The Wiz looked unexpectedly sceptical. 'The shelter? Oh, that's a victory all right. It counts for something. But I wonder sometimes what it is that I'm winning. Like that general, I keep thinking I'm winning battles, but losing the war.'
Wren shrugged. 'Wars are won one battle at a time'
Simon Lawrence hunched forward, his dark eyes intense. The distracted look was gone. `Sometimes. But some wars can't be won. Ever. What if mine against homelessness is one?'
'You don't believe that:
The Wiz nodded. `You're right, I don't. But some do, and they have cogent arguments to support their position. A political scientist named Banfield posited back in the early seventies that the poor are split into two groups. One is disadvantaged simply because it lacks money. Give them a jump start and their middle–class values and work ethic will pull them through. But the second group will fail no matter how much money you give them because they possess a radically present–oriented outlook on life that attaches no value to work, sacrifice, self–improvement, or service. If that's so, if Banfield was right, then the war effort is doomed. The problem of homelessness will never be solved'
Wren frowned. `But your work is with women and children who have been disenfranchised through circumstances not of their own making. It's not the same thing, is it?'
'You can't compartmentalise the problem so easily, Andrew, There aren't any conditions of homelessness specifically attributable to particular groups that would allow us to apply different solutions. It doesn't work like that. Everything is connected. Domestic violence, failed marriages, teen pregnancy, poverty, and lack of education are all a part of the mix. They all contribute, and ultimately you can't salve one problem without solving them all. We fight small battles on different fronts, but the war is huge. It sprawls all over the place'
He leaned back again. `We treat homelessness on a case by case basis, trying to help the disadvantaged get back on their feet, to reclaim their lives, to begin anew. But you have to wonder sometimes how much good we are really doing. We shore up people in need, and that's good. But how much of what we do is actually solving the problem?'
Wren shrugged. 'Maybe that's best left to somebody else'
Simon Lawrence chuckled. `Who? The government? The church? The general population? Do you see anyone out there addressing the specific causes of homelessness or domestic violence or failed marriages or teen pregnancy in any meaningful way? There are efforts being made to educate people, but the problem does way beyond that. It has to do with the way we live, with our values and our ethics. And that's exactly what Banfield wrote decades ago when he warned us that poverty is a condition that, to a large extent at least, we cannot alleviate'
They stared at each other across the little table, the din of the roam around them closing in on the momentary silence, filling up the space like water poured in a glass. Wren was struck suddenly by the similarity of their passion for their work. What they did was so different, yet the strength of their commitment and belief was much the same.
`I'm sounding pessimistic again; the Wiz said, making a dismissive gesture. 'You have to ignore me when I'm like this. You have to pretend that it's someone else talking'
Wren drained the last of his drink and sat back. `Tell me something about yourself, Simon,' he asked the other man suddenly.
Simon Lawrence seemed caught off guard. 'What?'
`Tell me something about yourself' I came out here for a story, and the story is supposed to be about you. So tell me something about yourself that you haven't told anyone else. Give me something interesting to write about' He paused. `Tell me about your childhood'
The Wiz shook his head immediately. `You know better than to ask me about that, Andrew. I never talk about myself except in the context of my work. My personal life isn't relevant to anything'
Wren laughed. 'Of course it is. You can't sit there and tell me
how you grew up doesn't have anything to do with how you came to be who you one. Everything connects in life, Simon. You just said so yourself Homelessness is tied to domestic violence, teen pregnancy, and so forth. Same with the events of your life. They're all tied together. You can't pretend your childhood is separate from the rest of your life. So tell me something. Come on. You've disappointed me so fair, but here's a chance to redeem yourself'
Simon Lawrence seemed to think about it a moment, staring across the table at the journalist. There was a dark, troubled look in his eyes as he shook his head. `I've got a friend; he said slowly, reflecting on his choice of words. 'He's the CEO of a big company; an important company, that does some good work with the disadvantaged. He travels the same fund–raising circuits I do, talks to some of the same people. They ask him constantly to tell them about his background. They want to know all about him, want to take something personal away with them, same piece of who he is. He won't give it to them. All they can have, he tells me, is the part that deals directly with his work–with the present, the here and now, the cause to which he is committed.
°I asked him about it once. I didn't expect him to tell me anything more than he told anyone else, but he surprised me. He told me everything.'
The Wiz reached for his empty glass, studied it a moment, and set it down. A server drifted over„ but he waved her away. He grew up in a very poor neighbourhood in St. Louis. He had a brother and a sister, both younger. His parents were poor and not well educated, but they had a home. His father had a day job at a factory, and his mother was a housewife. They had food on the table and clothes an their backs and a sense of belonging somewhere.
'Then, when he was maybe seven or eight, the economy went south. His father lost his job and couldn't get rehired. They scraped by as long as they could, then sold their home and moved to Chicago to find work there. Within months, everything fell apart. There was no work to be found. They used up their savings. The father began to drink and would sometimes disappear for days. They drifted from place to place, often living in shelters. They started taking welfare, scraping by on that and the little hit of income the father earned from doing odd jobs. They got some help now and then from the churches.
'One day, the father disappeared and didn't come back. The mother and children never knew what happened to him - The police searched for him, but he never turned up. The younger brother died in a fall shortly afterward. My friend and his little sister stayed with their mother in a state–subsidised housing project. These wasn't enough food. They ate leftovers scavenged from garbage cans. They slept on old mattresses on the floor. There were gangs and drugs and guns in the projects. People died every day in the rooms and hallways and sidewalks around them.'
He paused. `The mother began to go out into the streets at night. My friend and his sister knew what she did, even though she never told them. Finally, one night, she didn't come home. Like the father. After a time, the state came looking for the children to put them in foster homes. My friend and has sister didn't want that. They preferred to stay on the streets, thinking they could stay together that way'.
`So that was how they lived, homeless and alone. My friend won't talk about the specifics except to say it was so terrible that he still cries when he remembers it. He lost his sister out there. She drifted away with same other homeless kids, and he never saw her again. When he was old enough to get work, he did so. Eventually, he got himself off the streets and into the schools. He got himself a life. But it took him a lot of hard years'
Simon Lawrence shrugged. `He had never told this to anyone. He told it to me to make a point. What difference did any of this make, he asked me, to what he did now? If he told this story to the people from whom he sought money--or if He told the press, what difference would it make? Would they give him more money because he'd had a hard life? Would they give him more money because they felt sorry for him? Maybe so. But he didn't want that. That was the wrong reason for them to want to help. It was the cause he represented that mattered. He wanted them to help because of that, not because of who he was and where he came from. He did not want to come between the donors and the cause. Because if that happened, then he risked the possibility he would become more important than the cause he represented. And that, Andrew, would be a sin'