I drove to east Baltimore today to pay off Will’s bail at Big Boyz. Will is the young man we employ around the house — when he’s in need of work. He’s been paying off his bail for most of the year, since getting arrested for fighting with his sister. He couldn’t pay off the last of his bail because he’s in rehab again, so he’ll send me the cash. Rehab will take him out of circulation for six months. Six months isn’t enough time to get the help he needs — job counseling, training and education, in addition to addiction counseling. But it’s about all there is. At least he gets off the streets and stops using for a time.

But it’s a sad cycle. What does it take to help one man who never got a break? His mother uses. His older sister uses. His father is long gone. Will never finished high school. But he’s surprisingly articulate and well mannered. This year, he turned 30 and discovered he has a 5-year-old son by a former girlfriend. He wants to do right by the boy but it’s more than tough finding work, especially when you’ve got a police record for using and no GED.

One of the things I like most about Will is that he isn’t trying to “get over.” When he works, he works hard and he wants to keep working. He doesn’t like to be idle. He finds no satisfaction in doing a lousy job. But lately he’s been working poorly. Both Jill and I have noticed it. He has seemed depressed. Social Services has given him medication but Jill says it’s the wrong kind, which is typical of social services.

The frustrating thing is, never have the rich been richer in this country — except during the gilded era of robber barons — and never have there been so many homeless on the streets. I’m not calling for a revolution but, at the same time, I’m convinced that things in this country can’t go on the way they’re going. What I know for sure is this: as much as he’s willing to work and as earnest as he is about getting straight, Will most likely will never get his GED, never get a full-time job that pays him enough to do any more than live from week to week, and, never get free of the drugs that are all but foisted on him from all sides — from family, friends, and just about anybody he meets on the street.

The problem isn’t in Will, it’s in everything that surrounds him. As much as I dislike David Simon’s The Wire — because it’s so pessimistic — I have to grant that Simon has this much right: drugs aren’t going away. Ever. Legalize them, regulate them, then deal with the hundred other problems that are dragging us down. Legalize drugs? Sounds fantastic to some and too scary to others, like surrendering to the devil. But that seems the thing to do. Look at Mexico. Remember Prohibition in this country.

We live in a country that fears and shuns the truth because the truth is so damned uncomfortable and inconvenient: can we grant marital rights to gays? can we agree, once and for all, that global warming is as real as the scientists say? can we accept that taxes are necessary for building the good of all?

What does it take to help one man get on his feet? It takes a lot more than we are giving.

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A Great Blue heron glided like a pterodactyl over us yesterday as we sat on a friend’s back-yard deck. It was almost within arm’s reach, something huge and wild and as ancient as a fossil. Birds are dinosaurs, don’t forget. Wondrous and humbling, the Great Blue is a reminder of how small a link we are in time’s long chain.  Which is all the more reason why the Gulf oil fiasco devastates me.  We’re talking decades and decades of reparations. It won’t be done before I die.

So, sure, I despise BP Oil for its having made this happen. Apparently, it was working too fast, got sloppy, skipped some steps, and boom! a rig blew 11 men into oblivion. Now oil plumes as deep as the Grand Canyon carry their atomized remains to the rest of the world. I may never forgive this particular oil company for this particular failure. I can’t imagine how BP could have done worse. But, at the same time, I can’t help blaming myself too.

I drive a car. I heat my house. I want oil and lots of it. I am NOT a part of the solution. And I can’t be selective about the blame. I can’t say, I don’t my oil from BP, I get it from Exxon (Valdez, anyone?). I could pedal my bike to work but don’t because it’s inconvenient — I don’t want to get sweaty. I could live without air conditioning but don’t, even though generations before me did without it. And, well, you get the picture.

The sad thing is, despite this most recent disaster, I’m not going to change. Or, rather, I’m not going to change enough. I might buy a hybrid car (do these really make a difference?), I might buy more low-energy light bulbs (they have mercury in them, you know, and have to be disposed of in a specific way), I might do a hundred little things to reduce my sizeable carbon footprint, but that’s what most of us are doing as budget-minded homeowners anyway. The big stuff, the really hard stuff, I’m letting go because I’m not brave enough or tough enough to take it on.

What’s going to happen — I think we all suspect this — is that a number of crisis will compel us to make deep and drastic changes once and for all. But we’re not going to make those changes on our own. Like school children waiting for the teacher to call the punishment, we’re biding our time and, while we wait, making the best of what’s left. Every time I drive the freeway and (always) exceed the speed limit and still not keep up with my neighbors, I think: How much longer will I be able to do this? Our vast nation was built for waste, there’s no denying it. An episode from season two of AMC’s “Mad Men” captured that waste perfectly in a picnic scene where Don and Betty Draper fold up their blanket and leave all of their garbage in the grass. That’s America’s legacy and, alas, it’s hard to shake.

