CREDIT CRUNCH: 1 - Hank: 0

Photo Credit: Southern California Inquisitor

By l.t. Dravis

SKID ROW, Los Angeles – October, 2008 – I HATE THIS PLACE AND I’M WONDERING WHY I CAME HERE . . . I’m standing near the corner of 5^th and San Julian Streets in downtown L.A. where Angelinos, black, white, male, female, young and old, live and die . . . on the mean streets of L.A.’s ‘Skid Row’.

I’ve got a tape recorder in my shirt pocket and I’m looking for someone, anyone, who looks like they might be a recent arrival.

I’m looking for someone – like you or me – who had it all, lost it all, and wound up here.

I want to know how and I want to know why so I can write about it.

I’m in a living dichotomy . . . in one of the most progressive cities in the world in one of the most prosperous states in the country in the richest nation on earth; within blocks of temperature controlled, perfectly comfortable skyscrapers where thousands upon thousands of well-dressed, well-fed, comfortable commuters sit in ergonomic chairs behind ergonomic desks, manipulating high-tech computers, processing information sent around the world . . . I’m surrounded by drug addicts, drunks, ex-cons, fugitives, psychotics, and other assorted homeless folks who’ve given up on themselves and everyone else.

It’s horrible on ‘Skid Row’.

Homeless people are everywhere . . . sitting on curbs, leaning against buildings, standing, shuffling, walking mumbling, talking, smoking, drinking, staring, drunk, sober, sleeping, dying . . . and I’m feeling edgy, real edgy. I suddenly feel claustrophobic and I’m having a hard time handling the combined odors of rotting trash, traffic fumes, and urine.

I want to go home . . . now!

I lean on a metal pole that supports a “No Right Turn/One Way” on 5^th and as I seriously consider just walking away; I spot a tall man with a full head of scruffy gray hair, bent slightly at the waist coming my way. He’s wearing a blue blazer, a dirty white collared shirt, stained gray trousers, and scuffed cordovan loafers. At first, he doesn’t make eye contact with anyone and he appears to be a little confused, perhaps even lost.

Then, for some reason, he looks at me and, if I’m able to judge a man’s expression, he seems relieved to see me . . . I mean, why not? I don’t fit in with this neighborhood; I’m dressed suburban casual . . . with shined shoes, a freshly pressed pair of Dockers®, a crisp long-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar; I’m clean-shaven, my hair is combed, I’m sober, and I’m too small to pose a threat.

He passes on by and I realize he’s the guy.

“Excuse me,” I say, “can I ask you a question?”

He slows as if he’s about to stop but he doesn’t.

“Excuse me,” I say a little louder, “can I ask you a question?”

He stops but he doesn’t turn around.

I walk around him and, because he’s about six-four, I look up into a weathered face with symmetrical features and tired but intelligent blue eyes. I suddenly realize that he resembles MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “Hi,” I say, smiling and extending my right hand, “I write a national newspaper column and a blog. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.” I’m trying to economize my words; I don’t want to drive him away.

He shakes my hand limply, looks at me with a tired smile, and asks, “What do you want to know?”

“First things first,” I say, looking him square in the eyes, “anything we talk about will be confidential. I don’t need to know your name . . . “

“What do you want to talk to me about?” He asks, peering intently into my eyes.

“I want to talk about you,” I say. “I want to know how you got here and why.”

He evidently thinks about that for a minute, nods at me as if the idea makes sense, and says, “Not a good idea to stand around here.” He starts walking and as I hurry to catch up, he’s talking slowly and softly about how great the weather is in L.A. and about how he’d gladly trade the occasional California earthquake for the miserable weather the poor people suffer with back east. He tells me how tough it is to get a place to sleep in one of the local missions. He tells me that he tries to stay close to the police station on 5^th Street, especially at night, and he tells me he’ll never get used to sleeping on concrete.

He surprises me by telling me his name is Hank (not his real name) and he gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder. We stop at the corner of 5^th and Los Angeles Street and he says, “Thanks for listening.” He then turns around and starts to walk away.

“Whoa, Hank,” I say, “how about we get a bite to eat and finish our talk?”

He looks hungry, so I figure he’ll bite (no pun intended).

I’m right.

He stops, turns around, smiles, and asks, “You buying?”

“Absolutely,” I nod and he leads the way to a nearby greasy spoon where we order up a couple of ‘BLT lunch specials’, tasty plates of carbohydrates, calories, and more chemicals than I care to think about, and we sit down to eat and talk.

I shut my mouth and let him tell me everything.

Hank is sixty-three. Too old to get a job, he says, and too young to collect social security. He says he’s just applied for General Relief payments from Los Angeles County. He thinks he’ll get a ‘couple of hundred bucks a month’ for nine months.

He tells me that he was born and raised in Pennsylvania and by the way he pronounces the letter ‘L’ (like a ‘Y’), I’m sure he was. He graduated from Penn State with a degree in business.

