Believe Like a Child (22 page)
B
y Halloween, the weather had turned much colder. The nights, especially, were becoming harder to get through. Alessa hated being so cold in winter. The group had even spent a couple of nights in a local church, when it rained. And as they made do with public restrooms, washing up as best they could, Alessa longed for a hot shower, real soap and shampoo, toilet paper, flushing toilets and clean clothes that weren’t tattered beyond repair. These were the necessities she missed most in her state of homelessness.
On Halloween, Lucy begged Alessa to take her trick or treating. Her pleading finally succeeded in making the group of teens cave in.
“But what will I wear for a costume?” Lucy asked.
One of the boys suggested she could go as a bum. They could put mud on her face to give her an authentic look. Lucy was really excited by the idea, though secretly, she would rather have been a princess.
“Besides,” one of the girls added, “at least we can all share the candy.”
That night, Alessa, Lucy and one of the older boys headed out to a neighborhood in South Philly. As they went from house to house, families gushed over how cute Lucy was. And the little girl certainly was adorable, with her large blue eyes and curly blonde hair that was so pale it almost verged on white. What didn’t strike the families they visited was that Lucy wasn’t wearing a costume at all. She was in regular clothes, with just a little smudge of dirt on her face to give her the urchin look.
Alessa wished it were Halloween every day, because people were treating them like normal human beings for a change. On other days, they were considered objects of dismal pity. Their appearance alone advertised their homelessness in unequivocal terms. Alessa had noticed how women would sometimes take their children by the hand and lead them away from her, when she was out with Lucy. She had come to conclude that the worst thing about being homeless was the reaction of other people. They all wore the same expression of relief that they weren’t in her shoes.
When they returned from trick or treating, all the teens gathered around Lucy as she sorted through her candy. She told them they could have whatever they wanted and they each took their turn, picking candy and thanking the child for sharing her goodies. All of them loved her and knew how hard being homeless was on her. It was just as well that she was still too young to really understand the hopelessness of their lives.
By mid-November, sleeping outdoors was no longer feasible. None of the group could stand the bitter cold anymore and this was promising to be an unusually severe winter. They gathered by the fire, one night, and decided they would all beg on the streets during the following week to earn enough money to buy train tickets to Florida. Alessa agreed to help all she could, but had no intention of moving to Florida herself. She had also decided she would keep Lucy with her and was determined to find a way to make enough money that would enable her to rent a room for the duration of winter. She still had 170 dollars left over from the money she had earned as a lap dancer, holding onto it as if it were the most sacred thing in the world. She had spent it sparingly on essentials like tampons and things that Lucy needed, at times. By the end of the next week—Thanksgiving week—the teens had begged and stolen enough money to pay for one-way tickets to Florida.
They were quite upset when Alessa told them that she and Lucy were staying back in Philadelphia. They had lived together as a family for so many months, they couldn’t imagine leaving any member behind. Alessa convinced them that she and Lucy would find a shelter in the city. The oldest of the boys handed her 50 dollars. It was the cash equivalent of part of the price of two train tickets that Alessa and Lucy would no longer have any use for. Alessa thanked them all for their support and generosity. Two days later, the group departed, leaving blankets and pillows behind for the two girls to share, until they could find a shelter.
Alessa and Lucy spent their first night alone, wrapped in all the blankets that had been left behind, but they were so worn and thin with use, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The next morning, Alessa packed the little clothing they had into her duffle bag and told Lucy they were going to find somewhere else to stay. Not knowing where to go, she headed into the heart of Center City, with the child in tow.
I
n search of a short-term shelter for the homeless, Alessa and Lucy headed down Market Street. While the child chattered away, believing this journey into the unknown to be an exciting adventure, Alessa was overwhelmed by doubt. With a deeper insight into the kind of uncertainty that was in store for them, she was terrified, even as she feigned enthusiasm. She didn’t know where to go or whom to turn to for help. They spent the day begging for spare change. When dusk descended, Alessa led Lucy to a local church where she knew they might be able to get beds for the night.
They stood in line for three hours with the rest of the crowd, until the church doors opened. The homeless people waiting along with them were a jumble of old and young, men and women, and included almost every nationality under the sun. That night, they slept in cots. The room was spacious, reminding Alessa of her high-school gym, and accommodated 200 cots, each equipped with sheets and a wool blanket. After Alessa and Lucy had claimed their cots, they made their way to the food line, where they were given beef stew, string beans and bread. Both were so delighted to have a hot meal in a heated place that they didn’t notice how soggy and tasteless the stew was. After their meal, they found the ladies’ room and joined the other homeless women and children in cleaning themselves at the sinks, showers being an unavailable luxury in an emergency shelter.
