Some burdens are obvious; others, less so.
Thursday, June 19, 2020
I’d seen her around here a few times, but wasn’t sure she was the same person. We happened to be on the bus stop together this morning, and talked, and my suppositions were confirmed.
She’s an older, very light-skinned black woman with a red, Audrey Hepburn haircut. Maybe it’s a wig. She’s housed now at the same hotel I am. She tells me she became homeless in 2017.
We know each other from Dunkin’ Donuts. She used to come there three or four times a week. She has this grocery cart, overloaded with her stuff, that she takes with her wherever she goes; she must have 100 pounds of stuff in there. At Dunkin’ Donuts it was always a deal, because the threshold there is this granite step, maybe 8 inches high, and it normally took two other people — customers or staff — to help her get her cart onto that step.
As far as I knew, she spent all her time just hanging out in front of the courthouse.
She still takes that cart with her wherever she goes now, which makes no sense. Heck, I hardly even take my backpack with me now when I go downtown.
Then she revealed her psychosis.
She said she was headed for a court date today or tomorrow, and the court was going to award her $570 million. (That’s more money than Jeff Epstein had.) $190 million will pay her lawyers, $190 million she’ll keep for herself, and $190 million she’ll give to charity. The suit began 36 years ago and pertains to the rights to her poetry.
The bus came, and I hurt my right arm lifting her cart onto the bus.
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