2
Morning was peaceful, accompanied by the chirping of birds. After eating, my cat Jodi was now exploring the forest area, in beautiful August weather.
As I looked around at my new “home,” proud that my intuition guided me to this place, I figured I better get situated and see what's here.
An apple tree? Alright. That's food. Good.
A pond over there? Good. A place to finally use that emergency camping shower bag that I'd bought after watching some conspiracy theory videos last year that recommended prepping for the end of the world. I also had biodegradable soap and shampoo, along with freeze-dried breakfast food—vegetarian, of course! Maybe this was my own little personal doomsday, after all.
I peered into the windows of the empty house, trying to imagine who might have lived there. Who could afford such a large place? A doctor and his family, perhaps? Why did they leave? Was it a foreclosure from the crash of 2008—only a few years earlier? I could only guess. I tried to get inside, but everything was locked up and I wasn't about to break any windows.
Another part of my small “doomsday prepper kit” was a few gardening seeds, so I started to clear out some of the overgrown weeds around the abandoned house so I could plant Wheatgrass and squash. I had apparently forgotten that August was completely the wrong time to start a garden in Michigan.
I went back to the tree and tried eating one of the apples—At the first bite, my upper lip curled, corners turning downward, eyes squinting, and I stopped eating as the awful, bitter taste filled my mouth. Crab apples. Oh, God, these were crabapples! I opened my mouth and let the disgusted, half-eaten remains be yanked away by gravity into a heap of drool on the grass.
Luckily, I had several water bottles and I drank a lot of water, to wash out the taste. Soon I had to pee, however. There were no toilets, so I basically squatted and used leaves. Although, as soon as I started to pee, bees came up from the ground, naturally pissed (pun intended) and swarmed around me. “Shit! Sorry!” I frantically said to the bees as I scrambled to put my shoes back on, quickly moving away. However, one bee accidentally got trapped in my shoe, and stung me. Luckily, I wasn't allergic and the wound healed quickly.
The gas gauge on my car was pointed right at the E, so I walked all over this rural town instead of driving, fearful of becoming stranded on the side of the road with no money for gas. I was struck by the vast distance between places out here in the ruralish suburbs, as compared to the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the city, you could walk across the street and be at a grocery store, but out here in the rural area, there was a LOT of walking. In fact, walking anywhere was impractical... except when one doesn't really have a car.
Now I began to regret selling my bicycle for food, the week prior. I'd sold it to a nice woman who ended up giving me an extra 20 dollars once I told her the reason why I was selling it—so that I could have money for food. That extra money seemed like a precious gold nugget sent down from the heavens above and I immediately envisioned all the food I could buy with that 20-dollar bill. I almost broke down crying in front of the woman, at the time.
Now I was tempted to cry again, but over regret of my own decisions. I should have starved myself, I thought, so I could get around town! Nevermind the fact that human beings need energy in order to even ride bicycles around town. But there was no time for tears. I needed to find a job. So I walked.
After an hour of walking east along the road (note to self: never be homeless in a rural area again), I found a golf course where I attempted to ask for food from one of the women leaving, but I didn't get farther than, “Excuse me...?” before she kept walking out to the parking lot. Perhaps she simply didn't hear me but in that moment of hungry desperation, it felt like she ignored me. That's when I broke down in silent tears. I was on my own and it was almost getting to be too much.
A little further was a cute, small-town library, where I used the computers and by some miracle I managed to find and contact a local graphic designer in town. It may have been a long stretch but graphic design was close enough to my bachelor's degree in art that I thought I could squeeze myself into a design job. It was worth a shot at least, right? I scheduled a lunch with the the lead designer that same day (I was still dressed in my shabby “homeless clothes,” which were an old t-shirt and jogging shorts!). Yet for some reason, even though the point was to get a job, I got cold feet when I saw three other people present in the room who were asking me a lot of questions. It definitely sounded like an interview, even though it had only been lunch that was scheduled, for whatever reason (perhaps a lack of self esteem?) I mentally decided I wasn't prepared for this, and I chickened out and backed out, thanking the designers but leaving empty-handed and jobless and walking over an hour back to my car.
Back at the abandoned house, I used the camping shower bag, filling it with oh-so-yummy pond water, letting the bag warm up in the late afternoon sun for an hour, and then hanging it up by the under side of the deck on the back of the house. As I was completely buck naked, I realized I could see another house through the forest, in the distance. I squinted, but couldn't really see anyone through their windows. I turned away and used the biodegradable camping soap, and felt clean and whole, again. Afterwards, I gathered up my cat and we slept in the car, with me angrily swatting at mosquitoes and crying because those little, flying, biting demons dared to enter my personal space.
The next morning, two neighbors came up the driveway. I tried to hide from them, but they found me and asked what I was doing there. I did my best to lie and tell them I was thinking of moving there. Naturally, the neighbors seemed skeptical. Then the guy mentioned that his wife thought there was a ghost walking around over here, and I thought to myself, Shit, did they see me while I was showering outside? ...I'm not THAT pale, am I? I tried not to think about the likelihood of voyeurism.
It was an ackward conversation, but they left, and soon my mind refocused on finding a job. Maybe something more “down to my level”—that was to say, down to my low level of self-esteem. So the second day I walked a half hour to the west, to the center of this small town, looking for minimum wage opportunities around my new “home.”
On the way into town, I stopped by a local church and took communion—not necessarily because I believed in God or anything, but simply because a thin, white, rice wafer and a thimbleful of wine was better than nothing. When the local church-goers asked me who I was, I told them I'd just moved to town and we even talked about me possibly joining the choir. Part of me actually believed this was possible—that I could just live out of my car and sing on Sundays.
