Free The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America by Mike McIntyre

admire what you’re doing,” she says. “I wish I would’ve done that when I was your age. I coulda gone to that big concert back East.”
    “Woodstock?” I say.
    “Yeah. And I didn’t go. I coulda been part of something that was almost historic. There were four carloads of kids that went from here. I coulda got a baby-sitter and went, but I didn’t. I could kick myself now. When you get to be my age, you’ll be able to look back and say, ‘I did this.’” She sips her coffee and says wistfully, “Boy, you’re taking me back now.”
    I ask Edie what her dream is. She says that because she’s three-quarters Crow Indian, she was able to obtain a 120-acre parcel on a mountainous reservation in Montana. One day she’d like to sell her house and move there with Laura.
    “I wanna build a log cabin, and I wanna get a horse for her. That’s my plan.” She looks adoringly at her granddaughter. “I love her. She’s special. The doctors said she wouldn’t live past five, but here she is. As long as God gives me the strength, I’m gonna take care of her. I really believe God made her this way so I could have her.”
    For such a decent and caring woman, I’m surprised to learn that Edie had a terrible childhood. Her mother was an alcoholic, murdered at age 65 by the last in a long line of drifters she picked up in bars.
    “She was always drunk, bringing home strange men,” Edie says. “As old as I am, I can still see these scary old men standing over me when I was little. We roamed around the country that way. She’d lock me in a motel room for two or three days ’til she got off her drunk. Sometimes, the police knocked the door down and took me to orphanages. One time we were in Mexicali. She was with this guy and they had a fight. The police came and took us all to jail. They put us in this cell with other people. There was water up to my ankles. The toilet was stopped up and overflowing. There was a mattress on the floor, and when I laid down it was sopping wet. I’ll never forget that, boy. When I had kids, I made a promise to myself that they’d never see that kind of life, and they never have.”
    Edie sets out a sleeping bag for me. She says good night and takes Laura back to her bedroom.
    Sue lounges in the easy chair. She wears a nightgown that could be mistaken for a tent. She fiddles with the cap on a bottle of sleeping pills. She says she was out until three in the morning. I see the giant hickey on her neck and imagine the rest. She has to get up early tomorrow to make a call. One day a year, the city of Boise takes applications for subsidized housing. Appointments are granted over the phone between 7:30 and 8:00. Now that she’s leaving her husband, an affordable apartment is critical to Sue and her kids. She pops a couple of pills, washing them down with 7-Up. She lumbers toward the guest room, ushering Katie and Kyle along with her. Kyle takes his time.
    “Get to bed!” she says. “I’m gonna kick your ass.”
    “Got your alarm set?” I call after her.
    “I don’t need an alarm. These guys are my alarm.”
    I think Sue a fool for taking a chance on such an important call. Then I decide I’m more concerned about it than she is.
    Jay emerges from his room, this time wearing a $150 cowboy shirt designed by the country-western singer Garth Brooks. He opens the front door to let in a bubbly blond woman named Stacey, who has apparently just tapped on his window. Stacey is married, but I gather she spends more time with Jay than with her husband. I watch TV while they play slap-and-tickle at the kitchen table.
    Ricky, a young man from the neighborhood, enters through the back door. The trio smokes and jokes, nobody uttering an intelligent remark. I keep hearing them say, “Eleven.” Something happens at 11 pm, I don’t know what. But it’s only 10. I wish they’d just leave, so I can go to sleep. Finally at the appointed hour, they head out.
    I’m too long for the couch, so I unroll