Bus Awning

I use to love the rain. I use to love to hear the rhythmic pounding on my tin roof, to smell the air before and after a storm. There was just something about moist soil that made every thing seem clean to me. I know that sounds odd, mud isn’t something one compares clean to, but I did.

Not so much anymore. Now rain means misery. Wet, cold miserable misery.

My tin roof is gone, along with the plaster walls that held it up. The floral curtains I had made myself, no longer hang on the crystal clean windows and the floor that use to be under my feet no longer has muddy paw prints.

Instead I huddle under the bus stop's awning. Smashed into a corner trying to keep warm and avoid the hostile looks from the people waiting to ride the bus.

I now make my home in the tunnels of the subway. Only coming up when my supple of reading material had been burned. It’s amazing how much people throw away, but that’s another story for another time.

In the tunnels I can at least stay dry and warm. Before finding my way down there I stayed in a local shelters. The people who worked in them were kind, but the people who stayed there were dangerous.

I lay on my cot one night, just waiting for dawn to come. Thoughts of finding a job and getting back on my feet filled my head. Buster occupied a part of these thoughts. My dog was being held in a special section of the shelter. They hadn’t let him come with me. I had been wondering if they had fed him the same slop they had fed me, when the man in the bunk next to me gave a grunt.

I sat up on my elbow to ask him if he was all right when I saw the knife handle sticking out of his chest.

Being on the streets you meet all kinds of people. Some of those people you really don’t want to hang around, but some aren’t bad. “Families” I found tend to be more stable. Stable as in emotionally.

It was one of these “families” that showed me life underground. The further down I went the more organized the communities were.

I was amazed at first. There was a leader or ‘mayor’ who made most, if not all, the decisions. There were others that did this person’s bidding. Some were good leaders and of course as in all government some were bad.

I choose to stay with Micah. Micah was a heavyset African-American. He had lost his left arm in an accident. He doesn’t talk about it, but word around the squat was that he was drunk and killed his wife and daughter in a car accident.

Micah is a decent leader and he has welcomed Buster and I when most had been turned away.

I am one of the few that give to the community. I use to be a teacher. Here in the tunnels I teach the children. Some of them have families and others come and go when the need arises.

Our community survives because everyone has a job. We have cooks, and a nurse. Even a couple of people have jobs topside. They bring what they can.

And I teach. I teach the children; so that one-day they can come out of the dark and live topside. To find their way among the people who have homes.

It’s dark down here and it smells, but I’m alive and this is home. For now.