8
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street roots
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June 8, 2012
9
street roots
June 8, 2012
The gravity
of abuse
Part II: Neighborhood watch
This is the second in a series chronicling
the complex personal toll o f domestic abuse
BY ROSETTE ROYALE
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
Pursued
limp.
Brandy Sweeney heard something
hit the side of her tent. She sat up
in the dark, listening.
Plimp ... ploomp ... ploomp.
She thought, maybe ... But it couldn’t be.
Then she heard her name. Brandy. Brandy.
She knew the voice. Richard.
Ploomp. He was throwing rocks at her
tent. How did he get past the 24-hour
security staff?
For the past few weeks, Brandy had been
living in Tent City 3, a free, legal
encampment of close to 100 tents staked into
the south lawn of Calvin Presbyterian Church
in Shoreline, north of Seattle. She had moved
into a tent with her partner, Richard Duncan,
after a long bus trip from Boise, Idaho. Both
agreed they wanted better lives, betting it
could happen in Seattle.
But the drinking and drug use pulled them
in a different direction. They fought and
yelled and kicked and punched — particularly
Richard, who, hours after learning Brandy
was pregnant, hammered a fist into her
stomach in a drunken rage. Days after that
punch, another tempest broke, leading Tent
City 3 staff to evict Richard in early February
2009. Brandy thought she’d be safe in the
yellow tent then, but Richard didn’t let go
that easily. He stalked her.
Come talk to me, Richard whispered.
Brandy stayed put. Even though she didn’t
know if she could trust him, she still cared
for him. And she was six weeks pregnant
with his child. She had experienced his
violent temper, but she wondered if he
deserved a second chance. Didn’t everyone?
She remained in her sleeping bag,
nervous. He threw more rocks at the tent; he
called her name. She lay still, waiting,
hoping. And 10 minutes or so later — silence.
He’d left
Richard came back the next day.
In Idaho, Brandy had told Richard about a
Washington state program called GA-U,
Government Assistance-Unemployable, which
provided $339 every month. Because some
recipients had mental health diagnoses,
people nicknamed it “crazy money.” Brandy
received it, and she thought Richard could
probably get it, too. A couple days after being
evicted from Tent City 3, his GA-U came
through. Now he had crazy money to burn.
Richard bought a cell phone with pre-paid
minutes and called the Tent City 3 phone and
asked, Can I speak to Brandy? Brandy picked
up the line.
I’m sorry, Richard said. We need to be
together, forgive me.
Fearful, Brandy wouldn’t commit
Those people at Tent City are poisoning
your mind, he said.
Brandy hung up. Richard called again. And
again and again. He phoned her so much,
Brandy lost count.
He stood outside Tent City 3 and, like a
modern-day Stanley Kowalski, yelled her
name. Brandy! Braaannnddeeee! The 24-hour
security staff shuffled Richard away. When he
saw people entering the encampment, he’d
P
Rosette Royale is the assistant editor o f Real
Change News, Street Roots’ sister paper in
Seattle, Wash. “Gravity o f Abuse” grew out of a
three-month 2010 Seattle University fellowship to
study family homelessness in Washington state.
The fellowship was funded by the Gates
Foundation. A ll quotes, thoughts and feelings o f
individuals stem from interviews, personal
correspondence, police reports and court
documents. Research for the series lasted 22
months.
ask, How’s Brandy? Can you tell her I really
want to talk to her? They kept giving him
noncommittal replies: She doesn’t live here
anymore, or, Sure, I’ll let her know.
Richard knew Tent City 3 security could
turn him in for trespassing, and he shied
away from any interaction with police. He
had a lengthy prison record from Nevada,
marked by violent felony assaults. In
November 2008, before meeting Brandy, he’d
been released from prison for assault with a
deadly weapon. So Richard hid in nearby
bushes, watching for her. At night, he slept
on the gravelly shores of Richmond Beach,
three miles away. Every day, he returned to
pursue her.
