The Invisible Woman : Homelessness in O.C. Means Living on Outside

I need anonymity, so call me Diane.

I try not to be seen as I watch you prosperous-looking people walking from your cars to your offices. If you saw me, your faces would mirror your suspicion and disapproval.

Yet I was one of you. And at least some of you are dancing on the same tightrope over the same abyss into which I have fallen.

None of you know that I am here in the car just a few feet away from you--or what it is like once you get here.

I can tell you.

I pick up the typewriter, for which no one would pay me five desperately needed dollars, and I begin to write.

Last night my money added up to $38.67, so I found a cheaper motel. But now, tonight, I will start sleeping in my car.

I must eat on $6.23 for the next 10 days. Then there will be a paycheck--enough to keep me in a motel again for about a week. After that, it will be back to the car until the next payday.

Yes, I work for a living, but this job may be ending soon. And since the pay isn’t enough for first-last-and-deposit on an apartment or even a room, it would be hard to mourn its loss. Except that I have no money, no home and no evident prospects.

My downward spiral from a middle-class Orange County lifestyle began a few years ago. I was divorced and in my 50s, earning $40,000 a year as an editor, when my mother died of cancer. As the only child, I was left to care for an aged father advancing steadily into the dementia of Alzheimer’s disease. Such a prospect had never occurred to me.

Medical insurance will pay for a teen-ager’s allergy shots but not for this lengthy, tragic illness that devastates people financially, emotionally and physically.

I quit my job, moved to his apartment in Florida and cared for him for two years. We survived on my savings and his annuity. And in 1989 he died, leaving me broke and drained of self-confidence and the ability to concentrate.

News reports told of high unemployment among “older workers,” meaning anyone over 40. I was 57. Where did I fit in? The answer was: I didn’t.

Now I drive through the streets of Newport Beach looking for a place to spend the night.

Each street-side parking space seems to have something wrong with it. Here is a house whose windows look directly into my car. Here a space is too near an intersection with heavy passing traffic. To remain anywhere, I must remain invisible. Yet the one area that is quiet also is isolated. There is danger in isolation.

Finally, I drive slowly past the Sheraton hotel. There are many parked cars and also empty parking spaces. It seems so civilized. I used to come here for business lunches when I worked across the street. Aware of the irony, I check into a parking lot space facing the street.

The back seat of my 5-year-old Oldsmobile is too short for sleeping, but the front seats recline. My legs dangle toward the brake and accelerator, yet it seems comfortable enough to think of getting some sleep.

I drop my seat back, but whenever footsteps approach, I tense up. I dread waking and finding someone staring at me, so a large black cotton knit jacket I place over my head makes me feel nicely invisible. If I were dressed entirely in black, I’d be even less visible. From now on I shall prepare for the night like a cat burglar.

The night is not quiet. There is the noise of airplanes, police helicopters, traffic, auto alarms, slamming doors and voices. For about five hours, it is almost silent, and I sleep, first soundly for two hours, then fitfully for then next hour and a half. I must be awake to pull out before daylight to avoid being discovered.

This is the first night of what will turn into four months of living out of my car. There will be long hours of solitude, physical discomfort, boredom and sometimes hunger. And a few middle-of-the-night frights.

But it will teach me much about myself and about that line beyond which lies permanent hopelessness.

When I awaken, the night sky is beginning to pale. I hear a soft, staccato padding of feet and cautiously raise an eye to window level. A jogger is setting out from the hotel. It’s time to leave. I drive toward the fast-food restaurants on Bristol Street.

I wait impatiently in McDonald’s parking lot for its 6 a.m. opening. I can wait for coffee, but I need the restroom. I take my dishwashing detergent along and manage a passable sponge bath.

I need exercise to pull me out of my stupor. I drive to Park Newport and walk briskly along the bluff as if I were a resident, nodding back to those who say good morning. When I get back to the car it is 7:35 and I am still sleepy. But I can think of nowhere to sleep in the daytime without attracting unwelcome attention. Finally, it is 9. The library is open, and I can check job ads in out-of-town papers.

The day crawls on, uneventfully. I won’t return to the Sheraton before 9 at night, for there is too much activity and too much chance of being noticed. So at 6, I’m sitting in my car in Coco’s parking lot, alone in the dark with only my stereo for company and empty hours ahead.

My mind starts summoning up old memories:

* Mother meticulously reviewing financial records with me so that I would know “how to handle things in case anything happens to us.” I was surprised at how little they had left after 14 years of retirement. A small, dwindling cash reserve, Social Security and a small, fixed annuity financed their lives in a rented two-bedroom apartment.

* Father after Mother’s death, grief-stricken and demented. Sometimes he knew who I was, but in an instant his eyes would change, and I knew before he spoke that he believed I was Mother.

* Father raving and threatening suicide if he had to enter “a home.” He asked me to stay and take care of him. “You’ll never have to work again,” he said and waved proudly at the apartment. “You’re going to get all this when I go, you know.” It was pointless to explain that he had so little and I had only enough savings to last a year.

* Me selling possessions, both his and mine, to pay the bills, until he died and I returned broke to California.

