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Authors: Sara Paretsky
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to find a good Christian to work there. And they’re letting men as well as women come to see the doctor, so the possibility exists that homeless people might have carnal relations. I mean, they’re barely supposed to eat, they ought not be allowed to be together as men and women.”
She hit a discordant seventh to emphasize her anger. “You know the asshole held up the start of the psych clinic for three weeks so Sylvia Lenore could see if any Christian psychiatrists or social workers in the parish felt called to minister to the homeless? I guess Gilbert McLlvanie and Connie Trumaine needed CPR to recover from the shock of donating a day a week to
pro bono
work.”
Harriet laughed, but shook her head. “Beebie, you take everything too hard. I know why you worry so much about homeless women, but sometimes I think Grandfather is right, that you’re identifying too much with them.”
Mara’s face scrunched into lines of angry hurt. “Beebie” was Harriet’s pet name for her, rarely used, and it always made Mara feel too hurt by the sense of love gone missing from her life. She loved Harriet. She hated Harriet. She saw the feelings runningthrough her veins like two different-colored streams of blood that never mixed; she never could tell which one dominated.
Mara turned back to the piano. Harriet left the room, a momentary impulse to hug her sister replaced by a more typical irritation with her. Grandfather was right: Mara just never made any effort.
7
Open-air Clinic
Haven’t written in several weeks. Been run ragged between work with street people for Lenore Foundation and regular hosp duties. Disappointed that work with Hagar’s House doesn’t include more time with Boten. He met with me before I started there, remembered me from my interview when I applied for residency, which was pleasing, but told me bluntly there wasn’t going to be much scope for general therapy work. He will meet with me once a month to discuss patients and progress—if any—but no budget for him to play more active role. It’s ail on my shoulders.
So I’ve been going every Friday to a room in a converted coal cellar at the Orleans St. Church where men and women, mostly women, from different shelters come in and talk to me. More men without shelter than women, but women more willing—more eager—to see doctor, have someone to talk to, try to get help. No cost containment committee to limit sessions to fifteen minutes. On the other hand, after first week—where only two people showed up in five hours—numbers have been growing and I have to limit sessions based on my own stamina.
Another negative is the hostility of some of the church staff. Shelter and counseling room have a separate entrance, on Hill Street, but you can’t just walk in: church is like a fortress, with pseudo-Gothic buildingsbehind eight-foot-high castiron fence. Intimidates me, no doubt worse for the mentally ill.
“The security discourages people who most need help,” Hector said to Patsy Wanachs, the executive director at the shelter. “If you’re paranoid, you’re not likely to respond to a voice coming out of the wall demanding to know your business.”
“Running a shelter in a church like Orleans Street involves a series of compromises, Dr. Tammuz,” Patsy Wanachs told him, keeping one hand on her phone so he’d realize how busy she was. “A lot of our client base has serious problems with drugs and alcohol, as you surely realize. And we’re a stone’s throw from one of the city’s most dangerous housing projects. Perhaps our security system keeps away some people who badly need help—but it also keeps out drug dealers and pimps.”
She picked up the receiver as a sign of dismissal. One of the volunteers followed him to the hall.
“This isn’t really the hostile place you’re taking it for,” she told Hector. “Women feel a sense of safety here, and that’s important on the street. And we’re one of the few places in the city
She hit a discordant seventh to emphasize her anger. “You know the asshole held up the start of the psych clinic for three weeks so Sylvia Lenore could see if any Christian psychiatrists or social workers in the parish felt called to minister to the homeless? I guess Gilbert McLlvanie and Connie Trumaine needed CPR to recover from the shock of donating a day a week to
pro bono
work.”
Harriet laughed, but shook her head. “Beebie, you take everything too hard. I know why you worry so much about homeless women, but sometimes I think Grandfather is right, that you’re identifying too much with them.”
Mara’s face scrunched into lines of angry hurt. “Beebie” was Harriet’s pet name for her, rarely used, and it always made Mara feel too hurt by the sense of love gone missing from her life. She loved Harriet. She hated Harriet. She saw the feelings runningthrough her veins like two different-colored streams of blood that never mixed; she never could tell which one dominated.
Mara turned back to the piano. Harriet left the room, a momentary impulse to hug her sister replaced by a more typical irritation with her. Grandfather was right: Mara just never made any effort.
7
Open-air Clinic
Haven’t written in several weeks. Been run ragged between work with street people for Lenore Foundation and regular hosp duties. Disappointed that work with Hagar’s House doesn’t include more time with Boten. He met with me before I started there, remembered me from my interview when I applied for residency, which was pleasing, but told me bluntly there wasn’t going to be much scope for general therapy work. He will meet with me once a month to discuss patients and progress—if any—but no budget for him to play more active role. It’s ail on my shoulders.
So I’ve been going every Friday to a room in a converted coal cellar at the Orleans St. Church where men and women, mostly women, from different shelters come in and talk to me. More men without shelter than women, but women more willing—more eager—to see doctor, have someone to talk to, try to get help. No cost containment committee to limit sessions to fifteen minutes. On the other hand, after first week—where only two people showed up in five hours—numbers have been growing and I have to limit sessions based on my own stamina.
Another negative is the hostility of some of the church staff. Shelter and counseling room have a separate entrance, on Hill Street, but you can’t just walk in: church is like a fortress, with pseudo-Gothic buildingsbehind eight-foot-high castiron fence. Intimidates me, no doubt worse for the mentally ill.
“The security discourages people who most need help,” Hector said to Patsy Wanachs, the executive director at the shelter. “If you’re paranoid, you’re not likely to respond to a voice coming out of the wall demanding to know your business.”
“Running a shelter in a church like Orleans Street involves a series of compromises, Dr. Tammuz,” Patsy Wanachs told him, keeping one hand on her phone so he’d realize how busy she was. “A lot of our client base has serious problems with drugs and alcohol, as you surely realize. And we’re a stone’s throw from one of the city’s most dangerous housing projects. Perhaps our security system keeps away some people who badly need help—but it also keeps out drug dealers and pimps.”
She picked up the receiver as a sign of dismissal. One of the volunteers followed him to the hall.
“This isn’t really the hostile place you’re taking it for,” she told Hector. “Women feel a sense of safety here, and that’s important on the street. And we’re one of the few places in the city
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