I Need a Guide

Early in the pandemic, I realized that what I needed was an instruction book that would tell me how to survive. I pictured it, a guide tailored to my personal needs, the first section titled How to be a Psychotherapist During a Pandemic and the second, How to Have a Homeless Brother During a Pandemic, and the last one, How to Not Give Up.

My brother has lived on the street in Miami for the past three years. He is sixty-five. For years before that he lived in his car and in random motels. We communicate via email and Facebook messenger. He posts on Facebook and publishes on Medium, all from the library. I tried to warn him that the library would close. “No, not here, Sand,” he texted in what I could hear as older-brother-to-kid-sister tone. A few days later, it closed. He borrowed someone's phone to check his mail, and then Google was suspicious of his identity and locked him out of his Gmail account.

“I am spending oodles of (your) money at Staples all the while exposing myself to Corona. I need to get to my email,” he wrote to me via Facebook messenger.

I wanted to help him. “How about I get you a phone?”

“How is that going to help? I need my mail.”

He gave me instructions: “Call Google. Tell them to open my account. TALK to them, Sandy. If they just want to open it for a week that's fine. I need my information. It's mine. They can't just take it.”

I was hellbent on my phone offer. It felt like something I could do, and I was desperate to do something. “If you have a phone, you can get online without paying Staples. We can add you to our family plan.”

I said that as if having a brother who lives on the street in Miami or Chicago or New York had ever been part of a family plan. The only place that has a family plan is the phone company, and I wanted him to join it because that would make me feel better. I couldn't stand that he was on the street in the midst of a pandemic.

“Is there a place where I can send you a phone?” I typed.