The Restaurant Refugee

I am going to do my best to make this post not a declaration of why I am good guy.

I walked down a busy downtown DC street the other day and was interrupted by a rather well put together gentleman.  He arrested my stride with “Pardon me, good evening.”  I normally avoid anyone stopping me on the street for any reason as I surmise that they always want money and I console my liberal guilt with knowledge that almost all homeless outreach organizations are clear in the fact that money is more effective when donated to an organization than individuals.  This gentleman, however, presented a different face on the problem.

Tony told me that “I am recently homeless, but I work, I just got a job and, in fact I am just leaving work but I haven’t been paid yet.” He continued “I am not proud of the fact that I need help right now, my hours mean that I miss dinner at he shelter where I live.  If there is any way you could see yourself clear to help me get some dinner, I would be very appreciative.”

Maybe it was that he was polite, perhaps it was that his approach was not something I had heard before, perhaps it was the knowledge that very little in the cosmic sense separates my life from his, but for whatever reason my only response was “I think Au Bon Pain is still open.”

This is what recession looks like – real people, people you know, people who look like you and me lose homes, don’t have a short fall into family safety nets, lose jobs, lose their lives.  They land on the street and are forced to the humility of asking strangers who on their face would appear to be their peers for dinner.

I bought Tony a chef’s salad and a cup of coffee for me and tried not to think about the things that separate my struggling business owner life from that of a well dressed man who doesn’t have a home and depends on the kindness of strangers to eat.

When I was writing from a coffee shop earlier this evening a Bible Study Group erupted in front of me.  They drove me away at least in equal measure because of their sophomoric biblical interpretations (12 years of Catholic school have to be good for something) and the existence of any group of loud talking blowhards interrupting the sanctity of a coffee shop.  I interpreted this as a sign from God that I needed to abandon coffee and go have beer.

For reasons that defy explanation, I found myself watching an episode of Golden Girls this evening.  That show is funnier than it has any right to be and 95% of the humor survives the decades.

I placed neither the face nor the voice when a thoroughly bundled woman sat next to me at the bar and said “it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, though I didn’t take you for a dive bar kind of guy the night we met.”

“I enjoy the more than occasional dive bar” I replied as I ran through my mental rolodex trying to provide a context for our meeting.

The tallish blonde escaped her coat, loosened her scarf, and settled into the faded and torn bar stool.  “I promise not to pick a fight with you, if you’ll let me buy your next drink” she said and provided me with the first hint.

“Sometimes healthy discourse is a welcome distraction; and I am happy to let you get the next round if I can get the following round.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

“I have to confess that you are vaguely familiar but I am having a hard time remembering your name or how we met” I say in a risky maneuver given my occasionally horrid memory – I hope we never dated.

“Refugee, we met one night at your normal watering hole watching the Olympics, I’m the Lightly Bible Thumping Blonde.”

The events of that night scroll through my head like bad television flashbacks.  Using my best poker face, I smiled as brightly as if I had been dealt situational pocket Aces instead of Seven-Two off suit and said “that’s right, good to see you LBTB.”

“Considering the way you left that night, that’s a surprise to hear” she parried back.

“That water passed the bridge months ago, let’s just leave it there and start again” I heard myself say in tone so conciliatory that it surprised me.

Acknowledging our new terms of engagement LBTB turned to the television and asked if I was pulling for either team in the football game.  “I hate both of these teams and as my friend, the Only Slightly Sleazy Lobbyist, might say ‘I’m kinda just rooting for injuries’” I say with a smile hoping that she gets the joke.

“Hey, I went to the University of Refugee Hate” she responds with mild offense before continuing “since you obviously didn’t attend our rival, why do you hate URH?”

“The first time we met we had a semi-unnecessary argument; I thought we agreed we were to avoid having one this evening.”

“Fine, so what are you doing on this side of town?  I thought you lived over by the bar where we met.”

“I had a client meeting earlier today on this side of town; I went to the coffee shop down the street to smoke a cigar and finish my newspaper.  I was ready for a beer before dinner so, here I am.  And you?”

“I live around the corner, this is my local.  So what do you have against my alma mater?”

I take a deep breath and a deeper pull from my beer before deciding to actually respond.  “It’s not just that URH has a dirty football program because almost all of the big ones are dirty to some degree.  My problem is that URH seems proud of being dirty, proud to have thugs on your squad, proud of the fact that your players don’t graduate.” I tried hard not to be smug, to moderate my tone and deliver my answer as dispassionately as possible.  Anyone want to set the odds on my ability to do that?

