Scratch Beginnings

by Adam Shepard

  With that said, I never meant to interfere in anyone’s life—as I had done with the owner of the baby clothing store—but I suppose sooner or later you have to take a stand. Maybe my speech was vain and insignificant or maybe it clicked a button that encouraged her to change her way of being. I hoped for the latter, but either way, I had said my piece, and it sure made me feel better.

  Outside, the other guys were still waiting on the van. I purposely neglected to tell them about what I had done since I didn’t want to give off the impression that I was trying to be a spokesman for the downtrodden. Besides, it probably wouldn’t have interested them anyway. They just wanted to get back to EasyLabor to get paid.

  The EasyLabor van finally came after we’d been waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes. None of us said anything. We hopped in, went back to the office, and collected our money.

  All $14 of it. That’s right, $14. The $24 I had earned was whittled away by taxes and fees, plus the $5 transportation charge, which brought me down to $14. It was almost 4:00, and I had been out of the shelter since before 7:30, and $14 was all I had to show for it. I was infuriated, pissed, steam venting from my ears, but I didn’t show it. Even with the adrenalin still pumping through my veins, I decided that one stand was enough for the day. Nevertheless, $14 made me question my notion that any work was better than no work.

  Marco had been working for EasyLabor on a job around the corner, so I waited a half hour for him to get back to collect his loot, which ended up being three times my earnings. We walked down King Street to Marion Square, where college-aged kids were tossing Frisbees and footballs and laying out on the freshly cut green grass, soaking in the sun’s rays. Older couples were walking their dogs. We admired the environment around us, an environment from which we were so far removed. We were homeless. Bums. We could sit and watch, but that’s where the line was drawn. We couldn’t afford to woo any of those women, and even if we decided to splurge our money, we certainly weren’t afforded the flexibility to take them back to our place for a nightcap. Can you imagine that conversation? “Hey, fellas, this is my friend Jennifer. She’s a student at the College of Charleston. Real sweet girl, majoring in, uh, Aeronautical Biochemistry or something exciting like that. A little too short and slim for my taste, but I’m not picky. I’ll take what I can get for now. Anyway, um, she’s gonna be sharing my mattress with me tonight.” We were window shoppers. Look, but don’t touch. Single and unfit to mingle. The few feet between the college girls and us might as well have been miles. They were well out of our league.

  But, if nothing else, observing the lifestyles on Marion Square gave us hope and aspiration and something to look forward to. For some reason, there was something magical about sitting there by the fountain with a mere $50 between me and broke. As we watched everybody else running and giggling and seemingly prospering, Marco and I knew that we wanted that lifestyle, too. And we knew what we had to do.

  “Roommates,” Marco said. “We need to be roommates. That’s how we’re gonna get out of this lifestyle. We gotta do it together.”

  And I couldn’t have agreed more. Together. We sketched a plan that would have us out of the shelter and into the projects in two months. “I know where we can get a place to stay for four hundred dollars a month,” he said. “It ain’t a pretty neighborhood, but it’s better than the shelter.”

  I was a bit skeptical about residing in the ghettos of Charleston, but that was a mere technicality that we could work out later. Right now, we had a master plan on getting out.

  We walked back up Meeting Street en route to the shelter. We picked up our pace as we walked through “Chicken Row,” the assortment of Piggly Wiggly, KFC, and Church’s Chicken where the delicious aroma of fried chicken wafting out of the buildings’ front doors made it difficult not to dip into our pockets for a three-piece dinner with mashed potatoes, a buttermilk biscuit, and sweet tea for just $4.19. Whew, that was tough walking through there. But we couldn’t spend our money. As much of a fiend as I was for fried chicken, a few dollars here and a few dollars there would hurt me. We had to save. Besides, dinner at the shelter was right around the corner.

