Memory

Late one night after a rehearsal, I stopped at the Dirty Grill downtown to get something to eat. As I got out of my car, a young homeless looking woman walked up to me and started talking. She was in mid sentence, mid thought somewhere along the way with something that had nothing to do with me, but she seemed so personable from the way that she approached me that I thought for a second that I knew her or that she must know me. Then I realized she was either wacked out or on drugs. And yet I found myself talking to her. "Come on" I said, "I'm going in to get something to eat. I'll buy you something if you want." She looked at me in disbelief. "Really?" she asked. "Yes, sure. Come on." I said. She was kind of dirty looking and sun burnt, weather beaten. She had a small backpack she was carrying.


The Dirty Grill is not fine dining, but heads were turning to look at us as we walked in, down the aisle along the booths. I copped my attitude - she's with me and were coming to eat and that's all you need to know so turn your little faces back around and shut up. We sat down in a booth right in the middle of the place. She picked up the menu and at first glance exclaimed "Ooh, I'm gonna get eggs and toast with jelly! Is that o.k.? "Yes, get whatever you want" I said. "I haven't had that is so long" she said. I looked closely at my unusual dinner companion. Despite my put on demeanor, I wasn't so sure this would work out. She seemed to be having two or three simultaneous conversations and I didn't know how loud she may get or if she would stay seated or what. She had all the signs of someone on meth or something equally as a bad.


"Its my birthday today" she said bluntly. I didn't believe her but what the heck. "Oh really?" I replied, "How old are you?" "I am nineteen" she said.

Her teeth were damaged. Her skin looked sun baked and wrinkled. Her hair was matted. Her hands dirty, scratched up. She was drastically aged and physically decayed. Yet it was evident that she had once, very recently, been an attractive and probably captivating young woman. It was suddenly strange and unsettling to see her now in comparison to the young hipsters in the place. How could this have happened? I mean I knew how it happened technically, but how could it have happened all the other ways, emotionally, psychically?

I asked her who she was, her name and all, where she was from, who her family was, where are they. She told me her dad lived in Phoenix. I asked about her mom. "My mom died" she said. It seemed almost but not quite true the way she said it. "You don't mean she really died do you?" I asked. "In my mind she is dead" she told me sternly. She told me she had younger brothers and sisters living with her dad.

She told me she had wanted to attend Embry-Riddle College. She had wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. She pulled a small picture from her bag and said "Look, this is me three years ago." It was a prom picture. Two young good looking kids, all-American, all dressed up in formal wear. Her and her date. It broke my heart to see. Her face was now haunting and her voice mostly lost as her own, subject to whatever it was the drugs inspired.

My thoughts were flooded with the sense of being a father. I thought of my own daughter - not that she was in that or a similar situation of course - but the fear of the possibility that it can happen to anyone. "When was the last time you talked to your dad?" I asked. "Not in a long time" she said "I wanted to call him once but didn't." I handed her my cell phone "Why don't you call him now?" She looked in disbelief once again. But she took the phone and dialed the number once I showed her how. Her face lit up when her dad apparently answered. She told him she was in Tucson, and reminded him of her birthday and they talked on for a couple of minutes.

We ate our food when it arrived and I told two young guys across from us to quit gawking when she grew self-conscious and paranoia seemed to be overtaking her. Walking out of the restaurant later I asked her where she would be going and she said south, that she hadn't been that way in a while. I asked if there was a shelter somewhere and she seemed not to know (or care maybe) and I didn't know. I got in my car and drove slowly away.