//: Devin to the side.
I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, but I could see the sunlight. I could feel the warmth on my eyelids. I could see the darkness under them change to a red-purple color. I was awake - I didn’t know where I was, and couldn’t remember anything, but I made two bitter discoveries once I woke up. The first: well, I’m alive. The second: the aching that seemed to run deep into my skull was a product of my irresponsible drinking the night before.
And, after regaining some memory of why I was drinking and who I was with, the third discovery (and the pain that came with it) was obvious.
I opened my eyes. I was laying on a bed, which was surprising given the state of soreness my body was in. Slowly, I began to identify more pieces of information about where I was. They came one at a time, like someone was appeasing my curiosity. There was a window to my left that stretched across the wall, displaying a panoramic view of the city. The city itself looked dark and gray, but I was accustomed to the gloominess by now. There were little droplets of water on the glass, creating a layer of polka dots over the view. It had rained last night, apparently. The floor was carpeted (I didn’t know why this piece of information was relevant to me, and I was irritated at my brain for processing the material on the floor instead of more important things, like the room itself). In front of me was a small plasma television. It was turned off, showing a reflection of myself. I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt from the summer camp I went to with Simon years ago.
It was then that I realized I hadn’t dressed myself.
This was a hotel room. My hangover wasn’t allowing me to recall what exactly happened at Simon’s house, but all I knew was that I was there. That was enough to deduct that at some point last night, I was unconscious, and he removed the clothes I was wearing and dressed me in some of the clothes I’d left over at his house over the years (and conveniently chose this shirt for me). Then, I guess, I left him and came to a hotel.
So Simon still had my clothes. The clothes I was wearing last night, the clothes that I would burn if I had the chance.
I couldn’t go back and get them from him. I couldn’t go back at all. I had lived hundreds of long, forgettable, sinful, and confusing nights, but last night was the worst of them all. Not because of what took place, but because of how long it lasted. Maybe if the sky hadn’t been dark for what felt like forever, I could have found refuge in the sunrise. I could have gone to the abandoned train station far away from the studio, from Simon, from anything I knew and recognized. I could have sat by myself and watched things - watched the sky change from a deep blue, to a rich yellow, and then to the pale gray we had now. I could have cried. I could have let myself heal.
But I couldn’t. I just kept running.
I pulled up the leg of my pants - there was dried blood on my cut. It hadn’t quite turned into a scar yet; every time it was on its way to fading, it just began bleeding again. Either that, or someone was sneaking up to me every second and stabbing me in the leg.
If that were the case, that person should move up a couple inches and aim for my chest.
I did it, eventually. I followed the routine. I closed the blinds, took a shower, stared at myself in the mirror for a few minutes. Then I sat in the middle of the room, naked and damp and still hurting. I closed my eyes. What I was doing wasn’t meditating. That’s when people sit down, close their eyes, clear their thoughts, and try to find peace and happiness and closure. This, what I was doing, was closing your eyes, clearing your thoughts, and trying your best to kill yourself without actually exerting any energy.
It didn’t work.
Room service knocked. They asked if it was a good time for them to come in and clean, and I told them that it was, because I was leaving (but I made sure to snag a couple of their soaps first).
When I went downstairs to check out, the clerk told me that I’d already paid both fees for my stay last night. I had no energy left to try and figure out when I’d done that and why, so I thanked him and went on my way.
Only when I left the hotel did I feel the acute memory of leaving The Grove with Batul and Tyler. This was a similar situation; I woke up in a hotel after a night so crazy that I didn’t even want to think about it. I was embarrassed and disgusted, and all I wanted to do was stay in a dark room for the rest of my life.
At least this time, I didn’t pass out in the hotel’s hallway.
I tried to think of what to do next as I stood a few feet away from the hotel’s front entrance. The stirring in my stomach answered my question. I dug into my pockets for cash. I planned to take a cab to a nearby bagel shop, but I had money to pay for neither. My pockets held lint and coins.
