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298 ˜ A Work of Hospitality, 1982–2002
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Canning is not a calling, not a vocation, not even a job. Canning does not
appear on aptitude tests. You cannot do it with dignity or feel self-esteem even
when you have plucked the most cans at day labor. Canning is work done by
those with no place and with nothing to do, by the poorest of the poor. But there
is an art and skill, courage and bodaciousness required. Canning season is that
short period between the time a neighbor puts her garbage on the curb and the
garbage collectors collect it. With the growing environmental-justice movement,
money is offered for aluminum cans. A corps of homeless people—mostly men
(although Judy is one of the best canners in our section of the city)—trudge the
city streets, going through the trash for cans and other leftovers. It is dangerous
work, but canners can make several dollars by nightfall.
S. A. was a canner. Often seen bent over, his head invisible as he peered
among the bits and bones, papers and broken toys, S. A. would dive deep and
sometimes come up with a trove of cans. Sometimes we would see him walking
down Ponce de Leon with a black plastic bag thrown over his left shoulder. The
bag bulged with stinking beer or RC-Cola cans smelling yucky like a syrupy
sweet. Maybe there is a serpentine congruity in that S. A. found his deathbed at
the bottom of a dumpster.
S. A. Williams was a homeless human being. Surely this is still considered
an oxymoron in the lexicon of life in America. Quiet, friendly, never a troublemaker
or hostile even when pickled to the gills. He seldom went to jail, even
during the homeless roundups by the Marlboro men in blue urban-cowboy
clothes. S. A. became a part of our lives. He was present to us who pitch our
garbage in the back and put our bodies down in the most comfortable inn in the
land: the Open Door Community. S. A. was part of our larger family—the Extended
Community, we call it.
We miss S. A., and we grieve. Like the Open Door partner who walked
away from his home, there he was. He is no more. S. A. gives to me, even now,
the gift of imagination. How will it be for me I am almost sixty years old.
Someday I’ll be out by the dumpster emptying the garbage, singing “Glory,
Glory, Hallelujah,” and angry as hell about something. Then the next day I’ll be
gone. Should I, in my eighties, fall into the Open Door Community’s dumpster
while pouring the soured soup inside, before suppertime some twenty-nine folk
will be looking for me, and, dead or alive, they will pull me out. I wish we could
have given that gift to our dead brother: Mr. S. A. Williams.
iii: a scattering closure
By the sweat of your brow
You shall eat bread