Farewell

The craziness had finally ended. Today could not possibly be as bad as yesterday was. I mean, some guy stole books from the library yesterday and made a bonfire with them. This was not right. Its true that I’ve never been to the library, but what if I would have wanted to? This punk stole my books; he stole my opportunity. This pisses me off. Why can't people just stay in their lane? He could have... he could have checked out a book on the history of organic chemistry and kept it as long as he wanted. Yea. And, he could have taken all his anger out on that book. But no. He had to burn the whole freaking library. That punk. If I ever catch him, ill kill him. No, probably not. I'll just give him a real dirty look, that'll do it. I think I should probably get some sleep.

I was in the middle of that very last dream of the night; it’s the one you have right before waking; the one that you wish you could have finished, and then I heard it. It was a siren. This was rare. It couldn't have been the fire department, they don't come to this side of town for anything before 10 am; and, it couldn't have been the police, we don't have any. This was odd. When you hear a siren on this side of town you go to check it out. I hopped out of bed and began to follow the sound. It was leading me to the library. I started to move faster. There was already a crowd when I arrived. I bullied my way to the front of the crowd. Some fool had set the library ablaze. This was upsetting, but it was not something that I was going to watch. I had better things to do. As I started to walk to the diner I dropped my money. I had no wallet and no pockets so I carried my life's earnings of $8 in my hand everyday. I had to get it. As I got on my knees to pick it up I was able to get a glimpse inside the library. I saw... I saw Edith the librarian and she was trapped. Just as I moved to help her the front door collapsed. There was no way in. I was once again seemingly powerless. What was there to do?

"Lord, I pray that you rest her soul. I trust that you have a plan for all of us and it was her time to be with you, her father. I also pray that you bless the one who did this. Lord, forgive him for he knows not what he did. Amen".

The Week Hell Froze

My world seemed to be going to hell; well, not my world. My world was fine. Their world was the one that was blowing up. Earlier this week some guy stole books from the public library and then started a fire and sung around them. He was weird. His antics did not surprise me a bit. I can spot a weirdo a mile away. I didn't not think that others would follow him though. My buddy Shayn told me that he saw some women out there with him. This is what was surprising, that this guy could make others follow in his foolish actions. I guess the devil grabbed them all. To make matters worst, there was a bus full of asian there. Im still befuddled with how the hell a bus full of asian found there way to the poor side of town. Whatever they were looking for, they didn't find it. All they found was a freak show.

This was merely our action for monday, it got worst. On friday, the Muslim church caught on fire. The fire marshal declared that the cause was lightning. I did not believe that. The fire marshal's brother was killed in 9/11. He was always chippy towards the muslims, at least since then. So, when the lightning storm came it was the perfect opportunity for him to set there church a blaze. I mean, it does not take the fire department 12 hours to get to a fire; that just does not happen. Well thats what I believe. But what I believe doesn't matter. It never does.

Sunny Days Dirty Clothes

It was lunch and I had not noticed that my jacket, or my sweater, or even my flannel shirt were all unneeded. It was january, but it reminded me of early spring back home. I missed back home. I missed my family and my friends. Here I felt as if I was the only regular person. These other people, they were not like me; they were strange. They seemed to like being poor, to except it. This was not normal.

Here I had two true friends, Annai and Shayn. They were both odd at times but I liked them. They seemed to be most like me. Today when I woke up I hooped with Shayn. I had overdressed so I carelessly laid my clothes in the mud. This would come back to haunt me. I had little money so paying to wash my clothes was not an option this week. I needed to catch a break, but it seemed as if I had never caught one in my life, so why would I expect one. It was worth a try.

"Annai, could you help out?"
"Yea... I got you O"

One Man, No Vote

I woke today to the same thing that had disrupted my rest for the past week. The fair. This started to agitate me, but what could I do? For years I thought that America was a country run by the people. I mean, thats what they tell you to think. And for 25 years that was what I thought. Being a squatter tends to change your mind about a lot of things. I was supposed to be the one with the power to "move the country", but I could barely feed myself on a consistent basis. How was I empowered?

