Lost Cellular Phone

I still keep taking photographs of places around Long Beach that relate to my homeless experience, even though I have stopped blogging my memories online. Some of them are silly, like this one:

This was my nap spot on the grassy hill next to the Alfredo's picnic area. I laid my black plastic bag on the wet grass, blanket atop that, backpack as pillow, and dozed. Flies and ants lighting on my skin often disturbed me. Dang, just as I was about to drift off! Eddie often disturbed me. "I just wanted to know if you were okay," he would say. I was until you woke me. If I have memory issues, so did he. How many times did I tell him, not to wake me. If he wanted to speak to me, wait until I sat up!

Other days Eddie and I would sit there just talking. He preferred a spot in the shade. That pipe thing did not have a cover on it at the time. Other homeless regularly stuffed newspapers, bottles or cans in the pipe. I regularly removed the stuff, took a short walk across the grass to dispose of the trash in a garbage can. Eddie had been one of the guys using the pipe as trash receptacle. He stopped doing it. He would not only walk his trash to the can, but clean out other homeless (and homed?) people's trash also.

The reason I liked that spot was I would set my coffee travel mug on the concrete while I was there. I usually stuck the mug in my sneaker but some times it got knocked over anyway.
For old time's sake, I went to take a nap and sunbathe at my spot last week or so. As I fought the breeze to lay down my towel, I spotted a dime hidden in the grass. I looked to the sky and said, "Thanks, Eddie." I was drifting off to sleep trying to remember a conversation Eddie and I once had, when someone said "Miss?". Aargh, never ends, these guys. I was on my stomach, head wrapped under my crocked at elbow arm. Man could not see my eyes were closed, yet...

I looked up at the second "Miss?". He wanted to know if I saw his cell phone "here". He had left "a few minutes ago" and discovered he forgot to pick up his phone. Or dropped it on the grass. "Nope, did not see it." Not sure why I added, "I am not laying on it, would feel it under the towel." I refrained from telling him about finding the dime. A gift from Eddie. Hey, I would not mind if the guy thinks me daft. I am not as crazy as I once was. Today do not really believe Eddie's spirit was letting me know he was there, like yesterday, still with me on the hill. Dime just happened to be there. Maybe cell phone call dropped it?

The guy inquires from another man sitting nearby reading a novel. I ask cell phone guy if he wants to use mine to call his number; "Maybe someone will answer it." He does. After many rings someone picks up. I keep my eye on the man ready to jump up and grab my phone if he starts to leave with it. I am not exactly paranoid, but...

The person who has his phone is "over here behind the Queen Mary." He told cell phone guy "I work there." A Parks Department maintenance guy, we imagine. That makes sense. Getting across the bridge to the Queen Mary that fast using a Park's vehicle made it feasible. Man said he would be back with cell phone in a 1/2 hour. He seemed to get there quicker than that. Obviously not a park ranger guy. Did not quite hear the brief conversation, but obvious guy asked cell phone guy for some reward money in exchange for returning the phone.

"There is a God," the cell phone man had said after hanging up my cell phone. I was happy being a part of the solution, helping him get his missing phone back.