When They Take Everything You've Got

Jack and Sammie (not their real names) got to the day center at 11 a.m., on the first sunny day in about a month. Two hours earlier, Parks and Rec officials had found the couple, who were camping outside while their housing applications were being processed, under a bridge in north Seattle.

“Clear out,” said the cop who accompanied the cleanup crew. “Get your sh*t and get out of here or we’re taking you to jail.”

Before that morning, I had never seen Jack—usually solemn and reserved—so animated. He couldn’t get the words out fast enough. But this newfound garrulity—accompanied as it was by a distracted, faraway look in his eyes—was unsettling and grotesque. When a coworker of mine asked Jack how he was doing, he replied, “Not too well,” a grin knifed on his face.

We were all disturbed by the turn of events, for a few different reasons: concern for Jack and Sammie, anger at Parks and Rec, worry about what this change in demeanor meant for Jack. But we all had work to do: there were probably 30 other people at the day center, and no doubt some of them had had bad days, too.

I got sucked into one task or another. An hour passed, maybe. I can’t recall. All I know is that I was just about to take lunch when the most hopeless sound I have ever heard came from the front of the office. I found Sammie pressed against my supervisor, her whole body shaking with sobs, saying Jack was going to kill himself. I didn’t know how complicated the notion of “Jack” was going to become.

*****

Two important events preceded this story. First, Jack came to Seattle from the East Coast on a Greyhound bus in late fall, 2007.