I Sleep In A Squat, Like Everyone Else
I Sleep In A Squat, Like Everyone Else
By Punkerslut
I hate work. But, in this type of world that we belong to,
money can be useful. For the past ten years of my life, I had
been completely banished from the world of finance. My first
credit card was cancelled after four days. With my first
checking account, I withdrew $200 from an ATM and never paid it
back. I did the same thing with my second checking account at
another bank. These few incidents have made it impossible for me
to every have a bank account or credit card for a very long
time. So, yes, I burned all the bridges and covered all the
paths. I am completely expelled from the world of banking and
credit. This was no problem for me, since I was already living
without much income to begin with.
The memories of my first job have faded so much that I now
doubt whether I've ever been employed. How to live without an
income is a question of urban survival, especially for those of
us who have special needs (i.e. alcoholism). The first time, I
slept in the park, but some street kids showed me an abandoned
mill they had held up in. "The cops always check the park," one
of them told me, "Stay in a dark place when you sleep at night."
>From those humble beginnings, I've changed and evolved so much.
Instead of defining myself as a human being based on what I have
been through, I've based it on what I can and will do. I drank
Bacardi in a Pasadena restaurant and smashed a window with a
chair. When I passed through Las Vegas, I somehow gained $10,000
in four hours and lost it over the next six days. There's a
warrant for my arrest in Austin, Texas for Riotous and
Destructive Behavior, but every cop so far has been too lazy to
fill out the extradition papers. I stopped a rape in Nashville
and was rewarded enough alcohol to require a hospitalization. I
was the man with a blank future. My name is Daniel. If you ask
my friends, they'd say I was the Beatnik drifter. Homeless,
alive, and free.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
My eyes burst open to the light. I'll never get used to that
sound. I swat the alarm clock and roll over. My eyes slowly open
again. It's 8:30. I have to get to work in a hour half. I'm
already dressed. And, making the bed was as easy as getting out
of a sleeping bag. Surveying the scene, I discover three more
bodies on the ground. There was Z, a twenty four year old, who
had a friend tattoo a Z on his forehead when he was sixteen. The
tragedy left him scarred and with a name he'd never lose. Donny
slept in the corner, his head propped up against the wall. He
had no shirt on and there was an empty beer bottle sticking out
of his fly -- someone was making mischief last night. And, our
third contender, Rochelle, remained curled up in a ball on a
chair. She had a small enough figure that she could make it a
comfortable position. Small clips of metal pierced her face. Two
rings were connected with a chain; and there was enough of a
draft in the squat that you could hear the links make their
clinking noise.
I headed down the stairs, discovering several empty beer
bottles along the way. Turning to the main exit of our squat, I
discover my friend Buck. Somehow, he managed to fall asleep
sitting up in a chair. There was a half filled whiskey bottle
held against his belly, and behind that there was hard-chunked
vomit on his leather jacket. I take one second to light a
cigarette. With the click of the Zippo, his mouth opens and I
hear, "You're not a punk any more."
"Would a punk put a cigarette out on your face?"
"Yeah, but you're not a punk, so I have nothing to worry
about," he smiled, shwilling from his whiskey bottle, then
putting it on the ground.
We had this debate last night. "You lose the grit and pain of
being a true street kid when you start waking up in the morning
to shuffle !@#$ for some !@#$!@#$ing capitalist pig-"
"It's a !@#$in' family owned store," I said, shwilling my malt
liquor extra hard.
"It doesn't matter," he said, as his face emerges from a shot
of hard alcohol, "You're working for the man."
"He's right," Donny said, "You're not a punk any more." This
god of squatters stood there, clad in the armaments of a punk:
spikes and chains. For some reason, he had a polka-dotted scarf
around his neck. He found it on the ground earlier that day, and
has developed the ill habit of wearing it.
"!@#$ you both," I notice Z spray painting the wall with an
anarchy symbol, "Having a job doesn't change me. I sleep in a
squat, like everyone else."
Now I'm rubbing my head in the morning, thinking about an eight
hour shift, and this prick sitting in my squat just said that I
wasn't a punk in his sleep. I don't care about names and phrases
any more. Gutter punk, street urchin, runaway kid, I don't care.
I'm homeless. There's a weird smell in this abandoned building.
Coil springs pierce the one mattress I have. The wallpaper is
melting. Both floors are covered in garbage: wrappers,
newspapers, vomit, beer cans, abandoned clothing. Home sweet
home. And this is the place that we've decided to live. No, this
is the only place we could live. I have to make excuses to no
one.
I forgot again this morning. The front door does not latch
shut. That was probably the constant beating I heard last night.
It didn't keep me up -- enough alcohol kills all consciousness.