When they returned to their cots, their coats were missing. All that remained were the old, tattered tee shirts they had left, along with the coats, on each cot to stake their claim. Alessa panicked. Taking Lucy by the hand, she went off to find one of the volunteers.
The tall, thin, dark-eyed woman with a long face who listened to their complaint said, “Oh my! I’m so sorry to hear you lost your coats. This often happens with so many of you in need. You should never leave your coats or anything of value unattended. We have a stock of extra clothing for emergencies. Let me check and see what we can find for you.”
The two of them headed back to their cots. Alessa could not forgive herself for being stupid enough to leave their coats unattended. Having spent months on the streets, she should have known it would happen. While most homeless people were kind, there were others who were cruel and would do anything at all to meet their needs. In the world of the homeless, you kept an eye on your belongings at all times. Alessa hoped the volunteer would be able to find them decent coats, before they left the church in the morning.
A couple of hours later, the woman appeared carrying two coats. Alessa’s heart sank when she realized they were men’s coats. They were so large she knew the cold air would blow right through them. But they had little choice. They would have to make do with them. Alessa took the coats from the woman and thanked her politely.
The two of them slept that night with their coats on, fearful that these too would be stolen if they weren’t careful. The night was long and unsettling, filled with the noise of children crying, adults snoring and people yelling out in their sleep.
In the morning, Alessa and Lucy carried all of their belongings with them, as they stood in line to get breakfast. They had to be out of the shelter by ten a.m. and couldn’t go back in, until it opened again at five p.m.
They spent the day wandering around the city. They begged for money and huddled together in doorways of buildings until they were chased away. They spent two dollars of their day’s earnings on cups of hot chocolate at McDonald’s. They stayed inside the restaurant for as long as they could, each sipping her cup of gold as slowly as possible without arousing suspicion.
Back out on the street, the sky was cloudy. The wind whipped through the gaps between large buildings, chilling them to the bone. That afternoon, on their way back to the shelter, they paused outside a pizzeria long enough to look in through the window and observe people eating and chatting and laughing.
Alessa hugged Lucy close, trying to keep the wind from ripping the flesh off her bones. A couple came out of the pizzeria and glanced over at them. The man and the woman appeared to be in their late twenties. They walked past the girls, but stopped abruptly at a point just a few feet beyond. The woman turned back and approached Alessa and Lucy. In her hands was a pizza box containing the slices left over from their dinner. She handed it to Alessa and said, “You know, we’ve already eaten and there were some slices we couldn’t finish. Would you like them?”
“Yes, we would like them,” Alessa replied, embarrassed, taking the box from the woman. “Thank you.”
The two girls sat on the cold pavement, managing to forget everything for the ten minutes it took them to gobble down the slices and appease their hunger. Then they made their way back to the church by two p.m. to stand in line for the next three hours so they could get a cot again that night. When they were allowed inside, Alessa told Lucy to go get their food while she stayed with their belongings. She didn’t want to risk being robbed again. By the time Lucy came back, Alessa had seen enough of her surroundings to decide they would have to find another place to stay.
When she told Lucy that they couldn’t stay at the shelter anymore, she asked, “Why? What’s wrong with this place?”
It wasn’t safe there, is all Alessa had told her. She chose not to divulge the details of the scene she had just witnessed inside the church while Lucy was getting their dinner. One homeless man had just robbed another of his gloves by threatening him with a knife. Alessa couldn’t get the scene out of her mind and barely slept that night, worried for Lucy’s safety.
When day broke, Alessa realized they would have to find another group of teens they could bond with; it was the only way to remain safe, when homeless.
The two of them made their way into West Philly. Alessa had heard of the several abandoned houses there, where homeless people were squatting for the winter. She banked on the hope that they would find a compatible group to settle in with.
D
uring their explorations, the girls came across several boarded-up properties in a rundown West Philly neighborhood. As dusk fell, Alessa picked the house that had the greatest number of boards still covering the windows. The front of the house was overgrown with wild ivy and the steps to the porch were blocked by overgrown bushes. The paint on the porch had flaked and the white stucco was covered with grime and graffiti. On the small lawn lay a ripped mattress, with a hole burned into the center. A plank of plywood hung in place of the front door to deter intruders. The girls walked around to the back of the property and entered through the back door, where the plywood had been pulled down and was leaning up against the doorway to prevent the cold air from blowing through. Alessa pulled the plywood over, allowing Lucy to slip in, and quickly followed her.
The girls found themselves in a kitchen. The wall cabinets had been stripped of their doors and a rusted sink stood in one corner. As Alessa and Lucy picked their way carefully through the debris on the floor, they noticed that the walls, once plaster, were stripped down to expose the wood support structure. When they reached the living area, they heard voices floating down from upstairs. But before they could approach the staircase and go up to investigate, the girls’ attention was drawn to several homeless people lying here and there on the cold floor. Most of them were covered with blankets so you could barely tell there was anyone underneath. The two kept walking until they had reached the foot of the stairs. Lucy hesitated, clinging to Alessa’s side. Just then, a man came down the stairs, drinking a quart of beer.
