The Pay Back

The Pay Back
by Charlie Fischer

Willy Beckman wasn’t an unhappy man but an immensely disappointed man. He had fought in the Vietnam War while serving with the US Marine Corps. and served as a volunteer precinct captain for the Democratic party for many years. He loved America for its Constitution and Forefathers; he was especially dedicated to Benjamin Franklin. Willy was 47, and carried himself with pride. He was a handsome man with sky blue eyes and light brown hair. He had a well proportioned, medium sized, build, but looked disheveled and had an unkempt appearance with an unkempt beard. He disliked the way his ears stuck out, yet his ears gave him an innocent appearance. Willy had been homeless on the streets of San Francisco for five years, yet he was a graduate of the University of Southern California and had come from a middle class family. His parents lived in the San Francisco’s Peninsula where Willy was welcomed to visit, but could only live with them, if he worked and payed something for rent, but Willy didn’t want to work. He didn’t want to be a tax payer and support what he believed was a government gone awry.
Willy didn’t like the Kennedy Administrations’ Bay of Pigs; he hated the Nixon Scandal, and he did not appreciate governmental waist. He did not accept the ill spending of the tax payers money, and h didn’t appreciate where some of the politicians’ campaign money came from. These and other unpatriotic acts were enough to push Willy out of the labor force and into being homeless.
Willy had plenty to eat, since the soup kitchens, as St. Anthony’s, fed thousands of homeless daily. Clothes weren’t a problem either; Willy’s searches through the Salvation Army’s big, gray, metallic bins provided him with garments as: Levi Jeans, leather coats, sweaters, shirts, and shoes. Getting inside for a good nights sleep was a little more difficult than getting food and clothes. There were shelters, but long lines and few cots, and there were Missions, but you had to listen to the preacher read from the Bible in order to get one of the few cots available Having a cot only a few nights a week made it necessary for Willy to sleep outdoors at times. He found that sleeping under the freeway to be the best spot. The concrete structure and pillars holding the structure up protected him from the wind, and the pillars provided a sold spot for him to lean his cardboard, so he might sit against it before lying down to sleep. As this property was government property, no private individual company’s security guard could bother him. He did need to worry about some of the masochistic police who loved to beat upon the homeless men for no other reason than to increase their own perverted sense of power. It was expensive to put a bum in jail overnight, so the homeless were rarely arrested, yet the hostile police would beat them, spray mace in their face, spit at them, and heap epitaphists upon them. Those heartless police had little tolerance for disorientated homeless.
“Pigs,” Willy thought, “just bullies with a badge. One day they will get what they deserve. No one gives a damn, or there wouldn’t be cops like those.”
Once in awhile Willy would yell out loud, and after the bully cops picked on him and then left was one of the times Willy would shout. “Damn those bullies;” he would yell, “Hell with em.“ Willy would talk to himself, at times, would smoke tobacco when he could, and would drink wine, if he could bum enough money for it. He wasn’t much different from the rest of the homeless, and had friends among them, yet Willy had a warmer heart than most. Willy was a dedicated friend to Robin ever since Robin came to Willy’s defense. Robin O’Rielly was a big Irish guy who had wrestled in the amateur ring when he was younger; he was, now, about 45 but still strong.
Robin and Willy along with seven or eight other homeless were leaning their cardboard up against the freeway pillars, so they could take a seat, when a small gang of three blacks came into their vicinity and began shouting that the homeless were white trash and lazy honkies. One black went over to a homeless white man and punched his face. The man began to bleed at the nose, but the black punched him again and again. The man’s face was bleeding from more and more wounds. Some of the other homeless began shuffling off, “You sick bums lazy. You lazy. Get outa here, lazy bums,” yelled the black who had a red cross tattooed to his right arm. “You move out.” When another black came towards Willy, Robin picked up a pop bottle and slammed it onto the burry head of the would be attacker. The bottle broke and shreds of glass cut the ear of the black. Robin picked up another bottle and did the same, and again, bits of the broken bottle cut the black, and blood poured from a wound, and the black fell to the concrete holding his head, while the blood soaked into his shirt.
The third black, while Robin was beating an assaulter with bottles, was pushing and beating on the homeless who had begun shuffling off. The gang member that began the punching ran to his friends side, “Get up Bro.; get up,” said the hood. The hood’s friend did get up, but he couldn’t fight anymore. The two blacks who did have their strength came over to Robin to knock him down. They both punched and kicked on Robin who fell to the ground, but he fell right next to a three foot 2” x 4” piece of wood, that he picked up, stood up, and wielded the lumber squarely on the head of one of the fighters. The black aggressor went down, and stayed down, while the other hood turned on Robin with a bottle; since couldn’t get near enough to Robin, as Robin’s swinging wood kept him at bay, the black couldn’t hit Robin with the bottle he grasped. The hood threw the bottle at Robin who’s swinging 2” x 4” hit the bottle smashing the glass into shreds that flew into the face of Robin’s aggressor. Now, all three black gang members were incapacitated, but Robin and Willy weren’t safe, as bad off as the gang was, they came for a final attack on the homeless pair. The other homeless who were trying to get away reversed their direction and returned to the pillar under the freeway. They battled against the three, black, bad, men and knocked them down. The blacks, on the ground, wouldn’t get up to face more of the same.
