The Girl's Guide to Homelessness

by Brianna Karp

  He repeated the You’re right, I know you’re right mantra over and over.

  “I swear I love you and want to marry you. I know that I’m making all these stupid, bungling decisions because I’m off my meds. You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t make any more rash decisions until I’m back on them.”

  “So don’t. Go home and do the right thing. The smart thing. And take this.” I drew my engagement ring off my finger, clenching it in my palm sadly before handing it to him. “Put it back on my finger once you’ve proven that you can keep a promise.”

  “You should hold onto this.”

  “No, I trust you with it. Earn my trust, please.”

  He pocketed the ring.

  “I will.”

  I had enough money to last me through New Year’s Eve. After that, I had nothing, not even enough for bus fare to take me back to the airport in a couple of weeks. I’d brought only enough to pay for three weeks of meals while on vacation, not hotel fare, because I had planned to stay with Matt the entire time.

  “You know, kind of like I put you up for free for months on end in California?” I reminded him. Now the entirety of my food money had been repurposed to put me up at the Dunedin Guest House. “Was it really all that unreasonable to assume I’d be staying with you for a couple of weeks here in Scotland?” I figured at this point, a smidge of extra guilt-mongering couldn’t possibly do any more damage than had already been done.

  “No, of course not. I’ll have her out by then, I should think.” He would come back to the Dunedin and get me once she was out. He should get his benefits check in the mail the next day. He would come get me and take care of me, he promised. He loved me.

  “I love you, too. Please, please be strong for us. I know this might be a lot to ask of you right now, in your frame of mind. I know you love your daughter and you’re out of your mind with worry. But please be strong. And hurry back. We have a lot of important things to talk over. I keep trying to get you to sit down with me, but it seems like I only see you for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, and then you’re running back to the flat. Be strong, do it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid, and hurry back.”

  “I will. Do me a favor, though. It’s going to be hard enough to force her to listen. I don’t want to rub it in her face. I’ll come get you at the Dunedin once I get her and her mother to leave. Please don’t come knocking at the door. It’ll only make her angrier and more irrational, and she’ll get more stubborn. I’ll be back at the Dunedin within the next couple of days.”

  “OK.”

  “If something goes wrong, and for whatever reason I’m not able to get rid of her that quickly, there’s a train station half a mile up the street, on the outskirts of town. If you have to check out of the Dunedin on New Year’s, and I haven’t gotten here yet, go wait for me there. I’ll come and get you. There’s no heater or anything, but there’s a raised roof that can provide you with some shelter from the snow.”

  “Do you seriously not see the irony, as a homeless activist, in telling your fiancée that she may have to go wait out in the freezing cold for you?”

  “Yes, I do, and I’m sorry. Don’t worry, though. I don’t think it’ll be necessary, but if it is, I’ll find a way to come and get you as quickly as possible. You won’t have to wait there for long.”

  My mind flashed back to Dennis, to every man who had ever hurt, lied to and abandoned me. The darkest suspicion I ever could have imagined clouded my thoughts.

  “Matt…you’d never…you’d never just disappear and leave me here, would you? You will come and get me, right? You couldn’t chicken out and abandon me, could you?”

  He looked wounded and horrified.

  “No! I could never do that. That’s not possible. I don’t have it in me to do something so cruel.” You’ve done a lot of things lately that you said you could never do, I thought. But I chose to believe him, because, after all, what option did I have? I was at every possible disadvantage here. And I also loved him and wanted to believe that, as fucked up as he was in the head right now, he wasn’t evil or anything. Screwing up—making a few mistakes—was a world apart from intentionally putting someone’s life at risk.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. It was a ridiculous question, I guess. I’m just scared, is all. I didn’t mean to insinuate that you’d ever purposely be cruel. How should I contact you? My cell phone isn’t working here. I’ve already tried it.”

  “Email me. Keep me updated. Maybe in the next day or so my SIM card will arrive, or I can go to the library. They’re reopening before New Year’s, I think.”