The remainder of the money I stole from my mother was gone. I either had it in the shorts that I was wearing when I went to Simon’s house, or left the majority of it in my bedroom at the studio. I couldn’t go back to either of those places for the next few weeks, maybe even months. I couldn’t go back to the vulnerability and heartbreak that dwelled there. There was a reason I taught myself to create a box of teflon around my heart soon after I left my parents’ home: because it was the easiest way to survive. If I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t have problems. Last night was the first in a while that I truly let go, but that’s only because I was under pressure.
I made a mental promise to myself to return to that state of numbness and stay in it for the rest of my life.
I stood, trying to figure out how to solve the problem at hand. While I pondered, a bus drove up to where I stood. I’d failed to notice that this was a bus stop.
I fished for the coins in my pocket and dropped them in the machine quickly. One quarter was left. Hopefully, this bus would take me to a place with bodegas where I could get a pack of chips for twenty-five cents. After this quarter was gone...I’d have to figure something else out.
It wasn’t hard. It would probably seem like it to someone like my mother, who has a house and a career, who always knows where her money is coming from. But after you get the hang of it, it’s easy. Being homeless, your money does have a consistent source: other people. It could be someone who saw how disheveled you looked and gave you five dollars, or someone you gave a favor before, or someone you knew who worked at a massage parlor and let you work their shift for the day. It was a never-ending cycle of giving and getting, and all of it involved sin. But it worked.
The bus took me away from downtown, away from Simon’s residential neighborhood. We were in the city now, and at one point I realized that we passed the bagel shop I wanted to go to. This meant that we were getting farther away from places I knew and closer to places I didn’t.
Closer to Alton Park.
“Hey, driver, do you know how I can get to Pastor Joseph’s church from here? Today’s pantry day, and I need some food.” A woman from the back of the bus called.
“You heard wrong. Pantry day at Joseph’s church is on Wednesdays. But, I think Pastor Bryan has his pantry day on Thursdays.” The driver said.
“Oh, so where’s Bryan’s church?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure how to get to it from here.”
“You can get off at the next stop.” Someone else from the back of the bus replied. “You’d have to walk back a few blocks, since you missed your stop. It’s really easy if you go straight down to Charlotte’s Clothing Store, turn left, keep straight until you see the high school, and make two rights.”
“Oh, alright. Thank you, man.”
Perfect.
The bus reached its next stop, and only a handful of people stood up - including me. I remembered doing things like this during my first year of being on my own. It helped to listen to people’s conversations, to find out where they were going and follow them. You could end up running into an opportunity.
I followed the woman who asked for directions once we got off the bus, making sure to keep a comfortable distance. Before crossing the street, she turned around, as if looking for someone.
“So, you said to go straight down from here?” She asked someone behind me. We had reached Charlotte’s.
“Yeah, that’s right. Then make a left.”
It was the man who gave us directions. I turned around to see his face, to maybe ask him if he also knew where I could find one of those twenty-five cent gum machines. But he wasn’t just a man. He was the man, the same one that I saw the last time I came here.
It would be useless to run away now. Not only because he’d already seen me, but for some reason, I didn’t feel threatened by him. At least, not yet. So I turned around and walked toward him; a subtle smile dawdled on his lips as I approached him.
I fell into step with him. We didn’t speak - I just watched him, the smile still on his lips, the toothpick he twirled between his fingers on one hand and the umbrella in the other.
We followed the woman for a couple blocks, him looking straight ahead and me looking at him. I was so engulfed in watching him and the confidence he carried as he walked and the speed with which he spun the toothpick that I didn’t notice the woman was gone. We made a left when we were supposed to keep straight.
He’d done it on purpose.
“This is not the right way.” I said to him. He looked at me finally, gave a terse chuckle, and then went back to walking. He let the end of his umbrella drag on the sidewalk. The scratching noise it made was almost as annoying as him.
“The right way to where?” He asked.
“To Pastor Joseph’s church, where you directed that lady. You know I want to go there. This isn’t the right way. Help me go back there.”