With his draft deferment fading fast, Hank joined the Army in the summer of ’68 and shipped off to Vietnam. He worked in a warehouse near the docks in Saigon, never saw a lick of combat, and after a 13 month tour of duty, he returned to Pennsylvania, got an honorable discharge, married his high school sweetheart, moved to the west coast, and wound up getting hired by a construction equipment manufacturer in the sales department.

He and his bride bought a four-bedroom tract home in West Covina for $35,000.00 in 1970 and paid it off in 2001.

They raised a son and a daughter in that home, bought a new car every three or four years, barbecued on the weekends, took annual vacations, and, like most of their friends and family, thoroughly enjoyed living out the American dream.

Over thirty-some years, Hank worked his way up the corporate ladder, and ultimately became Vice-President in charge of sales for the construction equipment manufacturer.

In 2003, at the top of his professional game, Hank retired, cashed out his 401k, paid the penalty, refinanced the house, and sunk four hundred thousand dollars into a car dealership with his car salesman brother-in-law.

The deal was simple. Hank put up the money and became CEO and General Manager, the brother-in-law put up ‘sweat equity’, his contacts, and his knowledge of the business and he became President and General Sales Manager.

They worked like mules and though they didn’t make a lot of money, they paid their bills, made payroll, paid taxes on time, took care of their families, and even managed to help a few of their friends and relatives along the way.

But by January of this year, with gas prices skyrocketing, with the credit crunch beginning to rear its ugly head, sales dropped to a fraction of what they were in January, 2007.

Through the Spring of 2008, fewer and fewer people came into the dealership and too many of those who did come in were too worried about the impending recession to make a buying commitment while too many of those who did want to buy couldn’t get financed.

The bank raised the interest rate to floor an unexpectedly large inventory of unsold cars and trucks and in an effort to keep the service and parts departments working, Hank begged, borrowed, and maxed out his credit cards, but by Memorial Day, he’d run out of resources and the dealership was running dangerously low on cash.

The pressure from creditors, vendors, and unpaid employees drove Hank’s brother-in-law to a nervous breakdown and he was committed to a locked-down mental facility in Pasadena.

Without a partner, with no cash on hand, and with the bank’s decision to cancel inventory financing, Hank had no choice but to lay off all the employees and close the dealership in the first week of June.

Within a week, Hank’s wife took off with the dealership’s former service manager and filed for divorce.

Hank couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer, so he defaulted and the court awarded the few remaining liquid resources to his wife.

By the end of July, the bank foreclosed on their house, and Hank was forced to move to a week-to-week furnished studio apartment on Citrus Avenue in Covina.

By end of August, Hank’s F150 had been repossessed and he was about to be evicted from the apartment.

“So,” Hank says, taking a long draw on a hot cup of black coffee, “I walked down to a 99 cent store I’d ignored for years, bought a backpack, walked back to the apartment, packed my clothes and toiletries into the backpack, and caught a bus for downtown L.A.”

“Downtown L.A.?” I ask. “Why?”

“Because I wasn’t willing to live on the streets of Covina and West Covina,” he says, arching an eyebrow. “I lived, worked, and played in those towns for nearly forty years. Everybody knew me and I was tired of being pitied and hated.”

I could understand pitied, but I didn’t get the hated part. “Hated?”

“Yeah,” Hank says, looking at me as if he’s wondering why I’m asking. “When you fail, they hate you.”

“Who hates you?” I ask, beginning to wonder about Hank’s mental state.

“Everyone,” he says angrily. “Friends, family, colleagues, vendors, customers . . . everyone!”

“But, why?” I ask. “This wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause gas prices to jump and you sure as heck didn’t create the credit crunch.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, becoming agitated. “When you fail, they act like you did it on purpose. They treat you like you’re a thief. You wouldn’t believe it!”

He’s right. I don’t believe it . . . so I have to ask, “But what about your wife, your kids, and your friends? They can’t hate you. They must know you did everything you could to make your business work.”

“Wife, kids, and friends?” he says as his face turns red. “They’re the worst! My wife left me, my kids won’t have anything to do with me, and all those guys I used to play golf with and all those great friends who used to go with us to concerts, dinners, and barbecues; all those people who were my great friends just a few months ago wouldn’t give me the time of day now.”

The tone of his voice and the look in his eye tells me that he truly believes everything he’s saying.

He’s becoming angry so I decide to shut up and let him cool down.

He reads me well, goes quiet, the red fades from his face; he finishes eating, drains the coffee cup, and looks at me, straight on. “Well,” he says with an expression and a tone that is suddenly devoid of emotion, “guess that’s about it, huh?”

I realize that he’s prepared himself to go back to the streets where emotions don’t work.

“Guess so,” I say with a smile. “Anything I can do for you?”

“Not really,” he says as he gets up to leave. “Thanks for the lunch.”

“Thanks for everything,” I say, “and don’t worry, man, I won’t use your . . . “

“I’m not worried,” he says plaintively. “That’s the one good thing about my life now. I don’t worry . . . about anything.”

I watch Hank walk away and he’s gone half a block before it hits me: No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I’ll never forget him.

Never.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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