I walk out of the abandoned/reclaimed home, only to notice a
mailman walking by. He gives me an odd look, almost unsure that
anyone would have any legitimate excuse for walking out of an
empty building at eight AM. There's no need for anyone to be so
naive. Being homeless doesn't make you inhuman, but many people
would believe that.
It's early. Very early. Seven AM. The birds just started their
first round of mating calls. The true alcoholics are just
getting to bed now. Somewhere in this state, a group of high
schoolers are just coming down from their psilocybin mushroom
trip. I can feel all the working class, single moms just
arriving at work, an hour and a half after waking up -- I'm
watching their soft exhale of stress and hope. On my way to
work, there was a particularly unhealthy smell rising from the
concrete. It could be a hallucination caused by a night of heavy
drinking and only five hours of sleep. Regardless, I can just
shrug it off.
Kleineman's Restaurant. I arrive five minutes early for my
shift. "Hey, my boy, Danny..." Mr. Kleineman greets me, "Didn't
you get my message?"
"What message?" I asked, and then with a cracked smile, "And on
what phone, answering machine, or e-mail?"
"I told all my other employees to tell you that we don't need
you today," he said, shrugging, "You got the day off."
"But, but.... I got up early and came here, like I was
scheduled, and I never heard from anyone else," I said. The
struggle was more painful due to the sleep-deprivation and
hangover.
"I know, but we already have a dishwasher," he said, "Come back
tomorrow. I'll have work for you, then."
"Can I at least get two fifty for the bus fair of getting
here?" I asked. My anxiety and agitation had made me more
aggressive and assertive. He certainly gave me the money. There
was no other choice. When he handed the money to me, it was
almost as though he was giving it to a homeless bum who was
panhandling on the side of the highway. I am homeless, but it's
not quite my identifying factor in my relationship with my boss.
Two blocks south, seven blocks east, cut through the park, and
you're in the best place to get your alcohol supplies. I've got
two fifty. Just about enough for a forty.
"Can I help you find anything?" the manager asks, pretending
not to be watching me -- or maybe that's just my unfounded
suspicion that all old people distrust the young.
"You don't have any Old English?" I asked.
"No, but we have Steel Reserve and Colt 49, if you drink malt
liquor," he said.
"I wish you had some OE," I respond, looking through the racks,
and discovering, to my surprise, a bottle of "Blue Mad Dog, the
best fruit flavored alcoholic beverage you'll find, clearly the
envy of wine and champagne everywhere," her hair was being
whipped by the midnight air coming off the waterfront, "This
!@#$ is chemically perfected for that sweet taste of cirrhosis."
Irene. A beautiful girl that I used to know... a girl I used to
love. We'd bark at the moon together, and giggle when everyone
pointed and laughed.
My hands caress her stomach as I close my eyes, nearing her
face, "Booze is booze. What's the difference between flavorings?"
"Because this represents our culture, the culture of the wino!"
she triumphantly holds bottle in the air. I fall on her
shoulder, slowly drifting in to sleep.
"So, you be getting the Mad Dog?" the manager asks me with his
broken Indian accent. I'm softly awakened from daydream to my
present reality: the scene right before I make an !@#$ out of
myself due to alcohol excess. I nod my head in response to his
question.
Walking down the street with the bottle of Mad Dog, I start to
think that I'm not representing the culture of the wino; I am
simply living a memory. This one's for her.
"What happened?" a slightly animating Buck opens his eyes to
the day, "Did the Capitalist system fall apart and they sent you
home?"
He struggled to obtain a bare grasp of reality. I walked passed
him, heading on up the stairs. "Alcohol in the morning?" he
references my Mad Dog with a smile, "I guess maybe you really
are punk."
"Would you please cut the !@#$ with the high school routine?" I
replied cheerfully, "I've had my fair share of being ostracized
for being different. I imagine all you --"
"Is that what you think we were doing?" Buck asked, "You're my
brother no matter what, but that means I have to give you !@#$
no matter what. Why did you take this job any way? We were
enough money spanging."
I shwilled, and passed him the bottle. "Maybe it's not about
the money," I said, "For my entire life on the streets, I
haven't advanced one bit. I aged quickly and built memories
fast, but everything I got I've lost. Photographs of squatmates,
letters from dead friends, all of the tickets I got in LA for
marijuana... Everything, I lost it all. I just wanted to do
something good for myself for once."
He passed the bottle back to me. I let the alcohol sting treat
this horrible misery. "If I was a businessman making three
hundred thousand a year, I'd still only want to get tanked with
you," his words are poetry.
"And that's probably the reason that I will always be a
squatter," I replied, "Money can't buy you a community and a
culture."
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