It started to wear Brandy down. The rocks,
the phone calls, his yelling her name, looking
at her from the bushes, tailing her whenever
she left: Richard was obsessed. What would it
take for him to stop?
Tent City 3 provided residents with bus
tickets, and one day in early February,
Brandy walked to a bus stop. Richard popped
out from a nearby apartment building,
surprising her.
I’m really sorry I hit you, he said. I’ll get
help. Tears spilled from his eyes.
Brandy realized Richard had never
apologized before, not like this. But could
she believe him? Were his apologies sincere
or a form of manipulation?
Richard’s tears magnified into sobs. I’m
sorry, I’m sorry, he said. Don’t leave me. He
looked so pathetic, Brandy’s resolve
collapsed.
All right, she said.
Richard dried his eyes.
Brandy told him they’d get back together.
After all, her options seemed few: She was
pregnant, living in a tent in the winter and
broke. Richard promised he’d find
somewhere better, that he’d protect her. “I
just kinda got sucked in,” she says.
It took her some time to fully commit, but
she abandoned Tent City 3 less than a week
later. Most of what she had, she left in the
tent as she struck off to be with Richard and
their baby. To make a family.
TLC
n Jan. 30, 2009, a few days before
Brandy left Tent City 3, volunteers
with SKCCH, the Seattle/King County
Coalition on Homelessness, performed an
annual One Night Count of homeless people.
They found 2,827 people on the streets or
without shelter. The King County
Department of Community and Human
Services surveyed 65 emergency shelters the
O
P H O T O S B Y K A T E B A L D W IN
Brandy Sweeney
same evening, finding 2,552 people. Too
many people, not enough beds.
But cold weather provided something of a
boon. When the weather dipped below
freezing, city hall opened as a winter
response shelter. Brandy and Richard spent
the night there on mats, women and men
sleeping in different spaces. The city hall
shelter closed at 5 a.m., which forced
everyone back outside.
Out in the cold, Brandy and Richard
migrated to a green space a couple blocks
away called City Hall Park. They sat on a
bench, shivering. As they huddled together, a
man who cut through th e park walked up to
them. He carried a backpack, hard hat and
tool belt
Hungry? the man asked.
Brandy and Richard nodded. He handed
them trail mix and power bars.
He asked what they were up to.
Planning to leave Seattle, Richard said.
Well, if you want work, come with me.
Brandy and Richard knew GA-U and food
stamps couldn’t lift them out of shelters or
get them off the streets. After he told Brandy
to stay warm at a day shelter, Richard
followed Mr. Hard H at Barely a half block
away stood the office of TLC, Trades Labor
Corporation. They walked inside.
A temp agency, tic connected employers
with blue-collar workers including
construction laborers, drywall technicians
and carpenters’ helpers. Anyone possessing
these or other skills might find work: All you
had to do was show up after 5:30 a.m. when
the office opened.
Once Richard completed his application,
TLC hired him out to a construction site
near The University of Washington and gave
him bus fare. He rode through the predawn
dark, proud he could support Brandy and the
baby-to-be. Not that general labor offered
excitement or good money. “I get paid
minimum wage to push a broom,” Richard
says. Eight hours of work, $8.55 an hour.
Family meant a lot to Richard. In the
Nevada prison system, he had become
involved with Odinism, a spiritual practice
that followed the teachings of the Norse god
Odin. His fellow Odinist inmates also
embraced white supremacy. Tattoos on
Richard’s body spoke to that belief: a
swastika on one pec, a profile of Hitler on
the other, and across his fingers,
“SKINHEAD.” His practice taught him a man
provided for his kin. At the end of the
workday, TLC would cut him a check to
support his family. Richard picked up a
broom and swept.
As the workweek progressed, the pair
found a rhythm. In the morning, Richard
would head to TLC, and Brandy would find a
warm drop-in center; in the early evening,
they would reconnect for dinner and a beer;
at night, they would enter male and female
winter response shelters a t city hall; in the
morning, they would repeat the cycle.