“Get the fuck outta the way, will ya?” was all he said, pushing past them.
The girls climbed to the second floor. Upstairs, there were more people, most of them partying, some of them openly shooting drugs. Alessa pretended she belonged there. They looked into each of the bedrooms, trying to find an empty one; they were let down, but not really surprised, to find none. Finally, they settled on the bedroom with the least number of people inside and walked in. The other homeless teens in the room, along with the twenty something’s, sized them up shrewdly. Alessa quickly moved Lucy into a corner of the room and told her to sit down.
Alessa sat shielding the child and buried their measly belongings in her lap. It was cold in the house, but within its walls, they were protected from the harsh wind. Lucy was asleep in minutes, but Alessa was too on edge to relax. No one had uttered a word to them since they arrived. She sensed they were not welcome.
About half an hour later, a young black woman approached Alessa. “What the fuck you doing here with that kid?” she barked. “This here is our room and you’re sleeping in our spot.”
Surprised by the intensity of the attack, Alessa said, “Listen, my kid here needs to sleep. Just let us stay here tonight and tomorrow, we’ll find another spot that doesn’t belong to you, okay?”
She wanted to let Lucy sleep on, but the other girl took exception to her response and snarled, “I told you, bitch—move your fucking ass out of my spot! This ain’t your fucking house! You just got here. So take your shit and your brat there and move your ass before you get hurt!”
Unwilling to further endanger Lucy and herself, Alessa rose to her feet, snatched up her duffle bag with one hand and cradled Lucy in her other arm. She led her over to the opposite corner and made her lie down again. Alessa looked around the room, waiting for someone else to object. But no one seemed to notice them at all, except for the young woman who had just threatened her.
Alessa managed to catch catnaps throughout the night, too wary of her new surroundings to let down her guard.
In the morning, it was Lucy who woke up first. Her stirrings startled Alessa awake and instinctively, she checked to see if the child was all right.
Lucy was smiling at her. “Good morning,” she said brightly, “I’m hungry.”
Alessa stretched. “Me too. Let’s go out and get something to eat.”
She looked over at the young woman who’d given her a hard time the night before. Now she lay in the opposite corner, clinging to her shopping bags filled with her belongings. The morning light left Alessa with no illusions about the sordidness of her surroundings. There was trash everywhere. Graffiti scrawled across the walls. In the bedroom where they’d slept, remnants of old wallpaper—red, with gold velvet flowers—recalled a grander, long-forgotten past.
The girls went downstairs, only to find more people scattered everywhere. Some of the homeless slept huddled in small groups. Two people, obviously suffering from various degrees of mental illness, moved clumsily, talking incessantly to themselves. Alessa prayed that one of the smaller groups would accept her and Lucy into their fold.
Stepping out of the house, she told Lucy that they would have to find food, just as they had when they lived under the bridge. She explained that if they brought food in, they would, perhaps, be allowed to join one of the small groups they had seen as they left the house. Lucy approved of the idea and promised Alessa she would put on her best little ‘poor-girl’ face, the way Sara had taught her to, to make people feel sorry for her and give her food and money. The two girls worked the streets for nearly six hours. When they were done, they had enough food to fill a grocery bag.
By the time they returned to the house peppered with squatters, it was early evening and a party was in full swing. Alessa and Lucy went straight up to the spot where they had slept the night before. The young black woman was there now. There was a guy with her and they were smoking pot.
The moment the black girl saw them walk in, she yelled out, “There’s the bitches I was telling you about! Got some fuckin’ nerve, thinkin’ they gonna come in here and try to take over
my
spot!”
Alessa walked over to her and said, “I’m sorry about last night. We didn’t know that was your spot. I promise we won’t do that again. I’m Alessa and this is Lucy.”
The black girl scowled at them.
Alessa persisted. “What are your names?”
The guy spoke up first. “I’m Rock and this is Crystal.”
Crystal shouted, “Don’t be telling people my name, motherfucker! I can speak for myself!”
Alessa took a step closer. “Well, nice to meet you,” she said pleasantly. “Lucy and I are going to sleep over in that corner. Is that okay?”
“This ain’t no place for a kid,” Crystal blurted out. “We party up in here. Maybe you should find somewhere else to stay.”
Lucy spoke up. “I’m not afraid,” she said bravely. “Alessa and I have been on the streets for a long time. We know how to take care of each other.”
Crystal dismissed them with a wave of her hand and looked away, but a smile trembled at the corners of her mouth at the child’s tenacity.