‘Robert’ is a short, heavyset man with honey-colored skin. Wrinkles are graven into his round, hooded eyes. Printed directly between them is a tattoo-green cross, the size of a fingernail. He laughs often and chatters with panache.
I was raised in Austin. But I’m originally from Bastrop. We moved to Austin in 1959. Yeah, I-35? It was two lanes going this way, and two lanes going that way. There was no overpass. To cross, you had to wait! And to cross at 7th Street, I used to live on 7th Street. 7th Street was its own community. And then [the opposite side] was called East Avenue. They were called South Avenue, North Avenue.
-Oh.
See, 6th Street was Pecan Street. Back in the day. The highways were gravel—gravel! Like an alley. Then they started building, pouring asphalt. I’m over 60 years old, just to let you know.
-You’ve had a lot of stuff happen to you. Did you go to school in Austin too?
I went to Austin High.
-Oh, I have friends who go there!
I went to the one on 12th and Rio Grande. That’s ACC now. I went to that school. My friend said, oh, I went to the one by the river. I told him, “Excuse me. Fuck you.” He said, “Why are you telling me like that?” I said, “Look at you. Y’all got an elevator, y’all got central heating and air conditioning and all that. Look at us! We got sand in the damn window!”
-Wow. I didn’t even know there were separate campuses for Austin High.
Yeah, because back in the day, they didn’t have air conditioning. Did we think they were going to put air conditioning in every room, every hallway?
-It’s expensive, right?
Yeah. I told him, you got all spoiled, y’all got elevators… Westlake too.
-Yeah, Westlake is really well-off. Even our busses have air conditioning.
Yeah. See? Our busses used to be sweaty. You know Capitol Metro? They didn’t even have air conditioning.
***
‘Robert’ has lived on the streets in Austin for dozens of years. He doesn’t want to talk about how he became homeless. He does love to tell stories. Stories about his childhood schooling. Stories about a few of his closest friends and their bakery.
***
One time, I went over [to Polkadots Bakery] and I told Ben, “Ben, can I try one of your cupcakes?” He said, “Yeah!” He brought me three of them, different kinds. And I ate them, and I saw him the next day. “Ben,” I said, “Damn, they’re good man.” He said, “That’s what Jodie said—their next-door neighbor [was] the owner.
Because I used to help Jodie when she makes cakes for weddings at her house—she’s got her own mixer and all those big mixers to make cakes for weddings. I used to help her because I used to work in a place where they make donuts, and that kind of stuff. I knew how to read recipes, how to measure the cups, you put this and this. She’d write the lists, and once we’d get through with it, we’d throw it. We already knew we got everything in there—we got everything, so throw the paper! And then we’d make another different cake.
But Olga, I was telling her about it—you should make some wedding cakes! Or birthday cakes! Put it on the computer. And she put it on there. Two days later, she had fifty orders already. That she had to make.
-Dang, but each one can take a whole day.
Well, she has her own business and people working for her. I used to help her out, wipe the kitchen and all that. They paid me—they’re real good payers.
One day I was sitting in [the empty building], and they came in. They said, “Are you the owner?” I said no. I said, “If you want to talk to somebody, go next door. And the lady whose name is Jodie, just ask her. If she doesn’t have time, talk to Dan, but it’s better to talk to her.” They went over there, and two minutes later they came around. The next thing I know, they’d decorated the place.
Next thing I know, I came back. Ben said, “I’m going to finish this.” “I can be here tomorrow around 3:30. And I’ll put everything for you. Just be here, so you can tell me where you want a fence or anything, and I’ll be here for you.”
Next thing I know he came, told me, “You want to make $40 quick?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Go underneath the house.” So I did. And then he made the hole, and I passed a pipe up, and way up there he connected it, then he put the pipe in. He said, “Put that glue on it and staple it. But hold it, let me go upstairs because I’m going to have to hold the end up here.” He put something on there so the pipe would stay there, so it would be level. He ran it. Next thing I know I was out of that place, then he went underneath there because he had to hook it up to the main drain. And I’m out. In an hour we were finished with that. And it was easy, since we already had a pipe in, so he just connected it to the next one and that’s it. He said, here you go, forty bucks.
-So you actually helped set up the house that they made the bakery in.
Yeah, I did. I painted a lot of that stuff, inside and outside. I painted it pretty good.
***
Stories about classified information from his construction work for the government that he made me promise not to share. Stories about work.
***
I used to be a construction worker. We built the Frank Erwin Center.
-You helped build that?
Yeah, from the ground all the way to the top. And then, you know that swimming pool across the street for UT?
-The indoor swimming pool.
Yeah. That hole was about, from ground level, forty feet in the dirt. And it was gonna be twenty-five feet above the ground. And they were gonna build the swimming pool there [in the Erwin center]. But then there were tournaments the next year, they needed the pool for. So they went ahead and they built it across the street instead. Then we had to bring about thirty trucks back with dirt. They hauled the dirt off, then they had to haul it back and throw it in that hole. All that, we covered up and made it up here, level. And that’s where they made the basketball court. But the swimming pool would have been there.
***
Reflections
My conversations with ‘Robert’ felt much like listening to my grandpa tell stories. I really appreciated the diversity of his experiences that he was eager to share with me, even if he wasn’t so eager for me to share some of them with you. It’s another reminder that every human has countless stories, however inconsequential or enormous they seem, that make up their person. I was able to learn about him through the exchange and absorption of stories, and going forward, I’ll continue growing in my ability to see homeless people as people for whom homelessness is only part of the story.
Another the striking things to me about Robert was his interactions with the owners of Polkadots Cupcake Factory. I almost immediately envisioned him as the dirty-looking person sitting against a building in downtown. I gained an immediate appreciation for the bakery owners in trusting him and bringing him into their work; it’s heartwarming. I’d love to see more people be willing to even talk to someone they encounter on the streets. And talking with Robert face-to-face, I realized for real that homeless people can have good non-homeless friends as well—that’s partly what I’m trying to do, after all… So I’m continuing fighting my own innate preconceptions and attempting to give you tools to fight yours as well.
Thanks for reading!
Isabella, 9/18/17
Robert witnessed Austin’s changes through many years, and he is still positive to help the bakery with the skill as construction worker. Thank you Isabella for writing down him as a friend, an elder that bring me so closely as a friend while reading. Hopefully he will enjoy his life more out of the street with his families.