"Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased."
- John Steinbeck (Travels With Charley 1962)
THREE BOOKS: Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, Robert Graves' Wife To Mr. Milton, and Boswell's Life Of Samuel Johnson.
I kept reading books in 2016; thanks to my eReaders, it was possible to be a homeless guy with a big library. Three books influenced my own work, "On The Road With Al & Ivy: The Novel (Book 1)," in different ways.
I talked about John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley in an earlier blog entry that discussed classics relating to homelessness and my opinion, as it still is now, that it was a travelogue that would relate to those who've chosen the Van or RV life.
Travelogues have been around for a long time. The great ones are more than just a description of places and people; they tend to be meditations about life and philosophy.
I intended to revisit Steinbeck's book as it profoundly influenced my decision to write a book about homelessness, even if it didn't directly relate to the current state of the problem. He was not only a great writer but had a sensibility that combined populist notions with an intellectual underpinning that you often don't see these days.
Also, he wrote without fear; the writing goes where he wants it to go, asks questions, and examines answers without concern for approval or whether the discussion is even on the right track (for others). That results in thoughts that now seem profound, even if it was just an exploratory digression or comment at the time.
The quote that leads this essay off is one example of that. It struck me at the time as deep, and six years down the line, it expresses my feelings about the homeless period in 2016 and how words can express it.
…a return to Salinas…
One of the key chapters was his visit to Salinas, California. It was his hometown and the setting for some of his most famous works. It had changed a lot, and I'd imagine what it looks like now would make it seem like a colony on Mars or something.
In book two of my series, my shift to Salinas was also a homecoming. I was a Korean War baby, and my father married my mother, a Japanese national in Tokyo, and after his enlistment, he shipped back to the States with his wife and one-year-old child, which was me.
They settled in Salinas. It goes without saying that I don't remember a lick of that time and only know it through photographs, but my return was just as evocative as Steinbeck's, albeit for different reasons.
My interest in the book is how it affected my perception of the journey in 2016 and his astute observations about displacement and what a journey is. That evoked many memories from the past.
…government…
Steinbeck's attitude towards Government that it didn't care much for individuals in the book was relevant to my experience. There was plenty of talk about services and how people assumed that the homeless could go here or there to get help, which was sort of kinda maybe true.
The fact is, most of the services are generally swamped, can't keep up with demand, and put most applicants on waiting lists (which is encouraged as it gives the agency a case for more funding). Except in the case of Country Services, which can at least do something, most agencies were a non-factor for most of the people I met.
My accounts of life in homeless shelters will run counter to the public perception. The passages might be similar to what you hear on social media, but I made it a point not to use any material from those sources.
The reason is that I had firsthand accounts. It was better to use that source material and limit it to the actual shelters talked about so it wouldn't be interpreted as a general description of the system. Novel or not, it's essential to keep certain aspects of a book as authentic (and fair) as possible.
Some cities, like San Francisco, had more funding, but I, along with others, avoided those scenes. The homeless there were a different demographic, and the money that flowed into the services there often attracted drug dealers and other criminal organizations.
Scenes like SF are what the media mainly sees and writes about for one crucial reason; those homeless can't hide and have nowhere to go. Down in the South Bay, most of those lucky enough to have vehicles did their best to stay out of sight.
The reason for avoiding publicity is described in all three books of this series; once the media covers a camp or enclave, it comes under attack within days. Citizens start complaining to the police and city governments, who generally know about it but know that the numbers are now too big to do anything more than shift the problem elsewhere (and anger nearby cities). Any crackdown will scatter the inhabitants.
…the old school solution…
In the olden days, the Government could just put transients in covered wagons and point them west to buy, steal or squat on Mexican or Native American land or put them to work building railroads. Of course, there's nowhere to go now; every inch of soil in America is private or public property and liability laws severely punish anyone who'd let the homeless on it.
