Mary Anne

As I rounded the corner to the Pine Street Inn, Boston’s largest homeless shelter, I took off my sunglasses and wiped away the sweat from the bridge of my nose. I stayed on the shady side of the street, distancing myself from the shelter. I caught glimpses of her bleach blonde hair down the block. When I neared the front door of the Women’s Inn, Mary Anne finally saw me.

“Oh hi!” she exclaimed, walking towards me, straightening her white t-shirt. “I didn’t even see you coming, I was thinking I had missed you.”

“Oh no no. I was just staying in the shade. It’s too hot.”

Together we turned around and retraced my steps to the soundtrack of her nylon running pants.

“Yeah, I know. Believe me. We don’t got any air conditioning up there and shit, it is hot. I’ve been working too, helping clean around there. Mopping and stuff. I don’t mind it too bad, it’s nice to have the extra money, but I’m getting so tired, you know? But, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. Yeah, and mopping kind of relaxes me.”

We turned north on Harrison and walked towards downtown. Here the broader streets provided less shade. I re-adjusted my glasses, quickly wiped the sweat away, and nodded at a few of the shelter guests leaning against the brick of the Men’s Inn.

“So what’s this we’re going to?” she asked.

“It’s a public housing interview,” I explained, again. “It’s like what we went to out in Randolph, but it’s different from the Section 8 interview you had.”

“So, like, if I move there, am I stuck there for the rest of my life?”

“Well not necessarily stuck, but there’s a lot of paperwork processing to deal with if you want to move. It’s not like Section 8 that you can take anywhere in the country.” We moved fully exposed into the sun and slowed our pace.

“Yeah, so I hope I get Section 8. A couple of the other girls just got Section 8.”

I nodded in agreement. “Section 8 is the number-one thing we’ve got going for you right now. It hasn’t been around for years but they’ve got the funding back now. You’d definitely be one of the luckier ones—if you get it. I can’t guarantee you’ll get it, but they’re a lot more lenient about CORI stuff with Section 8.

We passed the Herald office, a low brick building, an island of production in the middle of parking lots filled with Fung-Wah and Lucky Star buses. I threw my coffee cup away and we paused under the awning. Mary Anne was about to get a paper, two for one, when a security guard approached the door.

“Oh, nevermind. Let’s go. Don’t need to mess with him. Well, you know,” she started up again, as if I were a potential landlord, “I’m real quiet, you know? I’m real quiet. The landlord at Wall Street said I was the best tenant he had ever had.”

We walked in silence, I didn’t remind her that she’d had that apartment in the 80s.

“People won’t even know I’m there. I’m real quiet and I’m real clean. Have you heard of this new furniture store they have? Ikea? Yeah, real cheap stuff. I’m gonna go there. I got a lot of plans. I got those beaded curtains, you know. Gonna put those up in the window. Well first I’m gonna put up shades and then the beaded ones over them. I think it’ll look real nice. I got a lot a plans. I can’t wait for my own place.”

We crossed the bridge over the Mass Pike. Cars rushed by; the noise made it hard to hear each other speak. “I’m hoping to get in there by the end of September, before the winter sets in. Moving in the winter is not something you want to do. My mother never moved in the winter. Me neither. Once I get a place, I stay there.”

What about the 90s? What about all those years you told me about, when you were moving back and forth between hotels in Texas and Massachusetts with your son?

As we walked into Chinatown, the sidewalk narrowed and crowds thickened. We passed under a long line of scaffolding and the smell of fried meat began to work its way into our hair. “Ugh, I don’t trust these Chinese places,” she said. “My ex-husband, the first one, used to clean out vents, you know, for like fans and ventilators and whatever. Well he was down here one time and stuck his hand in the stuff they use to dye the ribs and then stuck his hand up a vent that came up off the stove and when he pulled out his hand it was covered in cockroaches. Oh no, I don’t trust these places. I’ll eat in that big restaurant over by the theatre, but not these little places anymore.”

When I bumped shoulders with a woman passing by Mary Anne dropped back and walked behind me. I led the way, trying to navigate the crowds and listen to her as she spoke.

“I used to come down here all the time. When I was like 21. I would go around to all the joints, ya know? Yeah, I knew Charlie, he owned that place Charlie’s, over there on the corner. He always took good care of me. Made sure I got a cab ride back home and everything. It was a titty bar, you know,” she laughed.

“I used to hang out in all those kinds of places. That was back when I was dating Donald. But then he got murdered. Yeah.” Her laugh knew it was fucked up. “So that pretty much ended that relationship. We were going to get married and everything. All I had left was the column from the newspaper and his Budweiser underwear.”

In the midst of an intersection congested with cars and delivery trucks and rising steam and cops and construction workers and lunchtime commuters and sweet and sour chicken, I tried to process what she had just said.

This must be how she feels, I thought.

“They took all that too when they evicted me. They took every fucking thing I had. Those people, I swear. They were monsters. Grabbing my guests by their throat. Locking me out. Calling the cops on me every other minute. Even the cops said they had no reason to be there. Those people, they left a refrigerator at the top of my stairs, left this much space to get through to the hallway.” She held her hands 12 inches from each other. “The cops came down one time to yell at them about it. Said it was a fire hazard. I swear. My mother died and I told them about it and that woman said she didn’t give a rat’s ass about my mother. I swear, Stephanie, I wanted to fucking pound that bitch,” Mary Anne growled.

We paused on the corner of the next street and through her shades, in the wrinkles of her forehead, I could see thirty years of mistakes, anger, abuse, pain. Her hopelessness crushed me, I felt it in my chest, my stomach, the back of my head. I wanted to remind her how strong she was, how things were going to change soon. But I can’t guarantee anything so I just listened.

“Ooh I was so fucking pissed. Can you imagine, someone saying that to you after your mother died? I’m glad I got outta there. I couldn’t take it no more. I almost prefered the streets to those assholes. At least I didn’t have no one bothering me out there. Except the cops those couple a times they picked me up for sleeping in abandonded cars. The judge knew my situation, you know, and figured jail was better for me than the streets. At least I had a bed and food and a decent roof over my head. But I wonder now with all this CORI stuff and getting denied housing whether he was actually helping or hurting me. Ah well, you know, I just want to get my own place. Something to call my own. It’s going to be real nice. And I’m getting anxious. My son is getting anxious.”

With the housing authority in sight, she sighed, “Yeah, once I get a place I wanna get me a little chihuaha. They don’t weigh nothing, you know. Weigh less than a cat, and a cat stinks. Dogs don’t stink. I need some companionship, you know? What with the depression and the ADHD. I need something to keep my mind off it all. I’m fine, you know, as long as I take my meds. But I think a dog will be nice, and I’m going to tell them that. Just so they know going into it. I’m getting me a dog and if they won’t allow it, well, then I just won’t live there.”