BOOK REVIEW / NONFICTION : A Vivid, Honest Portrait of Homelessness and Friendship : NATALIE ON THE STREET <i> by Ann Nietzke</i> , CALYX Books, $24.95, cloth; $14.95, paper, 168 pages

On page 14 of “Natalie on the Street,” Ann Nietzke writes: “Many women, especially unmarried women, have at least considered the fact that we live only a step or two or three away from the streets ourselves and that in America the older we get the more precarious our positions become.”

This unfortunate truth is the leaping off point for an unusual story of two women and the friendship they build. Nietzke is one of those women. The other is Natalie, a homeless schizophrenic who takes up “residency” on Nietzke’s street.

“Natalie on the Street,” written as a journal, follows Ann and Natalie’s relationship over a six-week period.

Through Ann’s eyes, we watch as Natalie contends with the elements, nasty neighbors and her own unseen enemies, all the while hanging on to her precious piles of bulging plastic bags.

We see Ann’s efforts to find a suitable place for Natalie, who is too sick to go to a shelter, too stubborn to be placed in a board and care facility. During the course of this thoughtful narrative, we learn just how hard it is to be without a home and how hard it is to find a way to help.

Ann (as Nietzke calls herself in the book) works part-time in a shelter for mentally ill homeless folks, so she knows what to expect when she approaches Natalie. But Ann is not ready for what happens when she asks Natalie for a cup, so that she can bring some coffee out to her:

“Natalie began reaching for various plastic bags and rustling through their contents with some thoroughness. To me they all appeared the same, most filled with more plastic or with paper plates and trash and wads of paper, others stuffed with ratty looking bits of cloth. Eventually she pulled out a 16-ounce (plastic foam) cup from Winchell’s Donuts, reasonably clean with the lid still attached. She started to hand it to me, then jerked it back and removed the lid to peer inside. ‘Well,’ she said, holding it out for me to look. ‘That’s what came out of me.’ Inside were two long, dark, solid, well-formed turds. ‘I hate to have to show that to you, honey,’ she whispered solemnly. ‘But there it is.’ ”

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Much of the book revolves around the basics of human life with which Natalie (and Ann) must contend--from the delicate exchange of plastic bags of food for plastic bags of waste, to moments where Ann pleads with Natalie to eat or drink more, only to realize that Natalie does not eat or drink as much as she may want to because she must inevitably get rid of it somewhere. How do you “go to the bathroom” when you have no bathroom to go to?

Ann, partially because she thinks she may be just “one paycheck away,” and partially because she is alone herself--in the process of recovering from a broken heart--continues to make small contacts with Natalie. Slowly, they build a very limited trust. Ann never pretends that this process is easier than it is. Natalie is very ill; she rants at passersby and raves into the middle distance. Sometimes when Ann approaches, she smiles with recognition.

Often, she is in a world of her own, filled with disturbing and violent visions, cruel inner voices. (Most of this material is too graphic to be printed here.) By simply recording Natalie’s delusions, the author paints a relentlessly honest portrait of what it is to be homeless and mentally ill--not only without the comforts of home, but unable to escape the unending nightmare that plays in your head.

By choosing to write “Natalie on the Street” as a nonfiction piece, Nietzke allows the reader no excuses--we can’t rationalize away Natalie’s suffering as just a “touching story.” But the choice also limits Nietzke’s options; she is stuck with the truth, and in this case the truth is not always as enlightening as a good fiction account may have been.

Natalie’s illness means that she does not--cannot--progress in ways that we want and even expect her to. She does not gradually become “cured.” We will never know where her violently graphic ravings come from, what horrible thing (if it was any one thing) made her snap. Although this is the stark truth about Natalie, it makes her a problematic subject.

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Even more of a dilemma for the author is that in writing about herself, she must be an imperfect mirror. Nietzke never seems to decide if she is a character in this story, or just the keeper of facts. The few glimpses we do get of Ann’s feelings are some of the nicest moments in the narrative:

“ ‘I’ve already washed my hair this morning, honey,’ Natalie lies to Ann. ‘Everything but combed my hair. Your hair sure looks pretty.’ She does a kind of double take then, leans on her elbow and brings her face right up to mine as I squat beside her. ‘You just look beautiful,’ she says, so sincerely I realize I’ve been feeling ugly for weeks.”

Midway through “Natalie on the Street,” Nietzke quotes Joan Didion’s “On Morality”: “Whether or not a corpse is torn apart by coyotes may seem only a sentimental consideration, but of course it is more: one of the promises we make to another is that we will try to retrieve our casualties, try not to abandon our dead to the coyotes. If we have been taught to keep our promises--if in the simplest terms, our upbringing is good enough--we stay with the body, or have bad dreams.”

Natalie is homeless. Natalie is mentally ill. Natalie is dirty and smelly; living in and around her own waste. Natalie rants and raves, screams at and berates Ann. Natalie is someone most people would simply pass on the street, averting their eyes as they went by.

But, like Ann, we can’t turn away. We must see Natalie for who she is, know that we cannot change or fix her, but still choose to keep our promises, whether it be by saying a friendly hello, offering to help, or writing a book like “Natalie on the Street.”