The Hope That Saved Me

For the last 45 days...

For the last 45 days, I’ve been working on my application to the University of Texas’s Michener Center for Writers. It’s:

• 1% acceptance

• A Master’s in Fine Arts (MFA)

• A top three program in the country

• Focused on Fiction + Screenwriting

• Fully funded (plus generous stipend)

I was already rejected last year,

and can’t even begin to explain how badly I want it this time around. It has been, more or less, all I’ve thought about (and worked on) since you last heard from me in October.

The application process has been more interesting this year.

I’m in a Facebook group where MFA hopefuls share their “writing samples,” get feedback, and give feedback.

I’m going to share the shortest of the three pieces below. It’s about America’s homelessness problem and is based on two real life experiences. I’ve changed some of the identities, for the sake of anonymity.

---

The Hope That Saved Me

Toothless, laughing, a righteous man walked down the street. His forehead was cracked and sooty, layered with a film of sweat. Out in the woods, he’d learned to enjoy the little things—wind, sun, a touch of anything on the skin. He stopped to enjoy the breeze against his tattered t-shirt and tan cargo pants. He laughed, he always laughed.

There was a woman in a tank top on the opposite sidewalk. Purple. She was twenty years younger than him and, if you saw her at the market, you might not have taken a second glance.

‘You stop starin’ at me as you walk down the street,’ howled the woman, loud enough for the drivers to hear. A woman in a gray Chevy Malibu turned down The Jack Becker Podcast and cracked her window.

When the Laugher laughed, his stubbled jaw would unbolt itself to the left like he’d bit into a lemon. He leaned over his boots and threw a loud, scrub jay laugh in her direction.

She crouched behind the crown of a blue umbrella leaned on two crates. ‘Stop lookin’ at me, you crazy southern creep.’

The light turned green, and the Chevy drove off.

Around the corner to the right was St. Jude’s Episcopal Church. The church’s walls were peeled, and the central archway was dilapidating, as were the people waiting in line. Every morning, the church distributes meals to the needy.

On the corner across the street was a new-ish building with a bright white sign that said Red Camel Yoga. The studio had all the windows covered and a reinforced door. Next to that used to be the library parking lot. Used to, because there were no cars there anymore, only tents.

The Laugher followed the slow flow of traffic. He laughed louder, slower, more maniacally. The curls in his hair and the shape of his face said that he was once attractive.

The Laugher’s eyes were glued to the woman. Why couldn’t he look away from her?

Thirteen years ago, he had worked at Dell. Those days, when life was straight edge, he managed the supply chain of the company’s Micro-chip division. He was so good, Dell decided to move him to a new division, Enterprise, in an unfulfilling role. Work had been meaningful with responsibility over a warehouse and thousands of motherboards.

When those motherboards became spreadsheets, he no longer felt like a man. He felt like a redundancy.

Soon after, his brother came to town with nothing but a rucksack, a dime bag, and a one-hitter. The drugs made the difference. At Dell, you don’t ghost work for two weeks and keep your job. Those two weeks turned to months, years, a decade.

The light went red.

‘Go on,’ snapped the woman, ‘you keep walkin’ now.’ She pointed at The Laugher with the end of her umbrella.

He turned slowly from the telephone pole. Between them, on the road, waiting for the light to change, was a white Range Rover with a short, bald man on his way to pick his daughter up from yoga. The man hated that corner, hated the thought of his daughter doing down-dog next to a homeless camp.

The light went green. After the Range Rover sped through the intersection. The Laugher gunned the woman down with his eyes. He wobbled, sucked in a deep breath, and began to laugh.

Jack Becker: Matthew, welcome to the show.

Matthew Marlonberger:  Thanks Jack, glad to be here.

Jack: I read your new book, Homeless Sapiens, I gotta say man, your ideas are like nothing I’ve seen before.

Matthew: I appreciate that but, well, yeah, I mean, I'm borrowing, obviously, from what I think has worked. The Netherlands, mainly. And there’s really a multitude of problems, and none of them seem to be being addressed. Like, effectively.

Jack: So, this idea, “US Psych,” you actually have this fleshed out just simply. You recognize the problem, and this USP agency—US Psych—do you really think it’s a solution? I mean, the problem seems unsolvable.

Matt: Well, hang on, I think you’re wrong there. It’s absolutely solvable, and when that mindset becomes pervasive is dangerous. We’ve proposed US Psych based on the Dutch model which has been shown to work. It’s a single agency, like the CDC, and the CEO reports directly to the President. The agency would have empowered caseworkers who have the funding—

Jack: Where’s that funding coming from? Raising taxes?

M: No Jack. It’s funding that states are currently wasting in law situations, psychiatric hospitals, adult foster care, schools, halfway houses, residential care, etc. I've been working on progressive causes since the mid-nineties, mostly climate and criminal justice. I even spent time at the Gates Foundation. What I see now, and it’s part of the reason why we’re in your studio, is that this dysfunction is a leadership problem.