Now, in Coco’s parking lot, living out of a car does not seem the worst thing that can happen to anyone. I know better.

Morning. I drive to Ralphs on San Miguel Drive and use 69 cents of my remaining $2.56 to buy a can of tuna.

This is the time, from 6 until 9 a.m., when you are most exposed. People out and about now all seem to have an evident purpose. Police cars make their rounds up side streets and through parking lots. Teams of gardeners descend on shopping centers to mow and groom and pick up litter.

Carrying my tuna back to the car, I find a wallet full of cash and credit cards lying on the parking lot ground. I take it to the market manager. As I walk back to my car, I wonder about it. How hungry or how desperate would I have to be to have kept that wallet? I don’t know, but I’m not there now and I’m thankful.

I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and am startled. I must shampoo. It’s not a matter of vanity. After three days without a shampoo, I’m beginning to look a little too like a bag lady.

A shampoo isn’t easy. You have to plan. I weigh the options and decide to use the restroom of the main Newport Beach Public Library. It is clean and often quiet.

I fill my purse with a plastic water bottle, a bottle of dishwashing detergent and a washcloth. I wait for the restroom to empty, then enter the spacious handicapped stall.

I have removed my jacket and T-shirt and poured water over my head when the restroom door swings open. I freeze. Semi-soaped and dripping, I stand motionless until the occupant of the next stall leaves.

The prospect of being seen now with soaked hair and detergent in hand is mortifying. I pull on my shirt and leave the restroom looking as if I have been swimming. I cross to the library exit quickly, not looking back. This is a new, low moment in my life.

I pull into the hotel parking lot and find a space beneath a small tree, shading me from the orange glow of the overhead lights. It is the parking space of my dreams!

But I hear the repeated wailing of a cat in distress. A young orange cat is up my sheltering tree, only 8 feet off the ground. His crying is attracting attention to him--and to me--but I sit and wait. I want this parking space.

One of a pair of men leaving the hotel meows back at the treed cat, saying that if he’ll come down he’ll give him a home.

That’s exactly what I want: the cat and the man to go away. I pull my long umbrella from the car, hop out and attack the tree, hoping the swaying branches will release the kitten. The man looks mildly startled. I offer to let him stand on my car to reach the cat, but he politely declines and moves off rapidly.

I wait and wait but finally yield the location to the cat. It is a humbling experience to compete with a kitten for a place to sleep. A few weeks later I find him and two other cats foraging in a steakhouse dumpster a block away. They have worked out a survival lifestyle that includes steak dinners.

I have bread, margarine and mustard.

I awaken at 4:30 a.m. I’ve slept almost five hours.

This is a go-to-work day for me. I work a 40-hour week in four days. But while most people yearn for quitting time, I now look forward to the hours in the office, that place of blissful luxury.

It has hot water, coffee, tea, drinking water, a newspaper, a restroom, my own chair and a place to leave the car for the entire day. I hope I will be alert enough to do a good day’s work.

I manage to perform well. Only in the warm, airless afternoon do I suddenly drop off to sleep over my papers and yank instantly awake. I pull through the fog, pour more coffee and focus on the work before me.

The irony is I am working for a company that publishes books advertising apartment rentals and their vast array of comforts and amenities.

I need a change of pace in my long evenings at Coco’s. Besides, I’ve observed the manager checking the parking lot. So I move to the far end of the lot where a few shops and businesses are still open. Through the window, I see hairstylists at work. If you consider it a mime show, it serves as entertainment for a while.

I get out of the car stiffly for a short walk. The unaccustomed swelling in my ankles is becoming severe. It must be the lack of exercise and sleeping with my legs dangling over the car seat.

Occasionally, someone looks at me oddly. There are expressions on faces I haven’t seen before, but no one is aggressively rude. And always I am on guard, ready for any attempt to make me leave or any rude remark. I am so constantly on guard for hostility that I don’t realize I have become unprepared to deal with anything else.

One weekday morning, I linger long in my car at Coco’s in Fashion Island, alternately reading and thinking. A voice wafts into my open window.

“Are you all right?”

Startled, I look out and see, a few car-widths away, a well-groomed, attractive man in his 30s approaching his Mercedes. He pauses tentatively and looks at me with an expression of kindly concern in his acutely intelligent eyes.

“What?”

“Are you all right? I wondered if you had car trouble. I saw you here earlier.”

“I’m fine,” I say abruptly and turn away. “I’m waiting for an appointment.”

“Oh.” He moves into his car and leaves.

I was rude to someone genuinely concerned about a stranger. I was caught off-guard, and now, oddly, tears flow. I must be more tired than I thought. I have been thrown off balance by a moment of kindness and concern.

Now the tears cut loose and I keep seeing a stranger’s kind, puzzled face and hearing a gentle “Are you all right?”

Of course I’m not all right! But I can’t say that to him--or anyone.

I’m down to 43 cents, so I shop carefully. I buy two bananas for 29 cents, but that’s all, for I can’t think of anything I can buy with my remaining 14 cents.

