Peripheral People

Last night, my cousin called me from the big windy city he lives in. He's one of my life role models, more brother than cousin, who is best friends with my older brother. Let's call my cousin "Mark."

Mark is a successful businessman who I  suspect is quite affluent though you wouldn't know it to look at him. Because while he lives and travels well with class and grace, he does not flaunt money and does not judge those without it.

Mark goes into low income areas and improves them.
He's one of those people who is humble yet driven, an understated power house.

I have found, of the wealthiest people I meet.. my favorite are the humblest ones. And those are almost always the ones who earned their wealth rather than inheriting or marrying into it.
Mark is one such self-made success story. He is always honest, truthful and tells it like he sees it.

An example: once I invested in a stock. Mark said I would lose my investment and I disagreed with him.... and he was right.... Poof!!  Money all gone.

So when Mark called me last night and  said I had something good happening here with this blog and to keep writing, I believed him. So here I be on a Friday night.

Chelsea, my youngest, bought me a website domain name. www.diaryofaprivateeye.com
She is pulling her marketing  friends together to move this "archaic" little blog spot to part of a bigger web site. She thinks this blog spot is  old school, primitive...  she wants to evolve me from the dark ages to those cyberworlds our kids inhabit  that are beyond my capacity to navigate, or my inclination to master.

I've written a lot of posts I've chosen not to publish here. It's challenging to write about real cases and remain within professional, legal, ethical, moral guidelines. So I was thinking today maybe I'd blog about the sidekicks in a P.I.'s day for once. Not the victims I have seen, but the witnesses I hunted down, or the or the "peripheral  people" I meet on the streets I investigate.

Alley Cat

It was at one such scene where I was measuring the intersection with one of those yellow wheels investigators and contractors use to measure distances over large areas. I had my note book, It was raining out.  I was wearing a bright yellow gortex jackek so I could be both dry and seen while photographing the street,

I also had my camera, safely protected in a plastic cased I'd just improvised. MacGyver would have been proud. The camera's lens stuck out of a hole I'd quickly cut into the side of a zip lock bag with my pocket knife.

The neighborhood I was in... was, on a scale of 1 to 10 --10 being the roughest , meanest, worst....
was a 10. That good news is I was there about 8:00 am, which is when most murderers, crackheads, pimps are sleeping it off.

Plus, after more than decade at this business, the fear goes away and you develop a finely honed instinctual alarm system, liked a seatbelt and airbag  deployment computer, that only goes off when mission is truly critical.

Being white and blond, I am in the minority in almost all the places I go in the melting pot we live in. I am also instantly noticed wherever I investigate an accident out in the open, You can't help but learn how to deal with people and unexpected circumstances after enough experience and years protecting your own back while people approach you, ask questions or observe.

I was unprepared,...however... for the hand that reached out and grabbed my ankle as I was alone while I photographed an alley that the Defendant, a hit and run driver,  flew through. There was garbage  heaped to right side, the driving space was tight. Every alarm in my body went off as I pulled my foot (in boots)  away from the dark black, skeleto- like hand which moved away and disappeared quickly.  Despite the daylight, I reached for my flashlight in my back pocket and scanned the debris in the area of the ankle grabber.
"You the Lord?" a voice said from underneath a pile of newspapers and boxes covered by a blanket.
"Am I dead?"

"Nope. I'm not the Lord, you're not dead. And you're in an alley, not heaven." I said quietly and evenly, despite a massive adrenalin rush as I saw where he was laying and moved closer to him.
"You an angel?" he asked.
"No, just a Private Investigator," I said as I squatted down next to the pile of stuff  that covered him.

"My name's Susan, what's yours?" I asked, as I  peeled away the folded cardboard boxes until I saw his blanket, which he had pulled over his face.
"Joe," he said.
"Ok Joe," I responded, " how 'bout you come out from behind that blanket for a proper hello?"

Joe lifted the blanket from his face and then tossed it to the side. I saw a very tired, once handsome , now gaunt, grey bearded black man covered with dirt and dust and laying in his own excrement. His body reeked of human filth and alcohol.
 The dreadlocks in his har were deadlocks.

"How long have you been here?" I asked him.
"Don't know," he answered.
"You got family, anyone I can call?"
"Only family I got is the Lord," he replied. "I'm waiting for him to pick me up and take me to Heaven."
"You got a home...an apartmnent... somewhere?" I asked.
"You're looking at it," he said.

I told him I didn't think the Lord could find his home under all the boxes in the alley. I suggested  maybe he might want to walk with me to a more open area to await the Lord'sGolden Chariot.

He said he would like that, but it would be impossible for him to move anywhere because  two kids, one with a baseball bat, broke the bone in his lower right leg. He pointed to his leg and I saw blood and bone sticking out of it.

"Geez Joe" I said, as I reached for my cell and dialed 911.

"Ironic ain't it," he said,  "I served in 'Nam and not a single wound. I grow old and get the crap beat out of me here in the good ole USA."

"They gonna' arrest me?" he asked after I got off the phone.
"Better Not" I said. "After all ...you're the one who was assaulted."

"Maybe they'll put me in the Cuckoo's Nest, I do a Great Jack Nicholson," he said as he strecthed his lips into a  psycho grin straight from "The Shining."  I laughed...  then he  laughed and laughed until the laughter turned to a cough that wouldn't stop.

The paramedics and police arrived all at the same time.
I told the Police Officer I was a Private  Investigator working an accident scene and found this man.
The officer  and paramedics knew him well and treated him with impressive respect.
.
The officer told me it was the strangest thing.
The guy had money, alot of it.
He had a wife, kids, a house, the works.
Then one day he started hearing voices in his head.
The voices told him to walk away from reality. To walk away from everyone and everything. And so he did.

The paramedic said Joe was a paranoid schizphrenic who, though harmless, did have hallucnations, talked to himself and scared the tourists.  His wife long since divorced him. Allegedly, there was trust money somewhere in his name but none of the social workers found it. Or someone stole it.

They would get him to the hospital, get his leg fixed, get him fed, try to help  him as they have done so many times over the years.
Then they'd release him.
And  he'd be just one more of those people on the streets you see, or pretend not to, every day.

Like the guy on the corner with the sign that says, "Will Work for Beer"

Ot the lady by the freeway  with the signs that simply says, "Help me."

When I drive to cases and places, I take the time to look, really look.
Try it, what you see might surprise, or even alarm you.
You'll discover people living under bridges and freeways... under tarps...in tends... on forested lands, parks, other people's property.
You'll find  huge encampments of the homeless.
Or people who live out of their cars... or  in one bedroom apartmnents with 5 others who would be homeless were it not for the roof overhead.

I have interviewed people in tents,under trtees, in trailers, garages, park benches, train stations, sitting on the street curb.
And every encounter  I have with these "peripheral people."... the lost, lonely, hurt, hungry, homeless.. it makes me feel that much more grateful for who I am.... and the opportunities this profession has given me to help.

Joe called me over to the ambulance as they loaded him.
I meant just to wave good-bye and move on, as I usually do.
I walked over to Joe and he said this to me:

"You're not an Investigator. You're an Angel God sent to find and save me."

I didn't know what to say except,, "Ok Joe. You're right. And God said to tell you it's not your time yet."
I watched the doors to the ambulance close, wrapped up my interview with the police, then went back to my scene investigation.

To this day I do not know if Joe is still on earth or in his version of Heaven.

And the more I think about it, I"m not sure whether I found Joe or Joe found me.
Either way, it was one of those points in time and space that alters your consciousness completely.

There but for the grace of God --or whoever --go I.