…back to the media…
But back to the media...most of the coverage of the homeless problem is well-intentioned, but some aren't. Some of the stories help developers and business owners by identifying gatherings that become the focus of a wide array of public and private parties.
Like any situation, the truth is complex, and if one sticks to the surface issues, then it's all about public safety and such things. To be fair, there are subcultures within the homeless population that don't help matters by their behavior. However, to be fair again, some so-called troublemakers can't help it due to mental illness. That's a book in itself.
…the reflection in the mirror…
I've made one artistic decision that could be criticized: my books will only reflect what I experienced or heard firsthand. There isn't going to be any attempt to make these volumes a definitive account of the homeless problem in this country.
It's only going to describe the scene in those areas covered in the book. Several times, I've made the point that the homeless population is diverse and how it behaves depends on local factors. For example, a transient in the Midwest has to live differently than one in California.
On the other hand, historical, sociological, and even philosophical factors create commonalities. The best way to make a book that a person in Chicago can relate to is to tell my own story and trust that readers, both homeless and not, can see the underlying connections and similarities.
Simply preaching or explaining can't do that. I know that because there's plenty of that going on, and it's never helped, and the problem has only worsened over time.
…how it does relate…
John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley was a work that, on the surface, doesn't relate to the current homeless problem. But, as Jack London astutely pointed out in his writing on the homeless, a wealthy writer who can walk away from that life isn't truly going to understand the problem.
Like London's, Steinbeck's book was about a wealthy sightseer's adventures. However, a writer with his genius will add a layer of insight that can deeply affect and influence another, who, in my case, read it while being homeless, was resigned to that life, and was wondering if he was mentally ill like many of the commentators and experts were saying the chronic homeless are.
…finding identity…
Travels With Charley was one of the books that examined my self-image, that is, what I thought I was and what my real self was. Somewhere in that confusing time, that and other books helped bring about the realization that one of my primary identities was as a writer.
Steinbeck's book was conceived as a journal of a road trip and veered towards a novel because, as a great writer, he saw a lot of detail and nuance that had to go into the work. Being a writer isn't just about cranking out words; the best ones see things that others can't or won't, much like a painter or musician does. There's more to a painting or song than meets the eye.
One change I directly credit to Steinbeck; my WIP at the time was an unfinished epic-style poem about a migrant musician who traveled to Chicago in the postwar era. I realized that the poems depicted the cycle of my own life at the time and that the work needed to be based on real life and, other than the fictionalization necessary in a novel, shouldn't be a stylized intellectualized work.
In other words, once the situation became clear, my art had to be about what I saw and felt. Steinbeck's early books were about people he knew or saw, not literary creations from research or just made up. There's a lot of truth, and that's why his books survive as classics.
Graves' Wife To Mr. Milton and Boswell's The Life Of Samuel Johnson:
These two works also directly influenced my book, though not due to the subject matter. Graves' book was a fictional biography of the great poet and writer Milton who wrote "Paradise Lost," an epic poem written in free verse that described Satan's expulsion from Heaven. The portrayal of the rebellious Angel and, later in the work, of Eve ran counter to popular images at the time.
What was interesting about the book was that Milton was described through his wife's eyes. That allowed Graves to add a more personal view of the subject than a conventional historical biography. As a result, one could add more details about Milton's personality and flaws that might be considered irrelevant to a portrait of the man.
That approach also moves the work into the realm of a novel which can, like his book "I, Claudius," read as a gossipy tract that's perhaps short on historical accuracy but does a better job of making Milton appear human, almost like you're in the room with him.
…the ultimate…
Boswell's biography of Samuel Johnson was one of the ultimate biographies from a firsthand account. The author was a close friend and recorded an epic amount of Johnson's conversations during an era when dinner and party chats were an art form. That's not a lost art, that sort of thing later evolved into literary salon groups or scenes like Andy Warhol's The Factory.