By the weekend, Richard had saved up
enough money for a motel room on Aurora
Avenue North. The room was small and
dingy, but it had a shower and heat. “It was
like a suite at the Hilton,” Richard
remembers. But even a low-rent Hilton has a
checkout time, so they returned to the
shelter routine.
Richard wasn’t too keen on Brandy
walking around Seattle all day, alone. He also
didn’t want her to work. Ever. He had the
job, so he would take care of their needs. He
put finding a place where they could live on
the top of the list.
One evening in mid-February 2009,
Richard stepped up to the front desk of a
motel located at 8801 Aurora Ave. N. Rooms
went for $245 a week. That amount trumped
what Richard had on him, so he spoke to the
manager, showing him pay stubs. He told the
manager Brandy was pregnant. Look, Richard
said, can I owe you for one day, then I’ll pay
tomorrow?
Sure, not a problem, the manager said. He
got Richard’s signature, then handed him a
key.
Brandy and Richard walked across the
parking lot and up to the second floor.
Richard unlocked the door to Room 16. They
stepped over the threshold and looked
around. Wood paneling, hard mattress, leaky
showerhead, running toilet, TV bolted to a
rack on the wall, noises from the room
downstairs.
Welcome to the Georgian Motel.
The mother road
Brandy didn’t like living at the Georgian.
First, the rooms were smelly. A
combination of dirty socks and cigarette
smoke, kind of like a bar. Second, the motel
was chaotic. The police always seemed to
show up, or someone was getting beat up.
Random people knocked at her door, looking
in her window. And third, she found the place
unstable. One night, you were in one room,
the next day, you had to move. Since she
spent most of every day there while Richard
worked, all of it sank in.
For Richard, leaving the shelter and
staying at the Georgian proved he could
protect and provide for his family. But
covering the cost, that took thought. He
formulated a payment plan.
Rate at the Georgian: $245 a week
Richard’s take-home pay. $52 a day
Amount he’d pay the Georgian:
on Mon. $50
on Tues. $50
on Wed. $50
on Thurs. $50
on Fri. $45
Total: $245
Left over: $15
Tight? Yes, but the pair understood their
situation. Monthly rents for one-bedroom
downtown apartments averaged roughly
$1,000, almost equal to a month at the
Georgian, but landlords placed legal hurdles
before tenants that Richard knew he could
never clear. At the Georgian, you didn’t need
first and last month’s rent, plus security
deposit; you didn’t need to submit to a credit
check; you didn’t need to worry about having
a felony record. All you needed was cash —
plus you got cable, electricity, water and
heat, all included at no extra cost.
Brandy had enrolled in TANF, the federal
program Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, once she learned of her pregnancy.
With that and their GA-U, the couple eked
by. And while it might not have been an
optimal place to live, on one level, Richard
had chosen the perfect spot: Aurora Avenue
North embraced people in need.
Since its beginning, Aurora hosted
services that the region required.
Electricians, car dealers, appliance stores,
mattress retailers and mom-and-pop shops
dotted the avenue and brought an ever-
changing stream of customers. Streets
branched out from the central Aurora artery,
giving birth to the Greenwood neighborhood.
Aurora became the area’s mother road.
Roads needed cars, cars needed drivers
and drivers needed rest. Again, Aurora was
there to serve. In the 30s, motor inns sprang
up. In the late 40s, motels. And during the
60s, more motels to house visitors to the
World’s Fair. Ambassador, Orion, Crown Inn,
Klose-In Motel; Marco Polo, Aloha, Nites Inn,
Thunderbird: These names and others, some
neon-lit with vacancy signs, called all who
craved slumber.
But during the 70s, as Seattle fell into an
economic slump and commuters buzzed
along 1-5, motels lost their usual patrons.
Salesmen, part-time workers and other
transients checked in instead. Working girls,
many unbelievably young, sought johns. As
the area declined over the decades, some of
Aurora’s motels transformed. They served as
a form of low-income housing and offered
shelter to workers, couples and families who
couldn’t afford to live downtown. Like Brandy
and Richard.