As I began my day, I quickly realized that it was election season. There were people all over OUR side of town asking for votes for people who we would never see. Matter of fact, we would probably never see an effect of anything they ever did. There was no point in voting. We were not rich; we couldn't control our own future, ours was fate. We were destined to be the poor.

Lost Days

It hadn’t been sunny for a week and the rain had begun to pattern. Anyone with a brain was able to predict what the days whether would be. Orgeron had dressed as if he expected rain. It never did. It was Saturday; Orgeron decided to spend the day out. He had read that a small traveling fair would be visiting. He could remember having an internal argument at one time between the difference between a fair and a carnival. He decided that carnival was more of an urban thing, but if he called it a fair he could at least pretend that he was no longer confined to his urban incarceration. On his way to the fair Orgeron saw his good friend Shayn. Shayn appeared distressed so Orgeron decided to avoid eye contact and walked past him briskly. His tactics of avoidance had failed, Shayn called out to him. “O, long time no see. Where you headed”. “To get lunch” Orgeron responded. “Mind if I join” said Shayn. “Nope” was the response. Another day was lost.

Breakfast

It was another typical day. Orgeron awoke, bundled his belonging and walked to the bus stop still half asleep. One never likes to wake at four they only learned to accept and live with it. Five minutes passed and he began to think. Busses were supposed to visit every stop once every fifteen minutes; buses only came once every couple of hours here. How did he end up here? Was the hurricane to blame? He often contemplated this during idle moments. Suddenly he realized it was presidents day, he didn’t have to go to work. What to do on a holiday was always quite puzzling for Orgeron for national holiday were the only days that he didn’t work. He decided to go to Jorri Rae’s and have a nice breakfast. As the waiter was taking his order he forgot that he couldn’t afford to order what he wanted. He promptly changed his order from eggs benedict and lemonade to a hard-boiled egg and water with two lemon wedges. While he ate his breakfast he couldn’t help but to notice the other people in the diner, for there were only four other people. There was a man in a blood stained shirt. He seemed familiar. Maybe he had seen him at a church service. No, it wasn’t that; very little seemed sanctimonious about this man. Orgeron remember; it was the man he had almost bought a ham from. He looked pissed off. It was an odd anger, only the anger that a man could have because he had one to many hams on his hands. As he began to eat he couldn’t help but to stare at a huge fat guy; he looked as if he hadn’t been in the sunlight for years. Today wasn’t going to help that, for it was cloudy. On top of that it had begun to snow, or was it sleet. Either way it was far from the long sunny days he was accustom to. Orgeron finished his breakfast and promptly went home. This was no day to be out. He unrolled his belongings and began to sleep. At least something good came out of this day; maybe it wasn’t a typical day.

America

It was not the first time this had happened. Coming home only to find that home was no longer that, had happened far too many times to trouble him. This was merely another pebble on the path in which he walked. He suspected this would happen for quite some time now, daily he searched for what would inevitably become temporary housing. He had decided on an uninhabited building, at least here he would be able to save enough to move to another place. He gathered his one bag and his crimson pillow and began to walk. He thought that this building sat in a peculiar place, between some soup kitchen and a liquor store. He had read something during his schooling about locations of buildings. It was something about the government needs poor people to never thrive, but to survive. That it was not necessary but mandatory for buildings like these to be placed near each other in hopes that the poor would be kept close to there last breath while pit pocketing them of there money. He no longer cared about that though, for he was living in the mist of the very statistics he once studied. Now, his only care was to break the detrimental cycle in which he stumbled upon. While walking he question was this truly America, home of the free, or was this America, home of the thieves. This question was one that would have to wait for he had arrived upon his liquor store soup kitchen sandwich. He entered his new home but before he feel asleep his watch alarm sounded. It was time for work.