  Really, saving wasn’t that difficult for me since there wasn’t much I needed to spend my money on. I would have to keep myself clothed, and I would need to spring for bus fare when it came time for me to get around town to places that weren’t within walking distance. Until I got a real job, I would survive on my staple lunch of crackers and sausage, but even when I was employed full-time, I would be careful with how I spent my money. While I absolutely believed in rewarding myself from time to time for the hard work that I was putting in, I had to remain within reason. I had to delay gratification.

  And that was the name of the game. Delaying gratification. In my mind, I had to be prepared to put my wants aside indefinitely as I fought to attain basic needs. I didn’t yet have the means to provide my own food, shelter, clothing, or an automobile. Nothing. So the more money I spent on booze or cigarettes or snacks or the latest pair of shoes that nobody else on the block had yet, the farther I would be from accomplishing my initial goals. To me, money that wasn’t saved or going toward other worthy means was money wasted.

  Which didn’t mean I was setting myself up to be a robot that worked hard all day and penny-pinched my entire paycheck. No, no. An occasional stop at KFC or trip to the movies wasn’t going to break the bank as long as I understood that I was on a mission. I knew where I wanted to be, and I wanted to get there as soon as possible.

  I loved the dawn-til-dusk hours at the shelter. In and out early meant that I would stay focused on what I needed to be doing and that I would have a better shot at staying out of trouble and out of harm’s way.

  On the weekends, attendance was down at the shelter as a lot of the guys hit the social circuit, renting hotel rooms or staying with friends. But not me. Weekends meant I would have my choice of where to sleep, all the shower time I needed, and enough food to fill me up until Monday.

  Before check-in, Larry searched me out to relay his excitement that he had just scored a permanent job through Charleston.net. He wasn’t terribly excited about being a garbage man, but he was excited about the guaranteed forty hours a week that came with having a job with the city.

  “It doesn’t matter what time we get done every day,” he said. “We get forty hours per week no matter what.”

  He also outlined a laundry list of benefits that included health insurance and even a 401k savings plan. It looked to me like he was well on his way.

  “Yeppers. I’m getting’ the hell outta here, bro,” he said.

  “Cool, man.”

  “Next week.”

  “What?” I asked, puzzled, startled almost, at how he would be able to afford such an ambitious move.

  He detailed his plan.

  “See, the place I want to rent is $650 a month. I bring home $1,100 a month. With the $400 I have saved up, I just need one paycheck, and I can move in. I already worked everything out. I’m gettin’ the hell outta this place.”

  To a certain extent, I liked his attitude. He wanted out, and he had a plan, whereas a great number of people didn’t and were freeloading at the shelter off of the generosity of donations and grants and government dollars. Larry wasn’t a freeloader, but I was still a bit disappointed.

  I wasn’t disappointed that his math was off. He was somewhat savvy, but on his salary with a host of other expenses like electricity, food, transportation, and entertainment, it wasn’t going to be easy for him to live in a place that cost $650.

  I was disappointed, however, that he obviously hadn’t paid attention during his orientation with Ms. Evelyn. She had explained quite clearly that many people land themselves in the shelter or end up returning to the shelter as a result of defective budgeting techniques. “Your rent should not exceed one-third of your monthly salary,” she had said. Several times. Weren’t poor financial decisions a major reason that a lot of people were ending up at the shelter in t
he first place?

  Despite my reservations, Larry was set on moving out the next week. Politely, he dismissed my warnings, showing that he wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say about finding a place that was cheaper and maybe even getting a roommate. He didn’t even want to listen when I told him that the second bedroom he required to house the drum set he was going to buy was just not a feasible option. He had his mind made up, so I had to let the issue lay to rest.

  Outside the shelter before check-in was always the most entertaining time of the night. At about 7:15 every night, Sergeant Mendoza, known outside the shelter walls by his full name, “Hidethatshit Sargeiscoming,” would walk through the shelter yard searching for open containers of alcohol hidden behind benches and book bags. At least three times a week, he would catch a newcomer who had not been forewarned about the secret searches, and he would take him to jail, where he was processed and returned back to the shelter by nine, all the while cursing the wrath of Sarge. It was routine, but it kept the shelter residents honest. As much as we could say that we hated his ball-busting tactics, we all knew that Sarge was the lifeblood of the shelter. Some might try to say we were safe because the doors to the general population area of the shelter were locked on both sides, but the truth is that Sarge was our security. Few dared to step out of line, and he nailed them if they did.