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Today, my neighbor, an older woman who walks with a cane, informed me — very pleasantly — that soon the world will end.  “If you watch, you’ll see the signs,”  she added. “They’re everywhere!”  I nodded agreeably and smiled, then said, “Okay, wow.”  I was letting the dogs in. When I returned to the kitchen, Jill asked, “What was that about?”  I shrugged:  “Just Di telling me about the end of the world.” Our neighbor usually does nothing more than complain about her landlord. I’ve never heard her talk about the apocalypse. I’m not sure if it’s her loneliness, the season, or the recent snow that has worn on her.

Baltimore got 21 inches. Proudly we’re calling it the Baltimore Blizzard. As we are a Southern city, we don’t cotton to snow. It freaks us out. Everybody crowds the grocery stores the night before a storm, as if preparing for a siege (or the apocalypse?). Surprisingly, the forecasters got it right this time. Snow kept coming. Our power went out for 16 hours. We were about to camp in front of the fireplace when it returned finally. Living without power, we decided, is most inconvenient. Not that we have grounds for complaint. Jill, who works for Healthcare for the Homeless, visited one of her clients this week. He just got a tiny one-bedroom apartment after having lived on the street for years. She brought him a Christmas tree. He gave her a photo of the underpass he used to call home. Driving to work this morning, Jill saw plenty of others in the street. She started bawling. There’s only so much you can do, and then what?

Thick ice remains on some streets and sidewalks. Baltimoreans have staked out their curbside parking with lawn furniture. I waited till the last minute to shovel. The guy I usually pay to help me checked himself into rehab three weeks ago. It’s his second try at kicking crack. Though determined to go straight, he admits that it’s a long shot if he can’t get away from Baltimore.  “Drugs is everywhere,”  he says. That’s no lie: about one in ten Baltimoreans is drug dependent,  according to a recent study. So that’s our wish for the new year, that he can get enough help to get away.

Baltimore is not “The Wire.” Really. But, sure, you can find all of that here. Our mayor — convicted for petty theft of a few gift cards recently — has been the best mayoral advocate for the homeless in many years. She may hold on to her office yet. Holding on seems to be this year’s theme. If Obama can pass health care reform, I’m thinking, we could see the beginning of something, not the end.

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Lately I’ve been receiving — unsolicited–amorous emails from Russian women. Three so far. It’s the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from the internet, like letters that invite me to invest in a stranger’s good fortune by sending $10,000 to a Nigerian bank account in exchange for the promise of a return that is ten times that amount. But these emails aren’t asking for money, they’re asking for a reply. The first email says this,

Hello!!! I’am Katya,
I became interested to know more about your
personality, I’am 31, I will tell you a little bit about myself.
I try to look with optimism at things, it helps me to overcome
difficulties in a life. I try to keep myself in good mood!
I sociable woman, and I have many friends. I work as dentist
in hospital in Kazan, this is my city. If you want to know me
better i would be glad to see your replay. Have a nice day
from russia. My E-mail is: ********@gmail.com
Katya.

I don’t know how Katya and the others got my address. I do not visit questionable sites on the internet nor do I freely give out my email address. However, I do buy a lot of products on the internet and I have signed up for a lot memberships and subscriptions that demand my email. Apparently somebody at some organization is selling its database to vendors.

Sadly, I assumed that Katya is a prostitute and her letter a scam. She attached a photo. I debated for a full week before I opened it, figuring it could be a virus bomb. But I’ve never heard of a photo carrying a computer virus — usually those traps ask you to open a document. When I opened the photo at last, I found this picture. Sure enough, Katya is wearing the clinical garb of a dentist or a dentist’s assistant. And she looks like decent person searching for a mate.

In the pre-internet days, I heard of older men sending for mail-order brides from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. When I was a child, one of my parents’ widower friends married a much younger woman from Korea and created a stir. But she proved to be a faithful, loving companion to the end of his days. The tacit understanding among these men and their foreign brides was that it was mutually beneficial, the men getting a pretty, dutiful wife and the women getting American citizenship and a middle-class life.

We could consider the unbidden solicitations from women in Russia just another element of the global marketplace. There are websites dedicated to this proposition. Enter “Russian brides” in your search engine and see what comes up. Apparently there are numerous “agencies” that broker deals between Russian women and their foreign paramours. One blog makes this complaint:

The first statement “None of the ladies are paid to use our service” Is a flat out lie ! Most of the ladies in chat at Russian Love Match and Hot Russian Brides are paid. It’s a job for girls. It’s their job to keep you spending your money on nothing but lies. The girls are sitting and waiting for a chat window to open the second you log on to the web site. The second statement “They come to the agencies out of their own determination” Is true. The girls go to the agencies because it’s a job for them and they like making anywhere from two hundred US Dollars a night and more. Be sure they thank you for the money from all the gifts too. Most of the time, money you send for gifts is split between the girls and the agency.

