Three fifteen a.m. and Hunger was all I felt as I rode down the street toward Shannon Ave. where I knew someone would be up, someone was. I parked my mountain bike at the side of the house and quietly unhinged the wooden gate leading to the back yard of my friend Gary’s mom’s house. Saw light from under the door leading to the garage. I knocked lightly. Gary opened the door and motioned to me to come in. I looked around the room at old car parts and such. To my right were a table and a couple of chairs. Sat and could have easily fallen asleep in a few moments only I knew I could not, had to keep awake.
It had been day (2) of being awake for me and I only had two options, either keep riding or find a way to get high. Getting high in the garage was an everyday thing and was how we spent much of our time. Most of us were more than thirty no jobs and no money. Some of us had no home and no contact with our families, Those who had homes lived off their parents and did not work. They stayed up all night and slept all day causing their parents’ stress and heartache.
If I were lucky, Gary would sneak me out a bowl of instant noodles and a soda from his mom’s kitchen. At night after she went to bed, he would let me take a quick shower and sometimes use the washer and dryer. As morning drew near, I found myself antsy and ready to ride. Now clean, no longer hungry, and awake I knew where I wanted to go.
My heart raced with excitement as I rode down the alley to the first dumpster, Looking inside I saw bags of garbage, grass clippings and a box! Finding a stick, I used it to pull the box toward me, opened it, and found ‘CLOTHES’! Brand name clothes that were just my size and a few boxes of jewelry. I lifted the box out of the dumpster and over to the side of the building where as not to be seen. Filling a plastic bag with clothes and my pockets with gems I hung it all on my bike handlebars and took off.
I saw the next filled with everything from old laundry baskets, dead leaves, and bags of ‘who knew what’. I started picking through with the stick and found a box with toys inside. Old toys that probably came from the floor, to the trash. Reaching inside I pulled out toy cars, marbles, baseball cards, batteries and a small Halloween party grab bag with candy in it. After filling the bag I had on my bike with my find, I rode back across the blvd. onto Shannon Ave. back to Gary’s mom’s garage.
Parking my bike at the side again, I removed the bag from the handlebars and walked up to see if anyone was inside. Sure enough, my friend Kyle was there kicking back at the table half asleep, but awake enough to ask, ‘Sup’? “Not much,” and I sat my bag down and started going through it. I grabbed the small candy bag first and held it up to show Kyle. He asked if I had just found it, and wanted to look inside. I gave the bag to him and he picked out a few chocolate bars and some fruit chews, opened them and ate them. I wanted to do the same, but could not get up the nerve, with the candy being from the dumpster and all. Finally, my hunger got the best of me and I ate a few pieces. It was not bad, we finished the bag. All that candy had made me thirsty and we headed out toward the hose in Gary’s mom’s front yard. I walked over and turned it on. After waiting for the warm water to pass, we both took swigs from the hose and we were no longer thirsty “Hose-water and dumpster candy” I said, shaking my head. “yup” Kyle said, and we went back into the garage.
Noon and I had gotten $8.00 after turning in aluminum cans. $20.00 more was what I needed to be able to get a room later at the small inn on the boulevard. It was the cheapest because it had no phones and only rented by the night, in the morning one had to be out of there by 10:00 a.m.
My friend Gary had an old trans-am parked in his mom’s driveway that he let me store duffle-bags of my stuff in. Looking in them, I found some dumpster diving items that I can sell to friends. Luck had it that I made a cool fifteen dollars and now had a total of $20.00 toward my room for the night. Night drew near and my mind was racing trying to come up with a way to make eight more dollars so I could achieve my goal of a room. I had promised myself that while in this situation I would never sell my body, cheat or steal to survive on the streets. That promise would probably keep me without a roof over my head for a longer time than many who chose to, but true to my promise I stayed.
Eleven p.m. and I passed up the donut shop and looked in to see my friend Rudy asleep in a booth there. I went in to wake him “I have $20.00, and need only $8.00 more to get a room at the inn” I told him. He replied with “I have $10.00”. Jumping on our bikes we rode to the inn and got a room with two double beds for the night. “Oh, gawd…real sheets”I exclaimed, and we both slept like babies.
