 11pm. I still can't hear. I'm still dizzy. The buses have stopped running and they won't call us a cab. We have to walk back to shelter. I stagger pushing KL's wheel chair, using it to help me balance. The ringing in my ears is loud and unbearable. We have to stagger through the streets of Portland to get back to shelter. It's dark. We're tired. And there we are stumbling along and not a single person we pass asks us if we need help.
When we make it back staff almost doesn't let me up but I start screaming about having to walk from the hospital so they do. I see Houdini in the lobby and send him down to sleep outside with KL since I am in no condition to. I ask staff if I can have an oatmeal packet for dinner since I haven't eaten but they won't let me. Nothing else looks appetizing so I stumble into bed.
--mm
PS: Sorry on the slowness on getting caught up. As you can see I've been sick as hell. Trying to keep up now.
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