OBSERVATIONS IN SHELTER THREE - YESTERDAY, I WAS A LADY

 

 

 A NIGHT IN SHELTER THREE

 

by

 

Phyllis Mass Carter
1993

 

 

From the Journal of an Incurable Job Hunter

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

Phyllis Mass Carter  - Canadian. Widow
Professional Journalist/Editorialist/ Reporter/Lyricist
Professional Private Investigator
Public Speaker/Coach/Speech writer
Professional Photographer
Executive Assistant
Formerly Comfortable Montreal West Island Suburbanite
Unemployed due to being "Overqualified" and "Anglo"

In Montreal, Quebec -
And due to "The Recession."

 

 

A NIGHT IN SHELTER THREE - HULL, QUEBEC - SUMMER, 1993

 

Here, after midnight,

Strangers keep coughing in the dark;

I hear syncopated snoring in the dark;

A peculiar girl is laughing in her sleep;

An old man with a shaggy beard weeps.

 

A strapping fellow with solid biceps

And wild eyes

Mills about in his undershirt,

Cursing much and mightily

At no one in particular.

 

A distraught spinster leaps from her cot,

Quoting scripture and raving -

"The Lord will see you all in Hell for this !"

 

And here am I,

In the midst of this congregation

Of derelicts, alcoholics and drug addicts.

I feel separate - out of place - disassociated,

And small,

And scared -

And I keep very still.

 

Wrapped in a blanket,

Afraid to lie down,

I sit curled up tight

In a worn upholstered chair,

Behind rows of discarded chesterfields

That reek of stale tobacco,

And the pungent perspiration

Of the tormented and the dispossessed.

 

(Earlier, I noticed someone had written

"WORMS" on the lunch menu.)

 

My few possessions are in Locker 33 -

Safe -

Perhaps:

But the Keeper keeps the key,

And the Keeper is a stranger

To me.

I keep my eye on 33

Through the smokey blackness.

 

1:15 A.M.

 

I watch the silhouette of

The wild-eyed one with the biceps,

As he paces erratically in the dark,

Growling his angry epithets -

Stringing them out -

Like long lines of dirty laundry.

(I never realized there were so many

Obscene words in the French language.)

 

The acrid odors blend together -

An environmental hazard -

A filthy fog

That envelopes me and invades my senses.

 

I NEED AIR !

 

2:20 A.M.

 

Suddenly someone switches on the T.V.

A sharp blast of Fifes and Drums

Stuns me with Sousa !

 

4:05 A.M.

 

Weary,

I drift into my memory,

Seeking the sweet solace

Of my precious husband's arms.

I won't cry. I will NOT !

 

But closed eyelids can't filter out

The putrid stench of wasting human lives.

 

Where is the dawn  ?

 

30

 

Copyright: Phyllis Mass Carter - Ottawa - May, 1993 -

                All rights reserved by the author.

 

I wrote this piece in May, 1993. I asked, "Where is the dawn?"

 

I could not have foreseen that, on October 7, 1996, widowed and sick with cancer, I would be robbed of everything I worked for all my life by Dawn McSweeney, and see my family and my health destroyed with the help of the Montreal Police.

 

I called this piece Shelter Three because it was the third shelter I had stayed in while struggling to find work. This was one year after my darling husband died and just weeks before I fell ill with cancer.

 

First published on Phyllis Carter's Journal Monday, January 23, 2012

http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2012/01/observations-in-shelter-three_23.html