The Life Of Samuel Johnson was unique because it was an eyewitness account from someone who knew and admired the subject, who trusted the biographer enough to allow full access and not attempt to filter his behavior or conversations. Plus, great men tend to have thicker skins.
That's not a small thing. These days most biographies are written in a tightly controlled environment, spawning a sub-genre of unauthorized works that purport to contain what the subject doesn't want the public to see. They say the truth is always somewhere in the middle, a territory rarely explored by the two bio styles.
Boswell's book was two things that are rare in this day and age; a book about a person who was interesting (in his era at least) and possessed an intellect that produced intelligent observations that were worth reading. Of course, Johnson's remarks could provoke extremes of admiration or anger, and he probably would have been canceled by the modern internet. But, given his personality, he probably would have been amused by that.
Both these books had ways of doing the same thing; giving me a literary device or approach that would permit adding a third-person view that could deepen the portrait of the main character without having him rattle off a stream of angst that would not only be boring to the reader but take the fun out of writing the book. That first-person internal thing has been done for decades and these days often veers into shtick.
I've mentioned in past blogs that some of the episodes in my book would switch back and forth between first and third person. These two books were a clinic for filling out a person's portrait without resorting to long descriptions. In a way, it's almost like how the camera in a movie can move from shot to shot, yet it creates a single image in the viewer's mind.
We'll see how I pull it off in my book. If it doesn't work, don't blame Robert Graves or Boswell; they knew what they were doing.
- Al Handa
On to the reprint of episode one of On The Road With Al &Ivy: The Novel (Book 1). I'll probably give it a title by the official launch in January 2023.
Intro to Episode One:
Steinbeck found that the relationship with his dog Charley deepened and even allowed for some of the interaction to be self-dialogue, a friendship that grew deeper.
The same happened with my dog Ivy. For example, my concern for her welfare overrode my discouragement one day when I ended up at a Psychiatric Emergency facility. I was eager to accept the 30-day hold, to finally get good sleep and meds and have a respite from the homeless life. It was a seductive thought.
I remember the day it was around 10 am when the papers to sign for the voluntary hold was put before me. I mentioned that in 30 minutes, the shade would move, and I needed to get Ivy out of the car before then. I was told it would be the doctor's decision and that it might take hours.
The counselor was as uncomfortable as I was about the situation and suggested I take care of it before signing. However, once I got to the car, I realized that whatever happened, it would have to be with the both of us, and I drove off.
As fate would have it, the shock of realizing that I almost abandoned Ivy in the car cleared my head, and a temporary solution came to mind that worked. That's in book 2, which also has a prequel that runs alongside the main narrative and explains the level of friendship depicted in book 2.
The incident at Psychiatric Emergency was the abyss, and my friendship with Ivy kept me from jumping in. I think most who own a beloved pet would understand. Admittance meant a 30-day hold and complete control by the doctor and facility. It's a serious matter, and the book passages should make a person think twice before advocating involuntary holds.
…crisis mode…
That idea or notion that in a crisis, that one has to choose to stay engaged in everyday life, even if it's difficult, is a concept covered in depth in all three books. Again, there's an array of characters who come to a crossroads and have to decide whether to head toward life or death.
That may sound dramatic but for example, a decision to dull the pain with drugs is a dangerous step in that environment, especially for a female, and nothing like just getting too stoned at a party. You'll see that all the book characters were on a path requiring desperate choices.
The situations are described as dispassionately as possible. It's easy to judge or accept media labels of homeless being predominantly mentally ill or drug users. That's not what I found in my experience, but my task was to relate what I saw.
The novel format allows me to describe it in starker detail because I can fictionalize the people and hide their identities. I accept that my account can be characterized as a pure invention.
… about the first episode…
So, Episode One, which is called "Prelude And Arrival," opens with a short vignette about Ivy and me that illustrates our friendship and then moves into my arrival one night in Gilroy, California.
The main character, obviously based on me, looks over the place as a homeless person who's had a few months of experience under his belt and thinks he's a pretty streetwise kind of guy.