As I leave the grocery store, a healthy-looking man in his 30s asks, “Excuse me, have you got a spare dollar?”

“No, I haven’t,” I say, but he has already turned away. He doesn’t want words; he wants a dollar.

As days go by, I become increasingly aware of homeless people, from those living in automobiles to the fully homeless afoot. They are unseen when you live a “normal” life. They try to go unnoticed.

One man comes every night to check the coin-return slots of the newspaper racks and telephones near Coco’s. He is about 50. Nothing distinguishes him from anyone else except the telltale hesitancy of his movements.

At dawn, a woman in her 40s, dressed for the office, driving a Buick just a few years old, pulls up to the racks and begins methodically fingering the coin slots. She sees me, freezes like a deer in headlights, then squares her shoulders and leaves.

I am struck by a posture of studied dignity that denies what the fingers are doing.

At midday, in Mariners Park, I eat my lunch of bread, tuna and an orange, then toss my refuse into the trash bin. An old, white-haired man darts from nowhere and puts his hand deep into the trash can, searching through my impoverished rubbish.

One night late, I awaken abruptly. I hear the sound of a key being slowly worked into my door lock and turned, just inches from my ear. My scalp tingles. The key does not work and is slowly withdrawn.

I listen warily. I can lunge for the car horn if need be. That could bring someone out of the hotel--and probably end my tenancy at the Sheraton. I wait, unmoving and unseeing under my nighttime shroud.

In a few minutes, I hear a key working slowly in the lock of a car door or a trunk to the left of me. It opens and soon closes softly. Then it is quiet. I lie awake, adrenaline rushing, and finally sleep fitfully.

This unexplained event is a cold wash of reality. I am no more immune from possible dangers than anyone else. This incident makes me feel vulnerable.

This payday has loomed larger in my mind with each passing day. I feel increasing urgency to quickly buy some fresh food and have a bed to sleep in for a few nights and a tub to soak in. Last night, expectation allowed me to sleep very little.

But the paychecks from out of state are delayed; they won’t be here until tomorrow.

This night, I eat my last saved slice of bread and margarine and, with a wary eye on the gas tank, which reads empty, I drive to the Sheraton yet again.

The paychecks arrive. I check into a motel and almost instantly fall asleep, unable to enjoy the luxury of tub and television until the next day.

I wish I had discovered earlier how much money can be saved by sleeping in the car. It’s the only way I know now to save enough to rent a room near my office. Allowing for a night at a motel once a week to catch up on sleep, for laundry and for general self-repair, it will probably take two months or so to save up.

But will I be able to keep up the rent?

When I returned to California, I finally landed a low-paying but full-time job and was promised rapid advancement. Now I have discovered that the promises are not going to be kept by the corporation that bought out this company.

There is a 49-year-old man in the office, desperate to hold his job after a year of unemployment. He is the butt of contemptuous jokes. I did not want to become like him. I do not become like him, an “old person” in a low-paying job, acting always out of fear.

I have taken a stand: Live up to the promises the company made me or I quit. They praise me but won’t budge. I quit, and they look surprised. It was hardly noble or heroic. When you are already living out of your car, it is easier to give up a job. If you have a home, you can imagine losing it.

Now the downward spiral continues in earnest. Until now the auto life has had a rhythm based on paydays. But there are no more paychecks to come.

My son, who lives in Tennessee, is becoming suspicious. He’s been aware that I’m having money problems, but my constant lack of a permanent phone number and address prompts him to ask me outright if I’m sleeping in my car.

I’ve tried carefully to keep this all from him. Maybe it’s a mother’s protectiveness, but I don’t want to burden him and his young family with my financial problems. So when he asks, I laugh it off.

I start walking almost everywhere. Occasionally, I sell minor possessions to buy gas and food, but there is not much left to sell. The gas tank is precariously low. I worry about running out of gas in the street and not having a penny to do anything about it.

It’s harder to look for a new job. Without motel room telephones and the workplace, there is no way to leave call-back numbers when responding to ads. I can walk major distances, but it means arriving hot, sweaty and too tired to impress anybody. Most of my time now is spent simply solving the problems of getting from one day to the next.

To do so, I have walked as much as 25 miles a day. Now, after seven days of exceptional walking, my left knee is stunningly painful, and the right knee echoes the pain. There are other unfamiliar pains running down the front sides of my legs. If I don’t start walking, I won’t get a gallon of gas into the car and I won’t get any food.

So I grit my teeth and walk, overriding the pain with necessity. For the next three days, I continue to walk many miles each day. The pain fills every part of my brain.

Now I am hobbling, so crippled that I can hardly get in and out of the car. One day of rest makes no improvement, nor do two nor three. Movement is excruciating.

I have come to a critical time. My days have become a self-defeating spiral of non-accomplishment. Everything I do now is devoted to simple survival. If I don’t do something to halt it, I could be on my way into a rougher homelessness. But what can I do?

Editor’s note: “Diane” lived in her car for about four months until her son finally learned of the situation and took her into his home in Tennessee. However, he will soon be relocating to another state and “Diane” says she intends to return to Orange County, where she hopes to restart her writing career.