LBTB furrowed her brow a bit before saying “You’re what my daddy would call ‘a superior sonovabitch’” with more of a southern lilt than I had heard in her voice before.

“While you and your daddy may have a very valid point, it does not in any way refute my position about URH, its football team, or the reputation it cultivates.  And that is my problem with pseudo-thinkers of every stripe.  When confronted with an argument you don’t like, the first reaction is to attack the person behind the argument with the particularly spurious label of superior or intellectual as if I should be ashamed of either.  So do you have any actual response?”

We sat in silence for a moment.  LBTB took a long sip of beer, placed her glass down with more force than required, and squared her chair to face me. 

“Refugee, I can’t tell if you are calling me stupid or not, which might answer the question.  But that is besides the point.  I don’t understand you.  I think I have made it clear that I like you, and I don’t know how long I would have fun with you playing James Carville to my Marlee Matlin but I wouldn’t mind trying to have a conversation that doesn’t end in you being snotty and me being pissed.”

“You know, LBTB, since you are already convinced I am snotty superior sonovabitch, I guess there is no harm in saying that I am sure you meant to say Mary Matlin.”

Tiffany Gates should have enjoyed Turkey and stuffing last Thursday.  She should have said grace before her meal and listed some of the things for which she was thankful.  Instead she spent her 33rd thanksgiving in the morgue, a victim of violence at the hands of her ex-boyfriend and a justice system that failed her.

Ms. Gates was felled by grotesquely common violence – 3 women are killed every day by men who profess to love them.  If the meat of the story was only “woman killed by ex,” then it would still be notable but not extraordinary.  Ms. Gates availed herself of every protection our judicial system affords.  She had broken the cycle of the abused returning to the perverse comfort of the abuser.  She was poised to be a success story.

Ridick Ridley had other plans. At just 31 years old, he boasts an impressive thirteen year long criminal record of abusing woman.  Since offenses committed as a juvenile are almost always sealed, anyone want to set the odds that Ridley has abused women for even longer than the stretch we know?

Ridley and Ms. Gates dated for about two years before she ended it in August after several incidents requiring police involvement.  On the thirteenth of that month, Ridley was arrested after a police stand-off and charged with several counts including arson for setting Ms. Gates’ apartment ablaze.  He was jailed without bond until his October trial.  After pleading guilty, Gates was sentenced to serve his time at a Halfway House despite his history of violence, recent restraining orders, threats to his ex-girlfriend’s life, the gravity of the charges, and common logic.

Less than three weeks after his sentencing Ridley escaped – the police’s word; but one doesn’t so much escape from a halfway house as they decide not to return.  On Friday 21 November, Ridley returned to Ms. Gates’ home.  He banged on her door long enough for her to call 911, a couple of family members, and the U.S. Marshalls who were just yards from her door on a stakeout to find the escaped Ridley.  For reasons I hope they will be called to explain to someone, the Marshalls decided to wait for back-up from DC Police before entering the apartment just before 2am that morning to find that Tiffany Gates had become the first woman to die that day because a man loved her to death.

Compared to Ms. Gates, Tina Dean was lucky but the similarities in their stories, both reported in last Tuesday’s Washington Post, astounded me.  Ms. Dean had also been in an abusive relationship.  She had also broken the cycle.  She had also sought and received multiple restraining orders.  She had also been failed by a judicial system that clearly does not think violence against women is a problem.

Ms. Dean’s assailant was her ex, Jeremiah Watson.  Watson while imprisoned on a burglary charge made repeated written and telephone threats to Ms. Dean.  Somehow, Watson still qualified for probationary release and began walking freely on 14 November.  He was arrested a mere week later for violating Ms. Dean’s order of protection against him.  The day after his arrest Watson was released on personal recognizance.  He was on probation from the burglary charge, violated an OOP and yet St. Mary’s County District Court Judge John F. Slade lets him walk.

Watson waited just a few days before going to Ms. Dean’s home, murdering her current boyfriend, and save for a misfiring gun would have murdered her too.  He had to settle for critical injuries inflicted with a shovel.

How many more women must die before all branches of our government and all of our societal institutions collectively resolve to declare war on this epidemic? 

Some Relevant Links:

Washington Post Article about Gates

Washington Post Article about Dean

Center for Disease Control’s Report on Domestic Violence

Center Against Domestic Violence

Washington Post Article about a Friend of Gates Who Wants To Start a Domestic Violence Registry