  The freedom to shower as long as I wanted on Saturday night gave me an opportunity to do laundry for the first time, a system that the ever-so prudent Easy E had introduced me to the night before. Instead of spending several dollars per load plus the cost of detergent, he showed me how I could use my regular bar of soap to clean my clothes in the shower and where I could hang them each night so that they would be dry by the time I woke up the next morning. Since I didn’t plan on having more than a few changes of clothes anyway, it was the most sensible option. I could wash my clothes in the shower at night and by the next day they would be ready to wear again. Even though a washer and dryer could have done a more thorough job on stains, I saved many dollars using Easy E’s system for a majority of my time in the shelter.

  Peering at me with a grin and evident ulterior motive, Larry invited me to sleep next to him in a spot left vacant by one of the guys who was spending the weekend away from the shelter. I declined his offer. I was in a funk, dissatisfied with my day. My first Saturday had left a bad taste in my mouth. True, my clothes were clean, and I was well fed, but I’d invested nearly my whole day to earn $14, and that felt like such a waste.

  But I suppose sometimes you just have to toss those feelings to the side and look forward to the next day. And I was really looking forward to my first Sunday working downtown with George, the guy I had met at the construction site on Friday.

  FIVE

  SUNDAYS WITH GEORGE

  Sunday, July 30

  I was quickly catching on to the system at the shelter. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t hear Ann’s wakeup call until her second time through when some of the other guys were up and stacking their mattresses, but I would still have plenty of time to brush my teeth before I grabbed a mop to clean the floor. I was convinced that the reward of checking in a half hour early at night to shower before everyone else was well worth ten minutes of sloshing a mop from one end of the room to the other in the morning.

  Sundays were everybody’s favorite day. Several guys talked about Sunday starting on Wednesday. For some, it was the end of a long week of hard work, and a chance to finally catch up on a day of relaxation. For others, it was merely another day of relaxation. For just about everybody, though, it was Church Day. And Omelet Day. And Free Clothes Day. All rolled into one. Battalion Baptist Church would send a shuttle to the shelter beginning at 8:00 every Sunday morning and ending whenever the shelter’s front stoop was empty. Before the morning service, the homeless folk were served three-egg omelets loaded with bacon, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and cheese and were given a bag of donated clothes to take with them back to the shelter. Every Sunday morning, shelter-ites would stand outside the shelter, waiting for the shuttle, giddy with anticipation, and on Sunday afternoon they would return from church with looks of satisfaction stretched across their faces (except Rico, who would walk out of the ser vice every Sunday without fail, stomach full, clothes in hand, after all of the homeless people in attendance were, according to him, “Demeaningly asked to stand up and be recognized”).

  But church wasn’t for me. Not that Sunday. The rusty shovel and garbage bags that George handed me as soon as I arrived at his house downtown were substituted for my Bible. And when he led me around back to the courtyard where his dog had been doing his business for the duration of the summer, I knew right away that I was going to be earning every penny of the $10 an hour that he said he was going to pay me.

  You know the expression, “You better go to college or you’ll be shoveling shit for the rest of your life”? It is a job that everyone aspires to avoid, a figure of speech that is never supposed to materialize into reality. But it does, and for me, it had. I chuckled to myself, amazed that it was really happening to me. There I was, alone, standing before nearly seventy mounds of dried, brittle dog dung in George’s “Courtyard O’ Shit,” wondering if that was where dreams went—to be defecated right along with Sparky’s morning meal. I knew when I began my journey that life wasn’t going to be easy, that I would have to be prepared to perform a wide variety of jobs in order to earn cash, but I had never forecasted this.