  He hurried up the snow-covered street, and I went back to the Dunedin Guest House, and forked over the last of my funds, until the book advance came through, whenever that was. It would be enough for a few more days, but he had promised to take care of me.

  I trusted him.

  Christine and Keith Best owned the Dunedin Guest House. They were two kindly souls from Leeds, England. He had worked for the government for many years and when they retired, they decided to pursue their dream of owning an inn. They soon realized that I had no money left, and was living off the Bourbon cookies they placed in my room every morning, so they began inviting me to dinner with them nightly. They were also hearty drinkers, and encouraged me to have another glass of wine, and another. I knew enough about pregnancy to know that a glass of wine or so was supposed to be OK, but much more than that could be dangerous. After three or four times saying, “No, thank you,” followed by their continued insistence, I would allow them to refill the glass and then offer to take my own plate into the kitchen as they spoke, taking the glass with me and quietly pouring the wine down the sink. I felt bad wasting their wine, but I felt worse turning them down for the fifth time. I didn’t want them to take it personally, as though I were refusing their hospitality.

  Keith was a Yorkshireman, so I privately associated him with the James Herriot books I’d loved as a kid, always imagining him in a tweed cap or something. He was very funny, social and loud. I am the complete opposite, but for some reason we really connected as friends. I filled the Bests in on some of my story, and they were fascinated, especially that I used to be one of “those crazy Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

  Keith had already introduced me to haggis (which was surprisingly tasty!), and now he had it in his head that he needed to make me blood pudding. Next morning at breakfast, in addition to the usual gut-busting, heaping platter of sausage, eggs, bacon, ham, stewed tomatoes, toast and cereal, lay five thick, black slices of…well, fried blood. Those Scots really know how to eat.

  I would eat the blood first, I decided. Get it over with quickly, and then all the remaining “normal” food would wash the taste from my mouth. Keith hovered over me, awaiting my reaction. I speared a blood slice with my fork and tentatively placed it on my tongue. It was heavy, crumbly, metallic-tasting…and, surprisingly, it didn’t taste too bad. I suppressed a shudder or two as I ate it, but only because I was working on disassociating myself from the concept, rather than the taste…like overcoming the mental block of eating brains or octopus or escargot or something. In junior high school, my Bangladeshi friend Sonia’s mother had served me lamb heart, a Bengali delicacy, without telling me beforehand, and although it was delicious, once I found out what I’d consumed, from then on I was always a tad suspicious and careful to ask what I was being served up front. Culinary surprises aren’t my thing.

  I was so proud when I’d finished my blood pudding. Though I far preferred the taste of haggis, what was more important was that I’d done it. It felt like breaking the last Witness taboo. I couldn’t wait to tell Matt. I was sure that when we saw each other again, he’d be superproud, too. If I could eat clearly labeled blood of my own free will, then I could overcome anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  New Year’s Eve came, and no Matt. By about 7:00 p.m., I’d given up waiting. It was the train station for me. It was cold and snowing out, but I figured it wouldn’t be too
bad to handle if I layered up on clothing. I couldn’t bring the trunk along with me to the station, so I began to lug it up the street toward his flat. I knew I couldn’t knock on Matt’s door, but I could leave it outside. They were his presents, after all. Before leaving, I emailed him to let him know why I had to leave it for him. I wasn’t sure if, in his frame of mind, he’d make the connection. I also reminded him that I’d be at the train station, as per his instructions.

  It took me a half hour just to reach the end of the street. The trunk was incredibly heavy and awkward. Some young boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, stopped and asked me if I needed a hand. I gratefully accepted, and they each grabbed an end and walked it the next half mile to Matt’s flat, where I dragged it up the stairs and dropped it outside his door, slinking away quietly and quickly. The lights were out and there was no sound from the inside. I assumed that since he hadn’t shown up, he was still trying to shake Lori and her mother, so I didn’t want to disturb them. I didn’t want to put extra pressure on him and make it harder for him to do what he had to do. I was warm and even sweating a bit from all the walking and lugging of the trunk, which reassured me that with a few extra layers of jackets, I wouldn’t be too cold at the train station.

