Peace for Little Joe

Rockbottom sounds like a hole, but really it’s a pile of all my old problems. 
– Joe Bauman, November 2, 2009

In October 2020, Little Joe Bauman passed away from drug poisoning in his room in the temporary modular housing building in Maple Ridge. 

Joe had not lived in the mods for long; only a few months. And, after many years of life unhoused on the streets, mostly carrying just his oversized backpack day in and day out, often with some ridiculous outfit on, rarely taking a break in a shelter, you would think that he would have blossomed with a roof finally overhead and a door to close. But his friends say that’s not what happened.

Joe’s friends say that when he moved into his tiny, dark room, without a door that really locked, he slipped into a depression. The sarcastic, smiling guy who sang NOFX songs and spent nights outside in the rain to stay with others too young or too loud to be allowed in the shelter — he wouldn’t leave his room. The last time I saw him he was on his BMX with a strained shopping bag overloaded with cans of pop slung over the bars, on his way back to hole up in his room again.

I remember Joe from Anita Place tent city. He was one of the first to move in and when the bylaw officers came through at the end of the first week, tearing down tarps and seizing tents that happened to be empty, Joe ran around and woke and roused couples up, directing them like a general on a horse in battle: one into each empty tent to weigh it down against the City’s storm. We published an interview with Joe about this for the one year anniversary of the tent city. 

When we first elected a camp council Joe was one of the most nominated, but he didn’t want to come to meetings. He preferred to stay in his compound at the northwest end of camp, uphill somewhat. More than a tent, Joe’s shelter was a labyrinth of tents, passages cut through their sides, joining kitchen to bike part storage to living room to his bed tent. Before meetings I would always go ask him about dynamics in the camp: who was being left out, who was getting out of control, and we’d talk about how to reach out to bring them all together. 

There were two terrible storms each spring that we spent at the tent city. The first one was a real surprise. The storm drains flooded and jammed and the covers blew off the sewer access in the street just outside camp, and a river of water rushed suddenly through — carrying tents like little paper boats out towards the highway on the other side of camp. There was an elevated storm drain cover at the foot of the little hill that Joe’s compound sat above. And Joe and me and two others, with snow shovels and garbage can lid, stood in the hip-deep, silty, moving water, and bailed into that drain. Joe, laughing and joking the whole time.

I also knew that dynamics were bad at camp when Joe wasn’t around. He left a few times during those two and a half years. Sometimes he said it was because of relationship troubles with Jody, and sometimes he wouldn’t say why. He’d lower his head and look up out of the top corner of his eye with a subtle shake of his head. 

I wish I could say that Joe died laughing, but I guess he was sighing deeply at the dark little suspicious world of the government’s most institutional housing, looking out of the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

Joe’s mom submitted a beautiful eulogy to the Maple Ridge News, and mailed us a collection of his poetry, along with some Tim Hortons gift cards for his friends. I’m glad we can publish some of his poetry here. 

We wish you peace Little Joe.

Selected poems of Joe Bauman (August 10, 1975 – October 28, 2020)