  If you’ve ever shoveled shit, then you know, and if you’ve never shoveled shit, then you still know: as far as jobs go, it doesn’t get much worse. There’s no way to add glitz or glamour to it. Shoveling shit is shoveling shit. But as much as I really, really, really did not want to spend my Sunday picking up piles of poop, I never once thought about dropping the bag and leaving. Who would? Ten dollars an hour, cash! It was baffling to me that none of the other guys had showed up to claim their piece of the action.

  So I shoveled. And shoveled. Dodging one mound to pick up another, I realized that there was no secret to this job, no way to conceive a more efficient system that would get the job done quicker. I just had to drudge through it. Scoop and toss, scoop and toss. But, rather than feelings of discontent, each pile brought on the attitude that it didn’t have to be that way. I didn’t have to be performing those shitty jobs. Sure, for that moment—that Sunday and probably the next sixty Sundays—I would have to perform similar duties, but each week would bring me closer to where I wanted to be. School? My own business? Of course I had dreams. But while I wouldn’t be going to school or starting a business on Monday, each loaded bag of crap symbolized a step in the right direction.

  After I was done, George brought me a bottle of Pine Sol and a broom, and he showed me where the hose was so I could get the courtyard extra spic-and-span for Sparky. The entire project took just two hours, although it had felt like a full day’s work.

  I was ready to call it a day when George asked me if I’d like to pull some weeds. Why not? What else am I gonna do with my life? Keeping with my newfound tradition that nothing would come easy, George’s weeds weren’t normal. His weeds—pokeweed, mostly—had smuggled Miracle-Gro and other plant steroids into the neighborhood, so they looked more like overgrown plants that had been neglected for several seasons. It was a one-acre model—to scale—of the Amazon. That was the bad news. The good news was that he had enough work on that one plot of land adjacent to his own house, where he was planning to build a three-story apartment building, that I could pick weeds for the next five Sundays. The terrain was rocky (even more work for the coming months), so it wasn’t like a Bobcat or some other gargantuan machine could come in and just tear it all up. These weeds needed to be picked with finesse.

  I spent two hours on weeds—just as tedious as my previous task (although more sanitary). The sun was blazing straight on my back, so my work time was peppered with quick water breaks every fifteen minutes. This also gave me an opportunity to converse with George about Charles
ton’s history and beauty and how some of its residents had come from long lines of Charlestonians, while others were former tourists that had visited and declared that Charleston was the place that they absolutely had to live. He would describe in colorful detail the places he’d been in the world—Italy and Spain were his favorites—and we discussed the drug epidemic in Charleston that was not at all limited to the lower classes uptown. He wanted to hear my story of why I was living at the shelter, but I deferred it until the following Sunday. That first Sunday had already been packed with plenty of stories. By 2:00, I had put in an intense four hours of work, and I had learned a lot about my new town in the process. He paid me $40 and sent me “home” with a sandwich since I’d missed lunch at the shelter.

  Smelly and dirty, I walked a mile to the other side of the downtown peninsula, through Marion Square, to the library. This would become tradition. For the next two months while I was living at the shelter, rarely would a day go by that I didn’t pay a visit to the library. It would become my connection to the rest of the world. I recognized early on that everyone belongs there. For a moment lower, middle, and upper classes all blend into the same intellectual melting pot. Whether surfing the Internet or perusing the bookshelves, everyone can find something to do at the library.

  On that particular Sunday, Easy E had solicited the help of one of the librarians to find a collection of books on drug addiction. Through some course of philosophical realization, he had convinced himself that the best route for him to take in discharging his drug habit was just to quit. I certainly wasn’t one to protest, although I knew that Crisis Ministries had programs in place that seemed a heck of a lot more efficient than quitting cold turkey. But that wasn’t my business. What was my business was that he had been invited to a mass baptism around the corner that was serving hamburgers and hot dogs. And best of all, he was encouraged to invite his friends.