The chapter establishes the character's personality, sets the scene, and gives an initial glimpse of his friendship with Ivy. Also, other characters are introduced.
Over the following chapters, it'll become clear that it was the calm before the storm. The time in Gilroy was a disaster and nearly condemned the main character to life as a "backpacker" who had to live on foot and would shortly lose all of his possessions and Ivy if that happened.
I consider it one of the best chapters and hope you'll enjoy reading it and continue on to the rest of the book.
Prelude: March 2016
It's a crisp, clear night in the coffee house parking lot. Ivy and I finish our walk, and since there's no hurry to get back to the car, we sit on a curb and look up at the stars.
It's time for Ivy's astronomy lesson. She loves hearing my descriptions of celestial formations with names like steak, macaroni, and cheese and her favorite, baked chicken. The textbook names are gone now, along with my old life that died on a cold February night when we hit the road with whatever would fit into an old Cadillac.
"See where the big steak is, Ivy?" I'd say, "Off to the right of the Big Chili Cheese Dog (formally known as the North Star), you'll probably get there before me."
I put my hand on her furry head and add, "Wait for me up there, and I'll join you soon; my time on earth will be a blink of an eye where you'll be." Ivy nods, still looking up at the steak and hamburgers in the sky, and begins to hum, her sound for agreement, and I say, "I'll look forward to telling you how the rest of my life went."
Ivy wags her tail, her biggest smile, and as we head back to the car, I pray that I'll be around for the rest of her life... don't want to miss that.
Our friendship is no longer a world of man-made constructs and roles; to obey commands, do tricks, and amuse. Instead, I realized that we both peer into the same life and give her the same right to live it as any human. We navigate as a pack, a family, and give each other the love we lost when the past turned dark and died. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Home is where you love."
An Opening Similitude...
The kind night beckons, and I enter until the morning sun melts away the dark sea I drift in.
- Jook Manuscript Excerpt (June 1986)
Arrival: June 2016
Gilroy in July is a hot, dusty rural town full of summer trouble, a homeless paradise full of blind spots from the police who have their hands full dealing with illegal fireworks, tweakers, parking lot parties, and overheated tourists.
It's the summer of 2016. I arrive around nine, well after dark, but the day's heat hasn't fully faded. It's still 80 degrees and very humid. I usually don't think in terms of names or places. "Here" is just this or that parking lot or Street. I'm part of the homeless herd, who could care less if the people are friendly or if there's a history. We look for fleeting seams that open up in the fabric of society to hide in and move on when it closes. The feeling of movement, of wandering, soothes the sting of being homeless, which is felt at every stop.
But tonight, I know where I am, in Gilroy, the "Garlic Capitol Of The World," a town I hadn't seen in decades and barely recognize because of the new shopping centers and business parks that cover what used to be farmland. This place, if it were a living, breathing thing, would hardly recognize me either. Part of my childhood was spent next door in San Martin, a farm town full of talking animals and brave toy soldiers who protected fearful little babes like me and told me that the future was full of possibilities and adventure.
I'm now an old man of sixty-four, one year from retirement. There are no toy soldiers to protect me, and the future I was told about, well, it came and went and left me in an uncertain present. At least fate left me a talking animal, Ivy, who must be wondering now what kind of man she's hitched her star to.
I know what I see here, though, even in the dark. It's a side road called Gleemon. There are two areas to be aware of; the Street and adjacent lots and the chain link fence that runs along the levee road for Miller Slough and the back area of the Big Dupermart store. That's the border of the known world. Once past it, there's the pitch-black void inhabited by druggies, runaways, and "backpackers," who have camps and open-air crash pads along the dirt road that connects with the south fork of a river, orchards and the water pumping station next to a Highway.
