Starting a memoir, part 1

Storytelling for Healing

It was the month of June, 1965. We’d been homeless for several weeks, first sleeping in the Greyhound Station lounge, then taking a room in an inner city motel run by a bee-hive wearing madame named Bee. I thought that was a strange twist of fate, her name, her hairdo. We shared the bathroom with the prostitutes who did business at Bee’s motel. Bee ran a coffee shop downstairs, by the way. Always busy. Busy Bee!!

I’d been a morning person from the start. While my sisters slept I went into the bathroom to collect the bra I had washed the night before. It was still wet, but I put it on. My shorts, top, and flip flops, too. We’d left with just the clothes on our backs.

This morning was prescient. I felt moved by an outside force, compelled. I crossed the street and sat at the cafeteria bar in the Greyhound Station, ordered an iced glass of Coke. We had a little cash from panhandling in front of the bus station. Man, that iced drink, the wet bra and the air conditioning joined forces to give me a deep chill!!

But the chill ran even deeper. As I sat there, watching the kitchen staff move around filling orders. It was busy already. And in my heart, my mind, I saw what was going to happen to us that day. I knew that we’d be arrested and taken into custody, and that our lives would change forever.

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