Travels with Lizbeth

Travels with Lizbeth: Three Years on the Road and on the Street is a contemporary memoir by Lars Eighner detailing the time he spent homeless with his dog, Lizbeth, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Published in 1993, the book describes Eighner’s daily struggles to find safe shelter, food, and medical care. Eighner’s experiences call attention to issues of poverty, homelessness, and the inadequacies and inequities of social assistance programs. Travels with Lizbeth was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Biography/Autobiography. One chapter of the book, “On Dumpster Diving” was originally published in The Threepenny Review and extensively reprinted in periodicals and anthologized.

When Eighner begins writing his memoir, he is “living under a shower curtain in a stand of bamboo in a public park.” Eighner knows he is not the typical homeless person or hobo. He attended college, though he did not earn a degree, and worked for ten years at the “state lunatic asylum” in Austin, Texas, resigning only under the “threat of being fired” due to conflicts with the management there. Eighner supplements the income from his hospital job by writing erotic fiction for gay magazines. While his work is well-received, it does not pay enough on its own to make ends meet. He becomes homeless in his late thirties, taking himself and his dog, Lizbeth, to the streets.

Eighner does not qualify for unemployment because he resigned from his job, which he knows would be viewed the same as if he were fired for cause. Eighner applies for food stamps but is denied because, having nowhere to live, he has no kitchen and no means to cook the food he would get. Eighner discovers that welfare agencies “have no way of assisting someone who is sane and sober.” He writes, “Sadly I had neglected to become addicted to drugs or alcohol and had not committed a serious crime.” Welfare professionals demonstrate a “contempt for the poor,” Eighner feels. They like to believe that “homelessness is the fault of the homeless,” caused by problems that they themselves are immune to. With no I.D. and no address, Eighner has trouble getting a job. He stresses that not everyone who is homeless is an addict or crazy or lazy.



Lizbeth is Eighner’s constant companion. She loves attention and is devotedly loyal to Eighner. He, in turn, loves and cares for her, viewing her as a protective asset. On the streets, Eighner maintains standards that are important to him: he does not steal, drink, or do drugs, and he will not be separated from Lizbeth.

Together, Eighner and Lizbeth hitchhike from Austin to Tucson to L.A. where Eighner hopes to find work writing for a magazine or working with PWAs—People with AIDS. Along the way, he and Lizbeth encounter people who are kind and generous, who give them rides and buy them food. They also run into individuals who are creepy and cruel, who harass them and threaten them with guns.

Back in Austin, Eighner and Lizbeth stay off-and-on with Eighner’s friends Tim, a possibly psychotic individual who has lost his partner and his job and now sells blood plasma to make money; and Billy. But most of the time, Eighner and Lizbeth are on the streets. They spend the nights in parks, dealing with fire ants and college students throwing firecrackers at them. In the mornings, they try to leave before police roust them out. Eighner describes having his possessions stolen and having to bathe in public pools. He also talks about his sexual encounters with other gay men. Eighner notes that the boredom of being homeless is overwhelming: “Time is nearly meaningless.” He writes, “A homeless life has no storyline.”



Eighner finds that dumpster diving supplies almost all his needs, although he prefers the terms “scavenging” or “scrounging.” He learns how to avoid botulism and find food that is still fresh. Eighner discovers that Austin’s affluent college students throw away many perfectly good things before leaving on break. Eighner retrieves so many unopened canned goods that he donates them to a food bank for AIDS patients at “Sleazy Sue’s,” the oldest gay bar in Austin. But Eighner doesn’t want to give too “romantic” a picture of dumpster diving: he admits he “still gets dysentery once a month.”

Eighner also encounters trouble with authorities that emphasizes his powerlessness as a homeless person. He develops phlebitis and must go to the hospital. Leaving Lizbeth in Billy’s care, he goes to the ER and is admitted into the hospital. Eighner becomes suspicious when his illness does not improve, and the doctors refuse to let him see his chart. He leaves against medical advice and discovers later that one doctor wanted to involuntarily commit Eighner to the psychiatric hospital and had lied to him by saying his illness was life-threatening.

When a blind student pokes Lizbeth in the face with his cane and incorrectly says Lizbeth bit him, the dogcatcher comes to take Lizbeth away. The man lies and tells Eighner that he’ll waive the fees—he doesn’t—and Eighner can reclaim her after ten days. Eighner, bereft and in tears, tells the police who arrive that Lizbeth is all he has. Eighner knows Lizbeth is on “death row” and struggles to raise money to free her. During this bleak time, Eighner turns forty. Fortunately, the editor of a local paper Eighner has been writing for gives him enough money to reunite with Lizbeth.



For a while, Eighner and Lizbeth and Eighner’s partner, Clint, stay in Sleazy Sue’s, which is now empty and abandoned. Between Eighner’s writing and Clint’s work at odd jobs and participation in a drug study, they manage to move into a small apartment together with Lizbeth, whom they both love. Eighner finds a personal computer in a dumpster and hopes to make a regular income. The book ends with Eighner feeling like a “struggling swimmer who has got his head above water but who remains far from shore.”