The Street has a secret. It's technically a court, but it's also the main delivery entrance for SuperMart. The store and the city claim it belongs to the other, so neither will kick the homeless off it because whoever does will own the Street and all its problems. Also, truckers who arrive ahead of schedule park and sleep there unless they prefer to go to the truck stop-motel a couple of miles to the north. Most don't because the services for out-of-towers will gladly come to them.
So there's plenty of vehicles parked here, twenty-four hours a day. That makes it a seam to hide in. The old timers in RVs only stay for short periods; they prefer the frontage road on the other side of the freeway, away from streetlights, generator noise, and sounds of fights, or to go to a private place to chew each other up after being cooped up for years in small, crowded boxes on wheels.
It's good manners not to stay in one place too long anyway. So most move along a circuit of four, maybe five locations, which keeps them out of the cop's hair and away from the idiots who camp in a place until kicked out for doing some silly-ass thing or another.
My own list of havens are identified by geographic features; the parking lot of the Hispanic grocery, the south end of the Big Dupermart lot, and Gleemon Street. That's only three; if I have to keep moving, I head south down Highway 101 to Salinas or north up 280 to the Crystal Springs rest stop.
I haven't bothered to learn any other street names, but I know the terrain better than any resident. This area averages 90 degrees during the summer. I know where the best shade is and at what time. It's like reading a sundial. I know the free wifi coverage of every parking lot as if it were marked out with spray paint, how to tell when it's safe for the homeless to park, and where each subculture that lives here is centered. Each group has transit routes as busy as any street, and it's best to park well away from those unmarked paths.
Ivy, my little white shitzu friend, and I sit in the car and just watch. We function as one person. Ivy handles hearing and smell, and I've learned to trust her, particularly at night when trouble seems to come out of nowhere.
It's still too hot, but open windows draw attention and turn me into a "face," someone to approach. Since my anxiety meds ran out, I keep the boogieman at bay with tried and true remedies like nervous tics, pulling an earlobe, or twisting hair into string. It helps me to sit still, able to wait until the night reveals what's going on. You never go right to sleep, ever.
In nature, the night is the most dangerous time, when half of the world sleeps, and the rest hunts. The night is an ageless God like the sea, an elemental force that's merciless if you don't respect it, yet it shelters and protects the lost, rejected, and trapped from everything but themselves.
If a night hunter has a beef with you, there's no fuss or fight. They just wait until you go to sleep to kick ass. That's why there's so much activity at night; for many of the homeless, particularly the elderly and loners, it's safer to wait until early morning to shelter and sleep, so they keep moving aimlessly like sleepwalkers with their packs or shopping carts until the safe stillness comes around 4 am.
I can't do that with a car; it's not practical to drive all night. I have to try and get some rest. You can't sleep in the 90-degree heat that starts at nine in the morning. I'll risk a short nap parked under shade, but if I get careless and sleep too long, the shade moves, and I can wake up to a dead dog. It's better not to nap at all, but after five months of lousy sleep, I either steal a snooze now and then or risk hallucinating due to sleep deprivation.
That happened up north a month ago. I came to a dead stop at two in the morning on Interstate 280 because I thought a bunch of trees had come down and blocked the freeway, and I was nearly rear-ended by several cars. I had to force myself to keep driving even though the road appeared to end at the edge of a cliff. Oddly enough, the headlong charge into the void was a peaceful moment, like I welcomed death. After that, I quit screwing around with trying to stay in motion all night.
I study the people who walk along the fence and duck into some bushes next to a small grove of trees. That's where the hole is, the north entrance into the levee. Three young men arrive, pushing mountain bikes, part of a gang of feral Droogs that makes most of its money as low-level drug runners. That gets my full attention, as they'll attack and rob other homeless unless the dealer is there to hold them off. If those sociopaths were hopped up and coming out to hunt instead of going in, it'd be time to scoot.
Two young women arrive next, pausing a moment before going in. One is a redhead I call "Sign Girl" and a skinny blond in a long hippie-type dress called "Raspberry." They stop talking and enter with their flashlights turned off, a smart move when chemically impaired men are around.