I filled up my plastic bottles at a water cooler inside a community center. I opened up to a woman who worked there, telling her about my situation, and she mentioned that sometimes people in need could get money from the police. So I went to the local police station, but they were busy for a while talking to someone else. So I left the station and continued looking for jobs.
On the other side of the town's main intersection, I spoke with a manager at a gardening center as well as a lady in a tavern, but neither place seemed to be in need of any more people.
Food was still a top priority, so I asked the lady in the tavern for directions to the nearest grocery store. Since I had absolutely nothing better to do, I started the two-hour hike to the grocery store with a blue cloth bag over my shoulder that held a couple water bottles.
The store was a small, family-owned place next to a few shops and across the intersection from farmland and a forest. Inside, I didn't notice any cameras, so I started filling the blue bag with random stuff like PopTarts (not the healthiest, I know, but I did include apples of a tastier variety). I did not intend to pay.
Just before I was about to leave, I saw a “Now Hiring” sign on the glass display of the deli towards the back of the store. I asked to speak to the store manager about a possible job. I legit stood there in front of this jolly, trusting man with a light-grey beard and a kind face, having a friendly conversation with each other, while I held a bag behind my back filled with food from his own grocery store, not intending to pay, but he didn't even notice. I kinda felt bad about that, but only half bad—I was starving, the Wheatgrass and the bitter crabapples weren't cutting it, and the squash seeds I'd planted would still need several months to grow. Nevermind the fact that August would have been way past seed-sprouting time! Gardening may have been my hobby, but I never said I was good at it.
Much later, I found out the store manager had actually been ready to hire me on the spot until I explained that the reason he wouldn't be able to contact me via phone was that I was “kinda homeless.” (Note to self: Don't mention stuff like that during an interview!) But the next day, I used the library phone to call back, and was given the job anyway. I was scheduled to start work the next day.
Happiness filled my heart. There was hope for my future! There was still the issue of not having any gas in my car, but I was willing to walk to the job until my first paycheck.
On my way back towards the abandoned house, I saw a cop drive by, but didn't think anything of it. I got to the driveway of the house and my intuition spoke up again, telling me to just rest here for a little bit. I laid down on the grass in the ditch, looking up at the sky, pondering the utter weirdness of life. I heard a car drive swiftly past me and glanced up. It was another cop car. I shrugged and got up, walking through the forest this time, instead of directly up the driveway. I took a roundabout way back towards my car so that I would see it across a field, because I started to get suspicious that the cops might be looking for yours truly.
As I saw my car in the distance, I noticed a cop car was indeed parked right next to it.
...Shit.
All I needed for my job was the bluejeans inside the car, because that would be the dress code for the new deli job, and they'd give me a work shirt. If it wasn't for needing the jeans, I probably would have just walked away. But there was one other thing—my cat, Jodi! I couldn't just abandon her. But I had to think and come up with a plan. The cops had obviously found “my” spot, so they were probably going to throw me in jail or something. I walked away and a few minutes later I found another abandoned-looking house (looking like a run-down shack, compared to the mansions around the corner). The front door to the entryway was unlocked, so I laid down on the floor of the hallway, trying to hide out for a bit and come up with a plan. Yet, after a few more minutes, I heard the sound of a car slowly rolling up next to the shack. I sat up, looking out the window of the door and saw the red and blue flashing. I sighed, walked out of the house, stretching as I pretended to look groggy as if I'd merely been innocently taking a nap in the shack.
The “innocently taking a nap” story didn't fly with them and they ended up handcuffing me behind my back. This was definitely something I wasn't used to, and as soon as I attempted to walk in handcuffs, I immediately stopped, realizing my sense of balance was completely off.
“WAIT!” I blurted out to the surprised officer, who stopped and looked at me. “You have to hold onto me!” He was already holding onto my arm, but I said it anyway, explaining: “I've never worn handcuffs, before, —.” I cut myself off from saying the rest, which would have been something like: '...well, except for fuzzy handcuffs.' But they didn't need to know that about me, right?
“We're just going to take you down to the station,” he explained.
“I don't need the handcuffs,” I smirked. “You could have just asked nicely.”
“This IS the nice way,” he replied.
“Oh.” I remembered movies and shows about cops with baton rods and tear gas. Yeah, I guess this was the nice way, after all.
After reading me my rights, they brought me back to the police station just as the sun was setting. They sat me down, took off the cuffs, and got settled in. The officer was sitting with me in this small room with the door left open (were they all so casual because I seemed unthreatening, or was it just the way of the rural police?). He tapped his pen on his note pad probably wondering why the hell I was in their town and what the hell to do with me, too, because they likely realized by now that there was no police record on me. Barring any mention of kinky fuzzy handcuffs in the bedroom, that truly was the first time I'd been hauled off by actual police in actual cuffs.
He read from his notes: “Codi Joshua.” He raised a brow, looking up at me. “How did you end up here?”
I hesitated.
I legit didn't even know where to begin, because so much had happened that it made my head spin. Z happened because of Y, which happened because of X, which happened because of.... Well, you get the picture. It went up the whole damn alphabet.
”...Whenever people ask me that question—why I'm here—, I... don't know how to sum it up in a nutshell, and it just becomes this long, huge story, and... I'm not sure how much time you have...?” I didn't want to BORE the poor guy. He probably just wants to go home to his family, I thought to myself.
Yet, he actually seemed open to sitting there as long as I felt like talking. So I went ahead and told him the story, trying to sum it up as best I could.