  I returned to the Dunedin and gathered up my things. The Bests were going to a New Year’s Eve party at Huntly Castle up the street and asked, with some concern, if I’d be OK.

  “Oh, yes. Matt said he’d meet me at the train station, so I’m off to wait for him,” I said cheerily. “Thank you again, so much, for your hospitality!”

  I shook their hands and trudged up the road, over the bridge across Huntly River, and into the isolated train station. The ground was all freezing stone. I pulled out my ragged copy of Gone with the Wind and began to read. Despite my thick socks and hiking boots, within an hour my toes were completely numb, and the numbness was starting to creep up my legs. As it got colder, I unpacked the contents of my suitcase, adding another layer, and then another. Before long, I was wearing three pairs of jeans and six pairs of pajama pants, one on top of the other, and every shirt, sweatshirt and jacket in my suitcase, topped off with the shaggy blue coat. I looked like a swollen, roly-poly Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The layering distorted my size to the point where anybody looking at me would have thought I weighed 350 pounds. But there was nobody around to see.

  The hours dragged by and I tried to sleep, stretching myself out on the stone and using my suitcase and purse as pillows. But despite the layering, I was soon shivering again. It started snowing lightly, but soon turned into a full-fledged snowstorm. The whirls of white outside were beautiful, but menacing. Eventually, of course, I had to pee. It was early in the morning, and there would be no local restaurants or bars open. Full of shame, I peeled off all my bottom layers except for the last pair of jeans, and climbed down onto the railroad tracks, squatting to piss, a dark yellow stream against the whiteness. My face burned, and I hoped there was no CCTV recording me. Crouching to pee with your jeans half on was incredibly awkward, and I couldn’t avoid getting some on my pants. Fuck.

  I hoisted myself back up the side of the railroad tracks, my hands freezing from the snow. Gloves were the only thing I hadn’t thought to pack. I hadn’t counted on spending the night in a snowstorm. How silly of me. I wadded the jeans up and threw them into a nearby trash can, then ran bare-bottomed back into the station, pulling all the remaining pants back on as fast as I could. One less layer of clothing, but at least the running and the embarrassment forced a little blood through my body, and I felt warmer for just under an hour. I tried to sleep again, drifting in and out of consciousness, and occasionally standing to walk briskly in circles, pulling my sleeves over my hands and crossing my arms, hiding my fingers in my armpits.

  Day came and went. Occasionally, I heard people nearby, walking their dogs or taking a lovers’ stroll on New Year’s Day. I pulled myself into as small a ball as I could in the corner of the station. Once or twice, I heard footsteps stop, and quiet murmurs, as though a passerby were staring at me, but then the footsteps would fade as they moved on. Matt never came, although I was still convinced he would. Darkness fell again, and the snow continued unabated. I had stopped shivering, and was beginning to feel only numbness and a kind of hazy peace. I didn’t realize at the time that I was entering the intermediate stages of hypothermia. I was just glad not to be shaking violently anymore. Hallucinations set in, and I spent hours alternately sleeping and speaking to voices that weren’t really there, or huddling in the corner terrified, certain that an angry mob was stalking me with torches and pitchforks, then falling back to sleep.

  At some point, I came around in a daze. The wind was cutting through my clothes to the bone, whipping snow into the station’s shelter. It occurred to me, through my brain fog, that perhaps it was a bad strategy to remain down here, close to the river. Everything was colder by bodies of water, right? Thickly, I staggered to my feet and gathered up my suitcase and purse. The suitcase was nearly empty now—I was still wearing all the clothing I had—but my arms felt heavy and dead, and it was a struggle to lift anything.

  I would head up to the town square, I decided. There was a bus stop there. That would provide shelter, and perhaps it would be warmer at higher ground.