Ten a.m. and pouring-down rain, I remembered it was my birthday. Rudy was up and getting ready to go to the church to get a free breakfast. I opted out because I had lost my California I.D. card, and one was needed to get free meals there. Saying goodbye to Rudy, I got on my bike and took off. Where I was going was anyone’s guess. I headed to the quick-mart on the corner. The notion of panhandling for enough to buy a coffee and small pack of cookies entered my head, but I could not get up the nerve.
I remembered my friend red-haired Lenny who lived around the corner in the neighborhood and I rode there. He was not home but his mother who I had met a few times answered the door and let me in. She had been in the kitchen cooking and cleaning and I started conversation, mouth watering the whole time. Getting up the nerve to ask for food was very hard and I kept putting it off because I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I had told her it was my birthday, hoping that it would make it easier to hit her up for a snack maybe. After finally getting up the nerve to ask for a saltine cracker, she asked if I would like a burrito. “Thanks, I said. Inside a flour tortilla she rolled up some lettuce, bologna and some salsa. With my last meal being hose-water and dumpster candy earlier the day before, it was one of the best meals I had ever had.
After my amazing birthday meal at ‘Red hair Lenny’s’ mom’s I hung out for a few minutes. Soon I said thanks, hopped on my bike, and rode off to my friend Josh’s house at the end of the alley. Josh’s house was not really a house, but an airstream trailer parked in the very corner of his parent’s backyard. The tailor’s front door faced the back wall of the alley. Josh’s trailer was one of many places around town that was open twenty-four-seven
.
To enter this dilapidated domain on wheels, one had to pull up next to the alley wall and let Josh know who was there. We either whistled or tossed a rock or two up onto the top of the cage that went from the top of the trailer to the cement wall. This time I was lucky and no razor-wire. I whistled. Josh’s head popped up out of the top of the trailer. Soon he was up and out reaching his hand down for me to hand up my bike to him. Most of the time there were up to four or five bikes parked on the roof.
Grasping my bike by the middle bar just under the seat with one hand under the bottom bar, I lifted my bike up to him. He lifted it up onto the top of the trailer and laid it down on its side. He than handed me the small wooden bunk-bed ladder and I climbed up. I than pulled the ladder up with me. I entered the oval building through the square hatch in the roof where the trailers’ air vent used to be.
Lowering myself down feet first, I dropped into the main compartment and saw a few familiar faces. Billy who was thirty-six and homeless, although his parents lived just around the corner, he did not speak to them because of his problems with drugs, methamphetamine to be exact. Sitting next to him was Crazy Pam. She was 5’ 2” with long chestnut brown hair and movie star good looks. She was beautiful but they didn’t call her ‘Crazy’ for nothing and you did not want to make her mad. Wanted by the police, this girl was a beautiful disaster. In stepped from behind a curtain that divided the end compartment area from the main, Dillon. Thirty-one. A ladies man, and thief-extrordinair. He lived at Josh’s trailer. The last time I saw him he was climbing up and over the wall carrying a payphone he had jacked from somewhere on the blvd.
It was now midnight and Josh did not mind that we all stayed over in his trailer. We would all sit around getting high and the drinkers would pass a small bottle of cheap vodka to each other. I was one who would indulge in drinking now and than mainly to take the edge off and to help ease the emotional pain of not being with my family for almost a year.
It was now four a.m.We sat around laughing our asses off at each other. Being up for days, makes you really giddy.You laugh at almost anything that moves. Suddenly someone got an idea to ride up to the store on the corner to get cigarettes. We all climbed up and out of the hatch in the roof. We dropped our bikes down slowly and took off. All five of us were racing each other while riding through the school parking lot and the sun just barely creeping up in the distance. It is a cool kind of calm that you will feel being out during that time of morning. Also an odd sense of freedom that I cannot put into words. These times were few when living like we were but were unforgettable
After we got back to Josh’s trailer from our ride to the store, it was Five a.m. and feeling energetic we all sat on the roof of Josh’s watching the sun rise. Dillon decided we needed music and he turned the stereo on playing ‘Insane in the membrane’ by ‘Cypress Hill’ I was surprised that no one called the cops because it was loud.