A security guard, working in a near by building, had called the police, when the fight broke out, and the police arrived to the spot, near the pillars, under the freeway, where the homeless held the bullies to the ground. “Get away from them,” shouted the Sergeant. “Get on your feet,” he yelled at the three blacks cowing on the ground, and the homeless cried out to the police that the blacks had been beating them up. The four policemen put handcuffs on the blacks and escorted them to their police car and drove away.
Willy said, “Robbie, I can’t say when the day will arrive, but when it does, I am going to return the favor you extended me here on this day.” From that time on, Willy was Robin’s dedicated pal. They went everywhere together; and did everything together. They were inseparable. They often dinned at St. Anthony’s kitchen, and had a fine old time with the other homeless chatting and even yelling across the room to some other of the guys; they enjoyed kidding around with the little old lady, Mary, who handed out the sugar to the men who wanted it for their coffee.
The men ate good food at St. Anthony’s. They ate turkey sometimes or roast beef or chicken with potatoes and green vegetables. Milk and coffee were served, and seconds were often offered. Sometimes the chatter was a little coarse, and once in awhile someone would disturb someone else. Rarely, however, did fights break out, and when they did the police would come and break them up. Willy and Robin didn’t associate with any of the ungentlemanly homeless at St. Anthony’s, but stayed to themselves and chatted with better behaved individuals. Once in awhile, day old pastries, that a generous bakery donated to the kitchen, could be taken to go. Willy and Robin were grateful for all the people and their efforts to keep St. Anthony’s a wonderful kitchen that served the homeless but would eat at a mission on 6th street sometimes.
The store front mission on 6th street had a back room kitchen and some side areas that housed some cots. The black, metal, folding chairs all set neatly in three rows, about 25 in number, faced a speakers rostrum or podium like stand. The preacher read from the Bible before any of the men could eat, so Willy and Robin sat and listened to the Scriptural readings, the preacher's comments, and the sermon, so they could eat. “...[The] spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God,” read the preacher. “Romans 8:16,” he said. “You men are children of God,” he went on.
“How long do you think he’ll be talking, Robin?” Willy asked.
“Another few minutes,” Robin answered.
Robin was right. The preacher never took too long, as he knew how the men would begin to behave when they became too hungry. “OK, men; to the kitchen for your meal. Those who want a chit for sleeping on a cot for tonight, pick it up at my desk.” The preacher would hand out chits that were good for a cot for the night, but they couldn’t be used until after 6:00 PM. The holder of the chit would turn it into the attendant who monitored the door. It was first come, first serve as to who would get a bed chit, and Willy and Robin needed to sleep outdoors often.
There were a few other charitable soup kitchens around San Francisco, but many times Willy and Robin wanted to eat at Mc Donald's or Jack In The Box, so they had to beg for money. They would put on their best manners and ask men in business suits or lady’s who were all dressed up for a donation. They would walk around Market Street, and beg from people getting out of taxi’s. Sometimes the stranger would give Willy or Robin a dollar or so, but often, the begging went unfruitful, and they went to the soup kitchen. There were other services for the poor in San Francisco, and donating books to them was one. Willy and Robin would go to the Literature Center for the Needy, on Leavenworth, between Eddy and Ellis, pick out a few books, and take them to the park to read.
The two of them read in an especially nice part of Golden Gate Park that displayed a wide variety of flora: red, yellow, and pink flowers among the greenery brightened the area to a mesmerizing mood. The lush, professionally cared for, healthy, hedges surrounded a gathering of tall pine trees that cast their shadows over the spot where the boys were reading. Robin fell asleep as was the norm, but this time, though, two larger than normal Pit Bull dogs raced over to where Robin was sleeping and began assaulting him. Willy ran to get a stick. Robin leapt to his feet, and tried to fend off the attacking, ferocious dogs. Both dogs bearing long pointed teeth rushed at Robin with tremendous speed and power. It was a brown blur to Robin, as the dogs hit up against him hard, knocking him over. Lying on the ground, Robin vaguely witnessed, through his sweat and tears, the attack that he thought was surely his doom. While one dog was tearing his ankle apart, the other was biting into his arm. “Willy,” cried Robin, “Willy, Willy.” Robin, as large as he was, knew that, without Willy’s help, he hadn’t a chance. Willy ran from the bushes and swung a large tree branch he found at one of the dogs, killing it immediately. He hit the other mightily hard three and four times, but the dog didn’t seem phased; he jumped at Willy who swung the wood with all of his strength remembering how Robin helped him when the blacks attacked. Smash, he bashed the dog right between the eyes with the heavy tree branch. The dog went down, but got up, yelping, and ran away. Robin, bleeding from his arm and ankle, struggled to get up and limped over to Willy, and gave Willy a big hug. Willy said, “I knew there would be a day. I knew when you saved me back there under the freeway that I would have a chance to repay you one day. Today is that day.” Willy administered first aid to Robin and persuaded a good citizen to bring them to San Francisco General Hospital, where the doctors tended to Robin’s wounds and administered the series of Rabies shots. Robin was fine, and the two of them, though neither Catholic, celebrated his being OK by attending the Catholic Mass in the Chapel of the hospital.