J: So, it’s more than just a homelessness you’re pointing at.

M: That’s right. It’s all connected, one system. But the system is fragmented. If you’re homeless and go to drug treatment, a lot of those folks go right back onto the street, start shooting drugs again, and sometimes even overdose. If you get out of prison, we have nowhere for you to go, and there's no one helping you. It's funny because one of the characters in Homeless Sapiens is a middle-aged white male who was homeless and addicted for a long time. He went to a good school, had a solid job, and he still ended up on the streets. When I interviewed him, he just said ‘I was a lonely, selfish prick, man.’ Some people have schizophrenia, some people are addicted, some people are just lonely. It’s always different. Different problems for different people.

M: We need personalized plans for each person. It needs to be through a centralized system, you'd have Movable Meals, you'd have health workers who can prescribe the alternative opioid that gets you back on your feet. And, you know, it's funny, because I was like, basically conservatives are right—housing needs to be earned. You don't just get it; you earn it after you go through your personal plan. And liberals are right, you know, universal psychiatric care. Yes, universal, from you in your Range Rover, to my wife in her Tesla, to the guy who sleeps under the bridge.

J: You really think the government is going to step in and be the one to do it right?

M: I'm agnostic whether it’s government-run or private, but it needs to cover everybody. It needs to be simple.

Tiny Stones and Wishes started in 2015. In phase one, the development, a few tiny homes, a truck stop-style washroom, a barely used garden, was little more than a trailer park.

‘This here,’ said Richard, puffing out his LL Bean-covered chest, ‘is the first 3D-printed home in the country.’ He rubbed a hand on the proprietary white material, which looked spongy but felt like concrete. ‘We’ll get to all that on the tour. This morning we’re working the garden.’

Five volunteers followed Richard up the hill from the entrance. Two of them were theology teachers at a liberal arts college in Michigan, two were a husband-and-wife real-estate team from Oregon, and the last was a young lady with curly blond hair.

In the middle of the garden were four long, tilled rows. The first was Dino kale, then Purple Top turnips, Watermelon radishes, and finally Bok Choy.

To the right of the chicken coop was a rustic kitchenette with Aztec plates hanging on teak brown walls. Next to the patio was a bed of soil that, at first glance, looked weedy and filled with garden snails, but was loaded with fragrant herbs.

‘Got enough sage here for a hundred-man Thanksgiving,’ said Richard, ‘and enough parsley to—well, any parsley is too much parsley if you ask me. Let’s do the stuff people actually eat, like scallions. Here, do it like this. First, I wrap a couple rubber bands on my hand, makes it easier.’

Richard bent over a plant which looked like a koosh ball half buried in the ground. He gripped ten or so long strands about a half-foot up.

‘The whole bunch should be about an inch in diameter, then give it a snip and wrap the rubber band real tight, tighter than you think.’

He was a heavy-set man with curly hair that poked out from the strap. Despite the cold, all the bending down had him sweating.

‘Once you’ve given these two a haircut,’ said Richard, on a knee, ‘we’ll move onto the spinach.’

The blonde-haired girl across from him nodded.

It didn’t take long for them to finish the herbs. Afterwards, Richard guided her out the garden’s backside and into what he affectionately called the ‘Bananursery.’ It was a geodesic, domed greenhouse with two doorways and an opaque shell which was too gray to see through.

‘The Bananursery,’ Richard explained, ‘was installed in phase two. Here’s where we have all the hydroponics and the more exotic foods that can only survive in temperate climates.’ He held the sheet plastic aside so she could enter. ‘In a normal year, it’d survive nice and good, but last year the snowpocalypse knocked out all the citrus and avocado and, saddest of all, my banana trees aren’t looking good.’

The girl’s smile went almost infrared with pleasure. ‘I love bananas,’ she said.

Richard winked. ‘Knew I liked you.’

She took one of the plastic buckets from him. They stood on either side of a trellis which was so full of Malabar spinach that it looked like a solid wall.

‘You’re like my dad,’ said the girl, ‘green thumb.’

‘Nah,’ Richard said, making a few snips to show her what size leaves to cut. He trimmed them right at the base. ‘They grow on their own.’ They two spent the next few minutes chatting idly, snipping.

‘Try one,’ said Richard. ‘Sweetest spinach you’ve ever had.’

She exhaled on the leaf, like you obligatorily do for an unwashed apple, and popped it in her mouth. Then she held one out for Richard.

‘Nah, can’t’ he said and shook his head. ‘No teeth.’ He smiled and showed his implants and cut another two leaves.

Fifteen minutes passed and the spinach still barely covered the floor of the ten-gallon container.

