It was the second month of the new year and Ronnie Raygun was kicking in his second term with promises of new economic recovery. Not much was being felt down here in Florida. I had managed to get myself trespassed from my own apartment building for fighting with the landlord and threatening to kick his ass. The police let me stay the one last night, but when it came time to pay the next weeks rent, I wound up being evicted.
I finished work at Sunshine Laundry the next day, and picked up my pay at the window. I had asked Kelly to check around and see if any of the local flop-house apartment buildings had any vacancies. She did'nt have any good news for me. I had burned my last bridge at Ina's house way back during Hurricaine Elena and now I had to face the bitch of the matter. I was homeless with enough money for a place to stay, but they were all full up, or I had been kicked out of them before for raising hell. I walked over to First Avenue South to avoid all the bums and "good time Charlies" gathered along Central Ave, trying to get that last buzz on for the evening, before filing in line, like concentration camp inmates into the Praying Hands Mission for a place to sleep. I would rather spend the night sleeping on a bed of fireants. Jesus Saves, try telling that to Danny Wheeling, who caught a case of TB from staying there and shipped off with his two older brothers in a beat up '68 Cutlass with a questionable title on their way to Seattle and the new "grunge scene." He died 2 weeks later in a small clinic his brothers left him at, in Hannibal Missouri. He never even made it to Kansas. Those thoughts were in my mind as some strange movement caught my eye. A pair of workboots were hanging from below the tire well of a semi-trailer. What made it strange was that there was a pair of legs attached to these boots, and presently an old man dropped to the ground from the trailer above. He looked up and said, "She's all yours, partner, I won enough at Derby Lane today to blow this stinking town." " I just came back to pick up my things." "Getting all that cardboard was a bitch though, but the blankets are fresh, I stole 'em from the Missions clothesline just 2 days ago." I thanked the man and wished him luck, then walked over to check out my new home. This trailer must have hit a guardrail or something. There was a large jagged hole in the floor of the trailer a few feet above the rear tires. It was just big enough for a large man to squeeze up through and the tires and chassis frame acted like a ladder of sorts. Inside was warm and dry. There was a pallet made of sheet after sheet of cardboard that the man must have taken from the GTE Directories plant next door. He had even gotten one of those fancy cardboard chest of drawers from the nearby Thrifty Discount. He even left a small transistor radio. All that it needed was a 9 volt battery. This place was the Taj Mahal compared to the Mission. It was an incredibly strange homecoming as I emptied the contents of my pack onto the blankets and stolen pillows and placed my clothes and other items into the drawers and set up housekeeping in my new "apartment." That weekend I took the bus up to north Clearwater and visited my father. We watched the movie Das Boot on cable before going to bed. I did not speak to my father about my living situation. My father did not have a clue. I don't think he ever did. I was pretty happy and content with the new place, and I actually opened a bank account due to all the money that I was saving. Then one Saturday I come home from work and the trailer was gone. They had all been towed off just like that. It turned out that the city needed the lot for parking so that a bunch of people could poke at the ground of the new baseball stadium with stupid plastic shovels for a "Groundbreaking Ceremony." (It would be another 10 years before any baseball games were played there.) I decided to pay a visit to my Grandfather simply tell him the truth. He was very understanding and handled the fact that I was homeless very well. I did not want to impose on his own house, so we set off building a small apartment in the attic of a small house that he owned and rented out. What came after that was the period of my greatest life changes. Being able to stand on my own two feet and survive by my wits and having family that will lend a hand rather a hand out are some of MY favorite things. I am sorry if this story was long in the telling, but how else could it get out?
[ This Message was edited by: 85 Day Jerk on 2003-04-08 20:21 ]
[ This Message was edited by: 85 Day Jerk on 2003-04-08 20:25 ]
