Cynthia Williams: 'I barely have anything as it is'
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BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star
The only place to sit in Cynthia Williams’ living room is on a mattress propped up in a corner and covered with blankets and pillows.
She tossed most of her furniture to show her landlord she was serious about moving out.
She wasn’t. He gave her $50 to store the rest of her stuff somewhere and leave.
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She thinks she’s entitled to 30 days’ notice before he can evict her, even though she hasn’t paid rent in months and never signed a lease. She moved in with a cousin earlier this year, but then her cousin moved out.
The landlord, Dai Nguyen, found Cynthia when he went to clean the apartment. He agreed to let her stay if she did work around the building.
But now he’s selling the apartment building at 1520 D St. and has to have everyone out by closing day — two days away.
Cynthia knows he’ll be back knocking on the door again, and she’s trying to figure out how to salvage what’s left of her life, crowded along the edges of the one-bedroom apartment with stained carpet and cockroaches crawling on the walls.
What’s she supposed to do with all her stuff? The castoff lamps she got from the mission; the fold-up camping chair with no backrest; the garbage bags filled with dirty laundry.
And that big, green plant she brought home from her mother’s funeral in November. All of the kids got a plant, but she got the biggest one because she’s the oldest girl. She calls the plant by her mother’s name, Dorothy. She prefers fake plants, but she bought plant food and hopes to find her a new pot.
Christmas is a week away. There are no beds at the People’s City Mission, and she doesn’t want to live with relatives.
“I have nowhere to go,” says the 42-year-old Lincoln woman. “I barely have anything as it is.”
‘I’m no ho’
Nguyen is nearly free of the headache 1520 D has become. Everybody’s gone except Cynthia and a couple in No. 9, and they’re almost moved out.
The police showed some tenants the door: A few weeks ago, they arrested seven people in No. 4, which the city then condemned.
It’s down to Cynthia, and she’s in no hurry to leave.
She sits on a mattress in the room where a man named Elderick Buckley once slept, before he was arrested and charged with pimping women in September.
Cynthia has two prostitution convictions on her record, but says she wasn’t one of Buckley’s women.
She says an undercover cop — Sgt. Mike Bassett — caught her during a weak moment last year after her boyfriend stole her last $15 to buy drugs. She was drunk and needed money to get to Omaha to visit her sick mother.
“I woulda said ‘hell yeah’ to Jesus,” she says. “I’m not a prostitute. I’m not a whore.”
Later, she admits she offered oral sex to Bassett but says it’s her business if she wants to “give up some butt.”
“That’s my lifestyle,” she says.
The police version says she waved Bassett down at 14th and E and offered him oral sex for $30.
As for her other prostitution conviction in Iowa, she says a friend she met in a shelter falsely accused her of pimping her for $10.
“She was a white girl; I’m a black girl,” she says by way of explanation.
She made a deal with the prosecutor to avoid prison and the pimping charge was reduced to prostitution.
“I’m no ho,” Cynthia says.
‘Put it on paper’
About a year ago, someone told Cynthia she had such an interesting life she should “put it on paper.”
While she was in jail, she took a pencil and wrote “Put it on Paper” across the top of a piece of loose-leaf notebook paper.
She’s got 29 pages so far.
She was born in North Platte, but aside from a brief stint in St. Louis, Cynthia has lived in Lincoln most of her life.
On Page 1 of the journal, she recounts a scene that played out repeatedly in her dreams as a girl.
“I thought I had wet the bed and I was afraid I was gonna get a whooping. When my mom pulled the covers back the whole bed was full of blood. They say an old man raped me, and I do recall an old man checking on us children.”
One day she told her mom about the dreams, and she told her it wasn’t just a dream. She was raped at age 5.
In sentences that often end in smiley faces, she talks about her grandma hot-combing her hair and the aunt who hurt her feelings by nicknaming her “fat ass.” The demons she saw in a crazy aunt’s house. The uncle who fondled her until she cried. The day she threatened to tell, and he promised to stop and paid her to keep the secret.
She describes every aunt and uncle, including the aunt who was a big woman, like Cynthia, with “at least three stomachs.” She was a go-go dancer who wore white boots and miniskirts and taught Cynthia about sex and rock ‘n’ roll.
“She always had houses with lots and lots of roaches,” Cynthia wrote. “She would make cakes and pies and us kids didn’t care about the bugs. We would eat it anyway.”
Another beloved aunt taught her to smoke.
“She was known as a good Ho. She sure taught me a lot about being a whore, ‘don’t fake the funk’ she used to always say. I had to I.D. her body when she was murdered.”
She remembers longing for love as a child.
“I wanted to be held and cared for but instead I was always taught to hold and care and love someone else. I didn’t know that then, but I know it’s my calling now. I’m not happy unless I am caring for someone else, waiting on them.”
But her career as a certified nursing assistant ended when she was busted for drugs.
“That’s the only thing I ever really dreamed of,” she says. She used to smoke weed and crack, but she says she doesn’t anymore. Crack makes her too fearful.
“But I will drink up some beer,” she says, laughing. “Give me some 2-11. It’s cheap, too. I’ll suck up some beer.”
‘Goodbye Cynthia’
The apartment with the police and drug dealers, pimps and cockroaches may not look like much, but it’s everything to Cynthia.
