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The steam from the vent on Sansom Street rises wildly at night, arcing and then drifting hazily into a driveway that houses some abandoned furniture and a parked white van. Beyond the black gates of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Lexy, a homeless woman of 31 whose name has been changed, lies still on the ground, her face pressed to the warm metal bars of the vent.
Her body, turned on its right side with one bent leg stacked on the other, soaks up all the heat it can gather; holey grey socks meet her faded jeans midway up her shins. It is early February 2008 in West Philadelphia. Beneath the denim jacket that covers her face and torso, Lexy shifts position. As a gust of wind enters through the open ends of her jeans, she whimpers, “Can anyone spare any change, please?” She waits for a response, but is greeted only by silence. “Can anyone spare any change, please?”
Though winter has not quite reached its peak, for a woman struggling through her first years of homelessness, few things could seem worse. Lexy was adopted by a single mother and six brothers. She attended University City High School and worked a couple jobs until her mother passed away. With no friends or relatives able to take her in, she gathered what was left of her belongings and took to the streets.
Around 9 p.m. on a Friday night, this woman verbally pitches to passers-by on Sansom Row: “Can you spare any change?” I stop in my tracks and look left. Two eyes of a rather shriveled looking woman meet me in the darkness. “Don’t have change but going to get dinner,” I say. “Care to join?”
“You mean you gonna buy me somethin’ to eat?”
I nod. The woman takes a moment to look down both sides of the street before suddenly jumping up. “All right! Thank you!” She extends her right hand and I shake it.
“My name’s Lexy.”
Lexy, I say out loud, just to hear how it rings.
We make our way across 36th Street, and she asks for my name. When we hit 40th Street, we decide on “Mickey D’s” and walk in to join the end of a nine-person queue. To kill time, Lexy talks to a woman in front of us who has dreadlocks and a leopard-patterned coat. Four minutes later, Lexy’s still talking, but the woman’s stopped listening.
We move two steps forward. “I’m hungry. What are we going to get?”
I tell Lexy I think I’m ordering some chicken. She returns a confused look, surprised I didn’t consult her first, but smiles when she realizes we are getting two meals, not just sharing one. “I’m gonna go with the Big Mac!” she declares after some thought, and a couple heads in front turn to look back. Lexy chooses a table for us, climbs into a plastic booth and waits anxiously. As soon as I bring the tray with food and drinks, she opens the Big Mac box, scatters the fries along with four packets of sweet-and-sour and barbecue sauce, then takes large, hurried bites out of her burger.
We are quiet as we eat until seven high school kids stumble through the entrance, bringing in a cloud of chatter and laughter. I turn my head to look back and notice that three black men sitting at the tables on the other side have been staring at us, muttering and grinning among themselves. They look like they recognize Lexy, probably wondering how she figured this one out.
“I haven’t eaten in two days,” Lexy says near the home stretch of the meal. “I’m full now,” she adds, with her eyelids struggling to stay open. We group what is left of the fries, slide them into their original red container and leave sodas in hand. On our way back, we bump into one of her close friends: a man in a raincoat with pants that stop above his ankles, a hat and two stuffed UPenn Bookstore bags. She says something to him, but he doesn’t hear her. “Do you know his name?” I ask. “Nahhh.”
“You tight with street people?”
“Not really,” I say, quite truthfully.
When we reach the bookstore, I tell Lexy I’m headed the other way.
“Ok. Thanks for the food. Come visit us again some time.”
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finally lost to dreams.
A beautiful ending to a very sad and insightful story.
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