He laughed again, this time more genuinely. “Do you really want to go there?”
“Yes, I do.” I said.
“I don’t think you do.”
I opened my mouth to scream at him, but I remembered another rule I used to practice being homeless: patience. Respect those who have some kind of advantage over you, no matter what they do.
“I don’t think you know me. I’m a girl who knows what she wants, and is serious about getting it.”
He slowed his pace. “I know that you know what you want, and I know that you’re serious about getting it. That’s how I know what you want is not to go to that church, because you’re smart. A girl like you would have noticed that we changed directions immediately if the church is what you really wanted. A girl like you wouldn’t have to beg me to take her back to the right trail, because you would have memorized the directions. If what you really wanted was the church, a girl like you would remember that the pastor’s name was Bryan, not Joseph.”
He was right.
I stared at him for a few seconds longer; along with the mysterious lack of intimidation he had, even while I had every reason to believe he was dangerous, there was a new layer to him. No one could read someone so unreadable as me unless they were either a detective, or someone like me.
“You’re homeless?” I asked. He nodded calmly, placing the toothpick in between his teeth.
It was obvious now. Vagrants like us had no choice but to decipher everyone we met; we trained ourselves to do so because our lives depended on it. Still, it didn’t add up. He wore expensive shoes and brand-name jeans. How could he afford it, but not a place to sleep?
Of course. He was one of the smart ones. Somehow, he knew how to get things.
“So what is it that you really want, huh?” He asked, leading me to away from Alton Park and back toward the bagel shop.
“Well, I really want to remember your name.”
He glanced at me. “It’s Devin.”
The sound of his name brought back a brief flash of the pain he inflicted on my arm with his thumb.
“I also want food. And money.”
“Ah,” Devin nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I can help you with that. It just depends on your experience. You were homeless before too, right?”
“I was a wanderer of sorts.”
He smiled. “For how long?”
“Since I was sixteen. I’m twenty-three now.”
“Seven years?”
I cringed at the sound of it. It really didn’t feel like that much time with everything moving so fast.
“Now you know I have experience.” I told him.
“Okay, but what did you do when you ‘wandered’?”
“I did what we all do. Everyone like you and me - the people who have nowhere to stay but refuse to be bums. I kept the ball rolling every day. When one thing passed, I’d go on to the next. Day-by-day, I made it through.”
“I’ve only been homeless for three years now.” Devin said. “And I know you’re like me. So that means you did something specific. Sure, you probably had random gigs here and there, but it all fell under one category. What was it for you?”
“First of all,” I looked into his eyes, “you don’t know me. Please don’t let me have to tell you that more than twice.”
“Fair enough.” He said. “I don’t know you, but I know your type. I know you’re like me, because people ‘knowing’ you makes you uncomfortable. Same with me, trust me.”
“So, do I make you uncomfortable?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you implying that you know me?”
“I don’t. Not as yet. But I’m in the process of doing so - see, you’re like me, too. You keep everything to yourself. You trust no one. But you make rookie mistakes. For example, when I told you that I’ve been homeless for seven years, you began to pity me. You let sympathy, and empathy, get to you, and from there you let your guard down. Since then, it’s been easier to know you, through the emotion in your eyes, through your walk, your vibe.”
Devin blushed. “Okay, so I see you have experience.”
“Now, can you help me?”
“Sure. But it will cost you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have no money.”
“Nothing? Not even a dime?”
I pulled the quarter from my pocket and handed it to him. He grinned and held it in his palm.
“Now what?”
“Well, by the way you talk to me, I know that the way you kept the ball rolling being homeless is by seducing men. By playing games with people’s minds.” He told me. “You’re good at that, by the way. It would be good help for me, for the way I kept my ball rolling.”
“And what did you do?” I asked. He stopped walking.
“Well, I always started by flipping a coin.” He gave me my quarter back. I flipped it.
“What was it?”
I uncovered the coin on my arm. “Tails...What does that mean?”
Devin only smiled, took the coin, and started walking.
“Means you’re sticking with me.”