I listen to Johnny Ames, whose name has been changed in response to his request for anonymity, as he darts from one topic to another in the same random way that a grasshopper goes from point A – to - Y- to - G- covering a vast expanse of grass blades.  An hour into our conversation, he completes the thought he started fifteen topics ago.  We laugh together about how it takes three hours to have a ten-minute chat.

     Ames used to work two jobs. One of passion and art, designing fine jewelry and building the dreams he shared with his wife.  To support his dream, Ames also worked in technology managing corporate and academic databases.  Ames and his wife purchased ten acres, roughly half in open fields and half wooded.  A gravel road, not too far from a paved one, leads to the house.  A modular three-bedroom home sits centered on the property.  A semi-circular moat connects a pair of fishing ponds that flank the home.  A large metal building houses Ames’ workshop.  Inside the home, features like a fireplace and a corner hot tub remind Ames of the marital bliss and long-term plans of a not-so-distant past.   Two roosters and a hen once occupied the chicken coop next to the woods. 

     Several years ago the happy couple was settled in.  Football and chips and the occasional bottle of wine became the norm.  One day Ames got on his gas-saving motorcycle and headed north to work in St. Louis.  He had been pushed for more and more hours and was still a little tired.  Ames’ motorcycle wiped out on I-55.  An ambulance, called by a motorist who saw the accident, took Ames to the hospital where he spent the next several weeks and received his diagnosis and prognosis.  Lucky to have survived, his head injury had caused irreversible brain damage.

     Not long after the confused and sometimes stumped man returned to paradise, his wife of many years moved out.  Today their divorce is final, but not without years of pain and suffering.  Ames, sometimes bitter, sometimes lonely fought on.  Next were the jobs. He has trouble keeping a complete thought in his head before he gets to his next one. 

     Ames’ four pit bulls don’t seem to care how his thoughts meander.  They always give him a loving smile and greet him with eager wet tongues.  Ames retreats within himself, almost hiding from the fractured realities that keep hitting him and knocking him back twice for each step forward.

     Ames returned to his previous job for a while after his release from the hospital, but it didn’t last long.  Failed job interview after failed job interview were followed by deeper and deeper depression.  There have been occasional second interviews but never a full-time job.  He found some part time work using his Jewelry skills, setting up a shop in the hotel for weekend gold buys which paid just $10 per hour for weekend gigs.  Being able to buy any food was reward enough.

     His optimism remained, as does his faith.  More and more scripture would uplift and give Ames a smile.  There was a Chapter 13 agreement that allowed him to make payments on his debts. Perhaps if one of these jobs would just come through, agreements to save his home were in place. However, without income for more than the occasional meals for himself and his dogs, he fell behind.

     Adding humiliation to hunger Johnny was kicked out of his bankruptcy plan.  His brain damaged mind really needed a caretaker.  He didn’t think the payments started until the agreement was finalized by the court.  He couldn’t afford to call the lawyer again.  He had finally managed to put all legal correspondence in the same place. All he had to do was remember to take it to his representative.  Being kicked out of bankruptcy, the first consequence is the foreclosure and auction of his biggest dream, his property and his workshop. 

     He has roughly thirty days in the middle of winter to take his life on the road, sofa surfing at friends’ homes and liquidating any assets too heavy to carry on his back.   Although for the moment he has made arrangements to rent a friend’s basement and keep his dogs, he may eventually need to find them other homes.  He hopes enough money will come from selling his stuff, perhaps for a down payment on a small apartment.  However with no income at this point and disability deep in the slow grinding gears of government bureaucracies, there is little hope for a lease. 

     Loss of job, search for jobs, interviews, part time work, loss of electricity, shame, liquidation, foreclosure auction, the move, the next day is his first day. His religion. His dreams. Some tattered.   Ames shares the challenges of many in a tough economy, adds a few challenges of his own, and hopes to piece his dreams back together.