  It took nearly an hour to reach the town square. Every footstep felt like the most tremendous effort. I just wanted to sleep….

  Finally, I reached the bus shelter and collapsed onto the bench, passing out within minutes. It did feel warmer here, although that may also have been from the exertion of my long trudge upwards from the train station. I don’t know how long I was unconscious before I awoke to a man, maybe in his late thirties, patting my shoulder.

  “Miss? MISS? Are you all right?”

  I opened my eyes very slowly. My eyelids hurt. Leave me alone. Can’t you tell I want to sleep?

  “I’m…fine. Really.”

  “Are you sure? Should I call someone? I don’t feel right just leaving you here. Do you have anywhere to sleep? It’s freezing out. You shouldn’t be trying to sleep out here. You could get yourself killed.”

  “Someone will come to get me…I’ll be OK.”

  He protested a little more, but finally left. I went back to sleep. Sleep? Die? I almost don’t care anymore. Sleep is warm, or at least not cold.

  I was jolted awake again by a female police officer shining a flashlight at me. Again, I tried to tell her that I would be OK, but she wasn’t having any of it. Damn, that man called the police, I surmised. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark and I would later learn that the police had found me around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., early in the morning on January 2.

  Before I knew it, the woman bundled me into a police car with her partner. He drove us back to the town police station, where I was offered hot chocolate and a blanket. They wanted to know why I was sleeping outside in the snow. They couldn’t leave me there. I needed to tell them who did this to me, and they would find a place for me to stay for the night.

  I started to cry. I tried to explain the situation to them, but I could tell that they didn’t understand, or at least I thought they didn’t. They exchanged glances.

  They think I’m an abused woman. They think this is a domestic abuse case. They’re going to treat him like an abusive boyfriend. They think I’m spouting off all the typical abuse victim BS.

  “You stay here with my partner,” the female officer said. “I’m going over there to his flat. Don’t worry, we’re not going to arrest him or anything. I’m just going to talk to both of them. What they’ve done to you is not all right, not under any circumstances.”

  The woman left, and I cried harder. It was all my fault. He’d never love me again. What if they took away Kelsey because they thought he wasn’t a fit parent? I began to shiver uncontrollably as I warmed, and the hypothermia slowly wore off.

  Her partner leaned over and put his hands on my shoulders.

  “I want y
ou to know something. I’ve never met this Matt Barnes of yours. But I can tell you right now, he is scum. He is the biggest asshole I’ve ever heard of, and you deserve much better. I’ve never heard of anyone doing something so disgusting to his fiancée.” I tried to smile at him through my tears, but I was paralyzed with fear. Once they were done speaking with Matt, he’d hate me. He’d never speak to me again. He’d think that I’d gone to the police myself. I was stuck here with no money, no phone, no way to get back home for weeks, and Matt would never trust me again, certainly not enough to ask Lori to leave and put me up in the flat.

  The female officer returned quickly. In Huntly, everything was a two-minute drive away or less.

  “There’s nobody at that flat. From what we can tell, nobody’s been there for days. There’s a suitcase outside, a big, blue metal trunk. Is that yours?”

  “Yes. It’s got our Christmas presents in it. It was too heavy and awkward to take to the train station.”

  “It’s outside still, covered in snow. There are no footprints on the stairs, nothing. When was the last time you saw him, again?”

  “Monday. A few days ago.”

  “I’d say nobody’s been there for several days. That flat’s vacant. He must have left right after you saw him.”

  My mind exploded. I couldn’t accept this. There was no way that Matt had told me he loved me and wanted to marry me, and then turned around and fled the city immediately afterwards. There must be some mistake.

  “We’ve called the Dunedin, and they’ve said to bring you back. They’re going to keep you there on the honor system until you can pay them. They trust you. Get your suitcase.”

  I couldn’t believe the kindness of the Bests. Christine answered the door and fussed over me, loading me up with extra blankets and instructing me to put my clothes, wet from the snow, over the radiator to dry. I was tucked into bed with extra cookies in my basket.