Katya looks like a free agent, but she must have paid to have obtained my email address. And it’s possible that she is in somebody’s employ in an effort to extract gifts and cash from America. She may even be married. But, unlike the glossy websites and their photos of Russian bedroom bunnies, Katya appears to be the real deal. Her photo is unassuming in the extreme. She could be a divorced mother of two children looking for a chance at getting out of Russia. She is from Kazan, a few hundred miles east of Moscow. Situated on the Volga River, it’s the third largest city in Russia, a cultured city with medieval roots and a multi-cultural population that spans the Muslim/Christian divide. It has a successful pro soccer team, a ballet company, many colleges and universities (see http://www.gotokazan.com/).

If Katya does get out, will she end up, say, in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, McMansion, reveling as she barefoots across her new wall-to-wall off-white carpet? Will she take English classes at the community college and study diligently for her citizenship exam while waiting for her kids to get home from Christian private school? Will she make cabbage rolls — her specialty — for her husband, a manager at the local oil refinery? Will he allow her to send for her mother? Will he rave to his friends about her borscht, as well as her beauty, and call her “my little matruska doll”? And some days, when she gazing down at her competent hands and daydreaming of returning to dentistry, will she picture the snowy Volga River and the minarets of the Kazan mosques and the clamorous crowd of the Kazan footbol club when it wins its division title and ask herself, “Why did I ever send those emails?”

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Holy cow, who’d have thought we’d see this day? The election of President Obama is as monumental as the moon landing. Many were convinced that it couldn’t — or shouldn’t — be done. But here we are, all the stronger for it. I have no illusions that things will change overnight. But things will change. We’re working against a lot of damage. We’ll be paying for G.W.’s mistakes for decades. The most immediate benefit is that the world will, once again, take us seriously. Nothing so clearly shows America’s potential — and good sense — as this election. I am so frigging proud of us for making this happen.

At the same time, I am cautious. If enough cynical, nay-saying politicos pile on Obama in Washington, he won’t get anything done. I am reminded of Jimmy Carter. Some say Carter was too good for the job, his ideals too high. This was most clearly illustrated by his boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which almost no one in America understood. Americans don’t like pain; they don’t care for patience; they want what they want and they want it now. It seems Obama knows this and is willing to take the risk.

And, finally, we get away from the horror show of the current administration. Living with G.W. Bush (and his cronies) was like sharing an apartment with an unrepentant, petty criminal. Every time you turned around, something was missing.

“Where are my car keys, G.W.? I’m late for work.”

“Your keys?” G.W. lies in the Lazy-boy in the front room. He’s watching Nickelodean re-runs of H.R. Puff-N-stuff. As usual, he’s not dressed for much of anything except a nap. He’s wearing striped boxers, dirty sweat socks, and a “Make My Day” t-shirt. In his lap sits a large bowl of Cheerios — it looks like he’s eaten most of the box you bought only this week.

You say, “Don’t do this to me, G.W. I need my car. I’m supposed to be at a meeting in twenty minutes.”

G.W. nods as if trying to be helpful. Then he offers a fraternal smile: “Oh, yeah, something happened to those keys.”

“Something happened to my car keys?”

“Yeah.” He spoons up a mouthful of Cheerios. “They’re gone.”
“You lost my car keys?”

He nods, chewing. “Car’s gone too, buddy.”

“Holy shit, where’s my car?”

“I don’t know, man.” He swallows his cereal, shaking his head with regret, then uses his spoon to scratches at an itch just inside the band of his boxers. “I really loved that car. It had good pick-up.”

“G.W., my car, what happened to my car!”

He looks at you as if you have just insulted him. “You know, it wasn’t easy gettin’ home, man. I couldn’t take a taxi ’cause you didn’t give me that twenty I asked for. You remember?”

“Please, just tell me.”

“Took me three buses, man.”

“Please.”

“You ever tried to transfer buses going cross town?”

By this time you’re on your knees, your chin almost on the armrest of his Lazyboy. “My car, G.W., please.”

He looks at you curiously. “Lighten up, bud. It’s in auto heaven. You believe in God, don’t you?”

“For cars?” you croak.

“God loves everything, didn’t you know that?”

You groan. “I’m never gonna see my car again, am I?”

He wags his spoon at your nose. “Only if you go to heaven, son.” Then he winks. “I’m rootin’ for ya.”

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