You see a lot of suffering at Fusion Studios, and sometimes it breaks your heart. People who live with addiction, physical limitations or mental illness often are hurting. Just living is hard.
So, when Fusion studios “swept” my neighbors’ apartment down the hall, it added insult to injury. Non-English speaking workers entered their apartment and began hauling things out as I watched. My friends, the neighbors, are an older couple. Barb suffered a stroke a few years ago,she told me. She has a difficult time getting around. She also has a terrible cough that needs to be looked at.
Barb spends a lot of time sleeping. Jerry serves as her caregiver. She’s a woman who smokes Lucky Strikes and she can assert herself quite well. Jerry tends to her as she is unable to shower or go to the bathroom herself.
When I saw her sitting in her wheelchair at the end of the hall Wednesday, I almost cried. She was wide-eyed in the hall as workers in white hazardous-materials suits removed her belongings from her apartment. Jerry was trying to play interference with the workers and explain what was trash and what wasn’t, but a language barrier appeared to mke that difficult. Jerry’s and Barb’s winter gloves and hats — even a cool instant camera – all got thrown into the trash, Jerry explained.