Day One Hundred

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

My tooth is what wakes me up in the morning. It hurts a lot. I roll out of bed and realize I need to pay my phone bill today or it will be shut off tonight. I hate to wake up and leave but that's what I have to do today. I go to the library to try and send a few emails but the pain in my tooth overwhelms me and I end up leaving after just a few minutes to go to #1.

I'm crying by the time I get to the day program and ask Beard Man for a way to find an emergency dentist. Because it's Sunday there's nowhere I can go. The best I can do is wait for the youth clinic to open and see if she can do anything. I sit holding an ice pack to my face until the clinic opens.

When Lazy-Eye-Doctor-Lady sees me sitting in the waiting room of the clinic, holding an ice pack to my face, rocking back and forth crying she says, "This does not look good." Her murse assistant takes me to the doctor's office to do my vitals. I scream he can't take my vitals I just want to doctor. I don't know what it is about being in the doctor's office but I decide now is a good time to have a complete and total melt down. God knows I'm overdo.

I'm crying like a pathetic little kid when she comes in. She has to check my mouth to see if there's a dry socket but I can't even open my mouth wide enough. It takes a few tries and much pain that makes me all the more hysterical, but she's able to see that there's a dry socket where my tooth was pulled. She can see the bone.  She gives me a prescription for oxy. My next challenge is to find a pharmacy that will be open at 7pm on a Sunday night. To make it even more challenging I can't find my id. The lady at the front desk gets Rite Aid to agree to give me my prescription without my ID as long as I get there in fifteen minutes.

"Sister, what's wrong?" Houdini asks me when he sees me there crying.
I'm on my knees digging through my backpack on the floor. He hugs me to him though sitting on the floor I'm shorter than his knee cap. I tell him to watch my stuff and run to Rite Aid with the ice pack pressed to my face.  I get the oxy and take one right away, hoping it'll get the edge off the pain enough to function.

I go back up to the day clinic and they say that Houdini left with my bags. Now I have to track him down to get them. I'm worried I won't be able to find him; not that he would do anything with them. I wouldn't trust Houdini with my medications or my money but otherwise I'd trust that kid with my life. I think that I'm lucky he's an addict. That means there's only a handful of places he could be. There is also only two black guys with dreadlocks in downtown Portland. Houdini and Dreadlocks. And there's probably only one of them that's carrying a blue floral backpack. Houdini shouldn't be hard to find. Pioneer Square has an event going on so it's all gated off. My next guess is Voodoo Doughnuts. I find him and Kitten Lady there. He says he left the backpack at the clinic.

I start to cry. I'm light headed from not being able to eat but taking medications anyways. I honestly don't know if I can make it back up to the clinic and back again. I'm tired. No free rail zone means I have to walk the whole way. Kitten Lady just walks away and leaves me there. I look at Houdini. "I was going to keep it on me," he says, "But she made me leave it there. I'm sorry."
"This is why I'm not around anymore," I say, "I never left her side when she was sick. She doesn't care about anyone but herself."

I get myself back up to the clinic where I find the bags left behind a different desk with a different staff person. They begrudgingly give it back to me. The doctor calls shelter to see if they'll let me up early. They say I can go up at 8:30 but I have to sit on the chairs until 9pm. I do that until a little before nine when I ask the guy in charge of the downstairs shelter if I can just go in and go to bed. He says he'll check with staff and see if they're okay with that. When he doesn't come back after ten minutes I ask the staff if he talked to them.

"We'll never let you in early again if you keep creating problems," the new staff person tells me. I think this is cruel. All I asked for was to go to bed. How does that effect them any? Why does that mean they need to be mean to me? I start to cry again. They let me in right before the clock changes to 9pm and I go straight to bed, sleeping on frozen peas.

--mm