Read Sarah Gerard's previous stories on the homeless population in St. Petersburg:
National Homeless Person's Memorial Day
No restrooms for the weary: St. Pete and its homeless at odds about after-hours restroom access
Homeless in St. Petersburg, Part 1: Bobby and Linda
Linda Mariano is 57 years old and 95 percent deaf. She can see without glasses, she says, but she can’t read without them. Pyorrhea has rotted away most of her teeth. She has a hole in her skull the size of a silver dollar, where she was hit in the head with a brick at the age of 17 (“or 18”).
I talked to Linda for over an hour the other night, sitting on the sidewalk outside the Open Air Post Office in St. Petersburg, where she’s been homeless for almost seven years with her boyfriend, Bobby “Mad Dog” Donahue. As we were talking, she took her shoes off and set them next to us. I looked down at her feet. Her toes are slanted, so wearing shoes is difficult. The arthritis in her knees makes it painful to walk around much, and sleeping on the concrete doesn’t help.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2009 – Jan 5, 2010.