Even though as a felon, she says she can’t get a job or food stamps, she has a place to live. Food from nearby churches and food banks. Cigarettes from her live-in boyfriend, Teddy.
Then a Century 21 sign went up in front of 1520 D.
And now her landlord is back. And he’s brought four other people — real estate agents and a burly maintenance man. Someone called the cops and two officers are talking to Nguyen.
They leave when they realize they have no place in this civil dispute.
“Goodbye Cynthia,” one of the cops say before getting in his cruiser.
Finally, the landlord offers Cynthia $300 to leave today — enough for a deposit on a new place or a hotel room.
She’s run out of options, ideas and excuses as she stands in the parking lot with tears streaking her face.
“You’ve gotta go to a hotel tonight,” Nguyen says. “I’m not the bank.”
She says she’ll get a hotel tonight and see about an apartment down the street.
A friend agreed to let her store her stuff in his garage, she says, but won’t be home for two days. She and Teddy and Nguyen and his two men haul everything out of the second-floor apartment and onto the sidewalk in front.
The bedding. The laundry. The brand-new toddler bike she got from the mission for her nephew for Christmas.
Maybe the cold will kill the cockroaches, she muses.
She tells Teddy to find a blanket or towel to cover up the plant — a plant so green it looks fake. But it’s the one thing in the pile that’s fresh and alive.
“It’s probably gonna die,” she says.
A bed at the mission
That night, Cynthia and Teddy get a room at the Sharon Motel at 17th and Cornhusker Highway for $36. She spends $37 to wash her clothes. She buys three packs of cigarettes.
They stay at the motel until Christmas Eve, when Cynthia says Teddy takes the last of her money to buy drugs. The next day, he is arrested on a warrant for several crimes she doesn’t want to talk about.
When he doesn’t return, she looks for him in her old neighborhood. She ends up at a party, getting high on crack, drinking beer and becoming so depressed she ends up walking down the middle of a street crying.
Then she spent her first day —Christmas Day — at the People’s City Mission. This is her second stint at the mission; she stayed here for about a month a year ago.
Cynthia’s now in a six-month program and attends classes on life skills, nutrition, spirituality. She says she’s trying to get a job, driver’s license and housing.
She’s supposed to stay sober to stay at the mission. Her maroon briefcase now has two Christian books, a certificate for completing a nutrition class and a driver’s manual.
“Maybe I’ll become a Christian too,” she says one day in mid-January, preparing to go to a counseling session. Her hair is recently permed and coiffed and she’s wearing hoop earrings.
She’s back on medication for blood pressure and depression, is trying to eat better and no longer feels like sleeping all the time.
She shares a room the size of her old living room with four — sometimes five — other women. Her earthly belongings have been distilled down to a TV and microwave and two garbage bags full of stuff. There’s little room for anything, but she found a space for a riding toy for a nephew and a Barbie RV for a niece she got at the mission’s distribution center. Late Christmas presents.
She also picked up a slightly worn Winnie the Pooh she decided to keep for herself. She sleeps with Pooh under her head. Teddy has been replaced.
“Me and Pooh, we be kickin’ it,” she says, smiling.
As for Dorothy, her plant, she’s storing it at a woman’s home — a neighbor to 1520 D who would let her use the phone in a pinch.
“I never really cared for plants, but this one’s special to me. But if it dies, it dies. Everything dies.”
So far, the plant is still alive.
Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.
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202-6822 "
This article puts a name and a face on homeless in Lincoln. It also shows how mental illness is a real factor in the unforgotten poor in Lincoln and this nation. That is good, what is not so good is the story doesn't tell how others can help. I really don't think it was helpful to publish details about her family who also may reside in Lincoln without their express permission. You know Cynthia lives her life in Lincoln and the rest of her family are just trying to make it one day at a time too. I felt the vulgar terms used to explain prostitution were a bit too graphic - I hope no gradeschooler uses this section for a project.
By the way, Dorothy the plant is probably named after her mother who recently passed away.
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Get over it! If you can't or won't help yourself how can you expect anyone to want to help you! "
You really think a lot of kids are reading this article?
Good grief. It's called journalism.
Nice article, LJS. I'd love to see more like it. "
She remembers longing for love as a child.
Wow. Can you imagine the difference in her life (perhaps) if someone would have just hugged her more? Such a simple sign of affection, and what power it can have. People, just hug and love your kids a little bit more...PLEASE "
Will this problem ever go away? Probably not. Does this affect all races and creeds..Yes. Education, with personal accountability about choices each makes at a young age, may be one big answer to deter people from entering a lifestyle that leads to nowhere for life. "
I spent a lot of time in this neighborhood as a kid, and lived there recently as well. My neighbors were always warm, caring people who were usually down on their luck and dealing with physical and mental illness. I found my neighbors to be vastly more helpful and understanding than the majority of residents in suburban parts of Lincoln.
Keep it up, LJS. This is the first good article out of you in a while. "
Cynthia may have made many mistakes and bad decisions in her life but who hasn't. And I don't believe anybody deserves her lifestyle for any mistakes or decisions they make.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:12).” "
There are many stories that don't perpetuate the styreotypical downtrodden. c'mon LJS dig into the real grit Lincoln has beneath its tree lined streets. "
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
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I hope this woman makes it...she is her own worst enemy. "
bless cynthia and our great city with its great love!! "
Just deal with it, no big deal. "
You go, Deena, looking forward to your upcoming series! "
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