The Blog

Burning Man

Fritz Shows His Scars

  The time I spent with Robert and Fritz in the “Bat Cave” changed our rela­tion­ship.  I felt a lev­el of mutu­al trust devel­op­ing.  I freely asked them ques­tions about their lives before and after becom­ing home­less, all the while snap­ping pho­tographs and tak­ing notes.  They were very can­did with their answers.   I felt a mix of emo­tions come over me as they told their sto­ries. I was sad­dened that we allow our fel­low human beings to live this way and yet I was some­how inspired by the resilience of their spirit.

  “What is the most dif­fi­cult thing about being on the streets?” I asked.  Robert and Fritz paused and glanced at each oth­er for a moment and then Robert said “Tough ques­tion because it’s a dai­ly strug­gle to sur­vive. Peo­ple just don’t care.”  Fritz nod­ded his agree­ment and told me for him it was hav­ing a safe place to lay his head at night because you’re nev­er sure what might hap­pen.  “So what’s the worst thing that ever hap­pened to you liv­ing out here?”  “I was set on fire while I was sleep­ing!” he said.  In dis­be­lief, I asked him to elab­o­rate.  Appar­ent­ly one evening Fritz had got­ten into an argu­ment with anoth­er home­less man (he didn’t give much detail as to the who or why).  “I woke up to ago­niz­ing pain, smoke and the smell of my hair and flesh burn­ing.  The smoke was so thick it stopped traf­fic on the off ramp and alert­ed CHP.  I crawled my way up the embank­ment and onto the off ramp.  They took me to Petaluma Hos­pi­tal and then I got trans­ferred to UCSF.  I spent 3 months there and 2 months of it was on stom­ach so the skin grafts could heal.  I don’t know how many surg­eries I had. It was pret­ty rough.  All I remem­ber hear­ing is the scream­ing as they scrubbed the dead flesh off of the burn vic­tims.  No amount of mor­phine could dull the pain!   There were many times when I prayed I would just die.”