While Richard bused downtown to work
Monday through Friday, Brandy hung around
the motel. With a phone in the room, she
could call out, and incoming calls were
transferred from the front desk. Not that
anyone knew she was there. Sometimes
Brandy spoke to the manager’s girlfriend,
who lived in a comer room. Other than that:
“I didn’t really associate with a lot of people,”
she says. Except for Richard, she lived in
isolation.
At the job site, Richard was a model
employee, efficient and polite. The moment
he arrived back at the motel, though, he
started drinking. A quick trip to the Aurora
Grocery, two blocks away, supplied him with
beer — lots of it. “And I don’t sip things,”
Richard says, “I drink them.” A regular
12-ounce beer would be gone in two, three
good chugs. A 12-pack, no problem. He drank
till he passed out.
Brandy wouldn’t join in. She had partaken
before she knew she was pregnant, and even
a little after. “That’s not the highlight of my
life,” she says. But by the time she arrived at
the Georgian, she went cold turkey: no
alcohol, no cigarettes, no meth. She didn’t
want anything to affect the baby.
Richard, in his own way, knew the child
needed a good start, which fueled a desire to
change. As he drank beer, oftentimes he
watched TV. He liked history shows, and one
evening he watched a program that detailed
white supremacy movements. That’s my past,
he told Brandy, and I’m going to leave it
behind. Leaving drinking behind proved more
difficult.
When Richard finished a beer, sometimes
he gave Brandy the signal: He’d shake the
empty can. That meant it was time to fetch
another one. She’d pull one from the
minifridge, feeling like a nag if she
complained. By the time he downed a six-
pack, his mood, like a storm cloud, darkened.
A fight might break out. Yelling would charge
the atmosphere. Sometimes, he hit her.
Brandy washed clothes, cleaned up, fixed
dinner. Inside of her, a child formed, kicked.
Outside, the world felt tight, constricted.
J u n e ticked by, Ju ly so ld iered on. A h e a t
wave cooked the city. Temperatures spiked
to 103. Brandy, in her seventh month, tried
not to wilt. They had learned the baby was a
boy, a son. He drummed his foot against the
inside of her swollen belly.
Brandy shopped for meals in the Aurora
Grocery, buying items to microwave or heat
up on the hot plate in the overheated room.
The food was so expensive. Cans of tuna fish
cost more than two dollars. And loaves of
bread? She had to economize. Luckily she
saw the flier about the food bank.
Inside the Bethany Community Church,
the food bank lay seven blocks south of the
Georgian. Brandy and Richard walked as the
early August sun dipped to the west. Inside
the cool of the church, off to the side, was a
pantry filled with canned ravioli, corn flakes,
peanut butter, bags of sugar. Grocery bags
stuffed with food awaited anyone who asked.
A woman, with wavy, ginger-colored hair
and sea-foam green eyes, handed out the
food. She pointed to Brandy’s purse. I like
your bag, the woman said.
Brandy smiled, then asked, Do you have
diapers? Or baby food?
No, but I can try to have diapers the next
time, she said, and handed Brandy a bag.
Richard carried their groceries to the motel.
They returned the next week and the next,
Brandy always asking for diapers and baby
food. Finally, the food bank had received
some, and the woman with the ginger hair
passed them on. Brandy supplemented their
diet with what she brought back and played
the homemaker, which pointed to a truth she
hated to admit: Even though she dreamed of
leaving the smelly, chaotic, unstable
Georgian, after five months, the motel had
become her home.
A neighborly day in the neighborhood
The first time Karen Ciruli saw the grit
and grime of Aurora Avenue North, it
reminded her of home.
She grew up in a quiet, little town in
southern New Jersey, but not far away shone
the bright lights and high-roller glitz of
Atlantic City; You could travel there on the
See ABUSE, page 10