Morning approached all too soon and the reality of the work-a-day world set in. I said goodbye to everyone and took off. I was riding so much at that time. When I got off my bike and walked ,I ended up walking crooked because I did more riding then walking. Some days I would ride five to seven miles, from one side of town to the other, Hoping to find somewhere to be.
An idea popped into my head that I would go to the corner mini mart on the blvd. I would ask the owner if he needed any help in exchange for items from his store. After asking him, he offered me a job detailing his Mercedes Benz. I was thin and in shape. I’m sure that’s why he had me shining and waxing the car for up to three hours. When I was done I got to choose up to fifteen dollars worth of stuff from there. The first thing I chose was a pack of cigarettes. Next were a few noodle soups, some candy bars, a small box of tampax, some donuts and a few other snacks.
Took off riding towards my friends Nick and Valerie’s home where everyone hangs out in the garage there too. Nick is 6’ 2” and born in New York. He was whisked away to California at the age of 5 by his dad. He is Puerto Rican with smoldering good looks and a singing voice like Marvin Gaye. Valerie is 5’ 10’ and model thin. She had beautiful thick hair down to her waist. She commanded attention without saying a word. Nick and Valerie live with their four children and Valerie’s mom. We called her mom, grandma. Grandma is quite aware of the goings on in the garage but tends to look the other way. Not that she doesn’t care, but when Nick ends up in jail and Val takes off for months on end, it’s usually two or three of the people who are hanging out in the garage, including myself who step in to help with the children and the house.
The garage was open. Nick was sitting in a chair at the desk behind the make-shift partition he made.It was to guard us from plain site so we could not be seen while smoking the glass pipes we hand made using the welders torch. Others were sitting near by. I parked my bike against the stacked boxes in the garage and walked in. I was tired and worked up a bit of a sweat riding around all day and was glad to have a place to rest for a bit. A few moments later a vehicle pulled up out front. Mark walked in. He was pushing forty and drove a corvette. He was one of the nicest people I had ever met. He dropped by, to pick up. Mark was a highschool teacher a few cities over.
At this time Val had been gone for a few months probably living homeless while hanging out in someone elses garage doing the same things we were doing in her own. Ironic isn’t it. Nick had been able to handle their four kids while grandma worked to pay the rent. Valerie’s mother had been through a lot with her kids and drugs. Her son, Val’s big brother, had died about eight years pryer from ingesting a gram of speed while running from the police. I had never met him but saw the pain in their eyes.
Grandma arrived home from work. I went over to say hi to her. This women kept a smile on her face considering the obstacles. It started to get dark and we stayed in the garage. Some tweaking on bikes and some sitting in the corner nodding out. As I stopped and looked up from shining my bike rims, Dillon was parking his bike. He walked in and started conversation with Nick. I continued brightning my rims for probably an hour or so more. Attention to detail is what tweakers do best after all.
Nine p.m. quickly turned to two a.m. and Nick decided to close up shop and go in the house. It was only Dillon and I left and we decided to ride to the other side of town to Gary’s garage. There was always someone up in Gary’s garage. Hopping on our bikes we took the shortcut through the highschool as we always did. This time to my right flew two medium sized red-tail hawks. they were flying at the same speed I was riding. As I yelled to ask Dillon to look at both of them, they both squawked along with my voice. Testing the hawks, I called out to them. Again they both squawked along with me. One more time I yelled to the hawks and got the same result. I was beside myself. This really blew me away. Birds in cages have always liked the sound of my voice, but this was awesome. For a few months after that every time I would ride through the highschool and call out to the hawks, they would fly from the trees and squawk back.
The End.
Hose water and Dumpster candy
I am proud to say that I live a clean life and do not live this way anymore, however there are still people who do. These people are a large part of the homeless problem in America today.
Anthony Comella, 4 months ago
My wife and our 3 boys were at one time were homeless – we lost everyting we owned – well any way a time in the past. Hey great writting sure kept my interest. God Bless