July 5, 2011

Sorry for the delayed post.  I took a break from the internet.  June 30 was my last full day at Tent City.  I spent another night there over the weekend just for the heck of it, and it was a pretty good time.  I'll probably make another post soon about the month; a sort of "final thoughts" thing.  The song of the day today is "Too Long In the Wasteland" by James McMurtry.

A couple of weeks ago the young, mexican couple (see June 2, 2011) moved into Tent City.  One day the new mexican resident had introduced himself to me as Carlos when his girlfriend was at work.  I've noticed that she always wears really baggy shirts (sometimes sweatshirts) and I wonder if she is pregnant.  After talking to Carlos for a little while, I ask him how long he and his girlfriend have been together.  Carlos thinks for a moment before he answers in a Tex-Mex accent "mmmm 'bout six munts."  I'm thinking that the matter of Carlos's girlfriend's gestation status is still in question and Carlos continues "but we known each utter longer."  I tell Carlos that I'll see him later and head to cut Sweet Cheeks off in the campground.  He seems to always know the latest gossip so I want to test my theory out on him.  Upon hearing that I've met Carlos, Sweet Cheeks launches into a breathless and meandering narrative about how they fornicate all the time (even in public restrooms!) and he's pretty sure she's pregnant and she works at Taco Bell while Carlos sits around all day and he should take some responsibility and he saw her make him a sandwich the other day while he just sat there and another resident told him that she saw her cleaning out their tent when he was supposed to be out selling papers but he was really just hanging out at various spots around town (omg).  This is all a jumbled mess of pronouns and heresay that I find hard to follow, but I do learn that my suspicions are shared by another resident.  I walk back to my tent trying to make sense of everything I just heard.

A little while later, I head to the Administration Building where I find a small group of people gathered around a seated Miss Mary.  I saw Miss Mary this morning and she looked as good as I've ever seen her look.  Right now, though, she looks like she's melting right into a chair.  Miss Mary is a little bit like cheese:  She looks pretty healthy until heat is applied.  A few residents fetch some ice and water to cool her off while others stand around and comment on the heat.  Slim is in here and he looks on as many younger residents come and go, checking on Miss Mary.  I look out the window and see Carl moving about the campground.  He's following a serpentine path, weaving in and out of the tents looking into each one as he goes by.  He slithers through the door of the Administration Building and asks me if I've seen Pops.  I tell him that I haven't seen him in a couple of days and he says he thought perhaps Pops had accidentally slept in someone else's tent after coming to Tent City in a drunken haze.  Carl leaves the building perhaps looking for another drinking partner and not saying anything to Miss Mary.  I had heard from another resident that the two had broken up and, though he didn't state any of the details, he says it's probably temporary.  I'm hoping I'm around when Carl is holding a boom box over his head outside Miss Mary's tent, pleading for her to come back.

Rufus enters the building with his hands full of food.  He has some sliced tomatoes, onions, and lettuce in his hands and he drops a tomato on the floor.  He stops, bends down, picks the tomato up, and puts it in his mouth all in one motion.  I guess the homeless don't abide by the rule that you can't eat anything off the floor unless nobody is watching.  I watch Rufus fix a plate of food, and I see that he is making a face out of it with sliced tomato eyes and an onion smile.  He stops for a moment to admire his handiwork before scooping up the lettuce hair and shoving it into his mouth.  After Rufus has had his fill, he walks outside carrying a few vegetable scraps in his hands.  I follow him outside and watch him drop the scraps in the garden near the base of a few plants.  Rufus doesn't slow down as he's doing this and he circles the Administration Building three times before walking a straight line to his roost in the barn.

I head to the abandoned house at around 10:00, and I see that I am late to the party again as everyone is loud and boisterous especially Julius.  There's a newcomer to the house and I learn that his name is Tim.  Tim is about forty years old with shaggy, graying hair and a big, full beard.  He's wearing a sleeveless NASCAR t-shirt and I can see a barbed wire tattoo with a confederate flag draped over it that covers most of his upper arm.  Tim is relaxed and calm as he sits with his back against the wall gulping a Joose and smoking a joint.  He's talking to a couple of guys sitting near him about some of the places he has been; stopping everytime Julius, who is sitting a little further down the wall, gets loud.  "I's flyin' a sine up in Durango, Colorada lass winter.  Got about a hunnerd dollars a day." Tim says.  "There'as snow on the groun 'n it'as 'bout zera degrees outside rite 'round Chrismiss time."  Tim goes on to say that he estimates making ten times as much during the holidays compared with other times of the year.  He is the first person I have met who will hold a sign asking for money, but he tells us that he doesn't need to "fly a sign" right now as he has a job roofing houses.  He begins to tell us about a woman who handed him $100 in Durango, but is cut off by Julius who is proving a point to DonAnn.

