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