The unwritten rule is to avoid using any lights or lighting open fires on that side of the fence. The city owns the area, and any sign of a camp will be checked out by the cops, not to mention attracting the attention of everyone around. How they know it's safe to enter is an instinct that develops quickly after the first assault, or if they're lucky, attempted assault.
A patrol car approaches, and a blinding white light suddenly turns night into day. I close my eyes, slowly put my hands on the steering wheel and wait for the searchlight beam to move on to the next car. It doesn't, and now enough sirens are wailing to drown out the RV and truck generators. Cops rarely hold a beam in your face. There's a hot flash of fear as I realize they're checking faces.
They're looking for somebody!
END OF EPISODE 1
LINK TO EPISODE 2: POLICE MANHUNT AND A VISIT FROM A GOD
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B0BMLTB9NM
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE DELTA SNAKE REVIEW ON THIS SAME SITE!
Here's an update on each of my Vella books:
The Quitters
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09PC3L6PC
It's the first book, and after ten months, it's finally developing an audience, and the stats are trending upward this month. I think it's due to the blog and the new book/music video short format I'm using for its promotion. I’ve moved the plot lines away from potentially over technical descriptions of playing live to more emphasis on the personalities and in particular, the main character Nym. Also, some of the romance elements are now coming into play.
It's at 31 episodes, though as an ebook, we're talking maybe 15 traditional-length chapters. I'm keeping the format episodic and short, kind of like a weekly TV show, which works for Vella but will need to be restructured for the ebook.
I, Ivy
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0B3RCBT4D
The story got off to a decent start, but I didn't notice that as it's obvious now that the daily totals on the Vella dashboard can differ or not jibe with the monthly or overall total, which have to be accurate as those numbers determine the royalty and bonus payouts. I'll be paying more attention to this one in November, as it’s being read more than I thought. The latest chapter, Ivy’s view of the efforts by a human to give her a pill should strike a familiar chord.
The Forbidden Lost Gospels Of Murgatroyde
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BJ2TW4P1
This is a new one, though it'll be the most familiar to blog readers. I'll be changing the format of the blog in November, and putting the Lost Gospels here will allow me to fully expand that line of humor and satire in a way that simply being a blog feature doesn't permit.
The Boogie Underground Think Tank: How To Survive The End Of Civilization
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BG6LNXTG
This one is a revival of an old humor column I ran in my old "Delta Snake Blues News" publication in the 90s and 2000s. The slant is about survival in the upcoming hard times, but it really will be topical and cover subjects that are offbeat but relevant. The next one coming in a few days will be "How To Shop For The Perfect Expert," which obviously will be a humorous commentary on the use of experts in general.
The Adventures Of Queen Khleopahtra: Ruler Of Egypt, Time Traveler, and Literary Detective
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BJC122G7
This is another new one and will be a fun fusion of the old "Peabody and Sherman" cartoon, which was about a time-traveling dog and boy, Robert Graves' often satirical take on history, and the old "Fractured Fairy Tales" cartoon that used to be featured on the "Rocky And Bullwinkle Show."
I chose Khleopahtra as the main character because it will offer the widest range of literary situations to explore, and I happened to have a cool drawing of her and liked the idea of expanding the character. After reading the first episode, you'll agree that the possibilities are endless.
In the latest episodes, we meet Achilles and the poet Homer, who will become recurring characters!
- Al Handa
October 2022
The ebook “On The Road With Al & Ivy: The Anthology Volume 1 2016-2018 is now on Kindle Unlimited!
I’ll run free promotions later this month, but members can read it for free now.
I Can Make It To Christmas by Mark McGraw (of Handa-McGraw International). F IPlease check out and listen to Mark McGraw’s Christmas single from his album on Bandcamp,CanMake It To Christmas by Mark McGraw (of Handa-McGraw Intern
Please check out and listen to my music on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and other music sites. Please add any cuts you like to your playlists!
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