DonAnn is the only female member of Management at Tent City.  When I first moved in, Management was comprised of three Tent City residents:  Slim, DonAnn, and Clyde.  Clyde moved out a couple of weeks ago, but is still a member of Management.  Management meets weekly with a group of people from Link Ministries where Tent City matters are discussed.  I'm unsure of everything that is discussed at these meetings, but I know that a previously evicted resident seeking a second residency at Tent City must gain approval of the board before moving back in.  I've spoken with DonAnn on a few occasions, and she is the only person who has told me how she came to be homeless:  She says that she went on vacation for two weeks in the spring of this year, and came back to find that her roommate had moved out and taken all of DonAnn's stuff with her.  Rather than stay in her place with no things and keep working, she decided to quit her job and move to Tent City.  She claims to be a former prison guard and the way that she barks orders at evicted residents is all the proof I need.  Right now, Julius is telling her some things that he would change at Tent City should he be appointed a member of Management.  While most of the older residents go about their business and keep their opinions to themselves, a handful believe that they could manage Tent City better than Management.  Julius is not making much sense right now and a few residents head back to Tent City in protest of Julius's boisterous nature when drunk.

Slim appears from the side of the house and sits down next to me, producing a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor from a bag.  Julius leaves to go get another beer from the convenience store across the street, and we're all relieved he's gone even if it's only for a little while.  Slim and DonAnn immediately begin to talk about Tent City business, discussing improvements that may be made to the site.  They claim that the barn will soon be a recreation room and that electricity will be run to every tent in the form of a pole mounted receptacle, but I seriously doubt any of this will happen since the bathroom remodel has been stagnant for a couple of weeks now.  DonAnn brings up the issue of the two younger residents who were evicted about a week ago, and they begin to rehash everything that happened.  I've heard all of this, and I wonder if these two ever talk about anything other than Tent City business.  Julius comes back and begins to point out all that was wrong with the way these particular residents were evicted and DonAnn and Slim are visibly peeved.  Slim stops Julius and begins to calmly explain the situation, but is cut off by Julius who loudly contradicts Slim's statement.  At this, Slim stands and throws his half-full bottle of booze against the base of the wall and storms off leaving us to listen to Julius.  Slim is a bit of a drama queen.

I decide to head back to Tent City, and I find that a small group of people are gathered inside the Administration Building.  Sweet Cheeks is sitting next to Carlos and his girlfriend and I decide to have a seat across from the three.  Sweet Cheeks begins lecturing us all on the business of another resident, and he's got his ideal audience as none of us care to speak.  We're all seated in chairs one might find in the lobby of an old, rundown office building as Sweet Cheeks chirps on and on about who can and cannot afford to get a motel room.  Carlos's girlfriend has a styrofoam cup of some unknown liquid resting between her legs that Carlos is picking at the base of with a fork.  I'm unsure why he is doing this until his girlfriend gasps and jumps up out of her chair revealing a large, darkened area in the crotch of her jeans.  Her eyes are wide and her mouth agape as she stares at Carlos in disbelief.  As soon as Sweet Cheeks sees this, he mimicks her, standing and staring at her with his mouth open.  Carlos sits back pleased with himself until he realizes that everyone should be laughing at his joke but the room is silent.  He looks at Sweet Cheeks and sees the look of horror on his face.  Figuring that explaining what occurred will quell Sweet Cheeks's worry, Carlos holds up the fork and says "I poked a hole in it."  I assume that the health of the soon-to-be-born fetus is what Sweet Cheeks is thinking about as his eyes fix on Carlos and become impossibly wide.  Carlos's girlfriend, sensing Sweet Cheeks is overly concerned about her pants being wet, shifts her gaze from Carlos to Sweet Cheeks who now realizes that something is up.  Searching for the right words, Sweet Cheeks shifts his gaze to the floor where he must have seen the empty styrofoam cup with the hole in the base.  His face instantly reddens and he sits back in his chair refusing to speak until he has calmed down a little more.  Carlos's girlfriend storms out of the building to change into some dry clothes as Carlos laughs.  "You thought she peed her pants, huh?" he asks Sweet Cheeks who sheepishly replies that he did.  I'm disappointed Sweet Cheeks didn't quite solve the mystery of the pregnant girlfriend, but I have to get out of here as I can't contain my laughter anymore.