‘It’s a bit tedious, I’ll admit,’ said Richard, ‘but I find it relaxing. The repetition reminds me of work.’

‘This isn’t your work?’ the girl asked and adjusted her grip.

 ‘Now it is, but I meant before I was out on the streets,’ Richard interrupted himself, ‘Oh I forgot to mention, see these tiny purple berries? They won’t stain your clothes too bad, but they’ll leave a mark on your skin for months. And these leaves, with brown stitches on the edges and down the middle, cut them straightway and drop ‘em into the soil. Compost. Anyway, what were we talking about?’

Richard noticed the girl was staring at him over the trellis.

‘You were homeless?’

Richard’s scissors stopped, mid cut, and he gave her a quizzical look. Could she really not tell? Of course she couldn’t, they’d only met a few hours earlier. Sometimes, he even had to remind himself.

 ‘Your hand,’ he said, flashing titanium at her. The girl looked down and at a burst of purple on her ring finger.

At a quarter to noon, Richard gathered his five volunteers for the final tour. The sun was still yet to reveal itself and the afternoon was cold. The blonde-haired girl pulled on the red beanie she had been carrying around. The real estate couple took the lead, followed by the girl, and then the professors. The woman-professor had her phone out, recording a video.

‘Isn’t it incredible?’ said the woman-professor, from the rear.

The blond-haired girl nodded politely, sipping tea from her thermos. Richard was speaking.

‘As you’ll see, it’s modeled, though less gauche, on one of those elderly communities in Florida—at least with respect to the layout and services.’

‘Services?’ asked the male real estate developer.

‘We’ll get to them in a minute.’

They walked past a huge building made from shipping containers, which housed a dining hall and some offices. Nearby was a small brownstone with steeple roofing.

‘That’s our library plus the dentist’s office, which is around back. You see there, down the hill? That’s where phase one began, just a few tiny homes. Now we’re deep into phase two and the government’s coming in to fund us, which I’m not sure I’m thrilled about. Too much Hill Street Blues bureaucracy.’

They continued walking the streets. Richard proudly pointed out the foot doctor’s office, the art center, the market, and so on. The streets in Tiny Stones and Wishes reminded the girl of a theme park because of the compact, newness of it all.

They had just passed a cul-de-sac when the screaming started. A heavy-set woman appeared from between two tiny homes. She had fluorescent pink hair and was dressed in matching exercise gear. The woman threw her hands up at the sky, cursing.

Richard called to her, ‘Come now, Janine, we’ve got volunteers here.’ They continued walking.

‘It’s not perfect,’ said Richard, ‘we all have our bad days.’

The blonde-haired girl was still watching as the woman in pink kicked her door wide open.

‘What’s the drug policy,’ the girl asked. ‘Is it completely dry?’

‘I wouldn’t use a qualifier like “completely.” We’re regular people with regular rights here. US Psych couldn’t outlaw drugs and alcohol. But USP can provide all the help a person needs to stay clean.’ He paused and held his Tiny Stones and Wishes hat over his heart. ‘Sure worked for me.’

A silence filled the parking lot.

The tour was nearing its end. The girl felt a sort of ambiguous admiration for Richard; he was a modern-day Dante who had gone through hell and come out an honorable man.

In front of the community garden, Richard paused and faced the group.

‘Richard,’ said the female theologian, ‘I just want to say you are an inspiration.’

He looked at his feet and shook his head.

‘Really Richard, your story is just…’

She stepped forward and gave him a rheumy-eyed hug.

‘Everyone here has a story,’ Richard said and sighed. ‘Out on the streets I had no one and nothing to live for. I walked around laughing all day, in disbelief at the irony of it. I’d gone from handling millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise at Dell to a penniless lunatic who lived in the woods.’

‘Even the first two years here, I had two strokes and at least as many relapses. But when I saw USP wasn’t going to kick me out for missing rent, and were willing to help pay for rehab, I started to have hope. That was what did it. It was the hope that saved me.’

Silence filled the parking lot. The blond-haired girl put a hand on Richard’s shoulder.  There was nothing any of them could say. None of them could even pretend to understand.

Richard thanked each of them individually and walked off down the hill, giving the blonde-haired girl’s gray Chevy Malibu a pat as he passed. If she had learned anything that day from Richard it’s that not everyone deserves redemption, but everyone deserves a chance.

The Texas sun burned through the clouds.

She shielded her eyes while they watched him go. Toothless, whistling, a righteous man walked down the street.

---

🙋🏼‍♂️ Thoughts?

If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it.

(You can reply to this email, or leave a comment below)

Also, I’m fine with it if you want to share this story with someone. And if you want more stories like this, do let me know so I can keep sending ‘em.

NOTE: if you are looking for a more good content, George Saunders just started his own Substack. The man is brilliant and hilarious.

Take care and happy holidays, friends

—Jeremy