INTRODUCTION#
July 24 — Setting Up
I am really, really frustrated with the poor attitudes that seem to have swept over my peer group. Frustrated with hearing “I don’t have” rather than “Let’s see what I can do with what I do have.”
Here’s my premise:
I am going to start almost literally from scratch with one 8′ × 10′ tarp, a sleeping bag, an empty gym bag, $25, and the clothes on my back. Via train, I will be dropped at a random place somewhere in the southeastern United States outside of my home state of North Carolina. I have 365 days to become free of the realities of homelessness and become a “regular” member of society. After one year, for my project to be considered successful, I have to possess an operable automobile, live in a furnished apartment (alone or with a roommate), have $2,500 in cash, and, most importantly, I have to be in a position in which I can continue to improve my circumstances by either going to school or starting my own business.
There are a few ground rules that I need to establish in an effort to keep some critics at bay. On paper, my previous life doesn’t exist for this one year. I cannot use any of my previous contacts, my college education, or my credit history. For the sake of this project, I have a high school diploma, and I will have recently moved to my new town. Additionally, I cannot beg for money or use services that others are not at liberty to use.
Aside from illegally sleeping in a park or under a bridge, I am free to do whatever I need to do within the confines of the law in order to accomplish my goal.
Mine is the story of rags-to-fancier-rags. I’m not an extraordinary person performing extraordinary feats. I don’t have some special talent that I can use to “wow” prospective employers. I’m average. My story is very basic—simple. My story is about the attitude of success. My goal is to better my lot and to provide a stepping-stone over the next 365 days for everything else I want to accomplish in my life. I aim to find out if the American Dream is still alive, or if it has, in fact, been drowned out by the greed of the upper class coupled with the apathy of the lower class.
WELCOME TO CRISIS MINISTRIES#
Tuesday, July 25
A guy asked if I had any spare change. “No, sorry,” I said. I thought about retaliating with, “Do you have some for me? Cuz, uh, I’m actually running a little short myself.” But, of course, I didn’t. I had always accepted and even appreciated the vagrants that strung a guitar or blew on a saxophone or showcased some other talent at the park or at a subway stop underground, but I had never had any respect for the laziness of beggars.
Sarge continued his spiel, detailing the three different types of people I would find in the shelter, the ABCs: the mentally afflicted, the bums, and the victims of circumstance.
He went on to discuss a variety of issues that were not to be disregarded carelessly by an outsider like myself.
– Lesson 1: Don’t use the blankets from the floor; you’ll get scabies.
– Lesson 2: Keep your valuable belongings with you at all times. Things have a way of disappearing around here.
– Lesson 3: Some of the guys might bother you or try to hit on you; ignore them and walk away.
– Lesson 4: Don’t go to work for the day-labor agencies; you’ll get screwed. Go to the employment agency on Lockwood and get a real job.
There’s nothing harmonious about the chorus of a room full of men snoring in unison. My college roommate snored like a warthog choking on his tonsils, so you could say I was used to it, but ninety-plus roommates added a different dimension.
Sarge walked me through the dining area, which was also jam-packed with sleepers. Now I knew why there was always room for one more at Crisis Ministries: if there’s no room over here, then there’s probably room over there.
EASYLABOR#
Wednesday, July 26
Blue-collar, temporary labor agencies, as I was going to find out over the course of the next week, are the pit of the employment industry. One might assume that they are out to create a mutually beneficial joining of their clientele — the employee to the employer and vice versa—but that was not my experience at all. For unskilled labor, EasyLabor receives a set price from a patron—generally around $10 an hour per worker—and they in turn send the patron as many workers as they need. These can be for any variety of second-rate jobs, ranging from construction cleanup to landscape maintenance and washing windows to more skilled labor involving framing houses and masonry. And the work is not limited to organizations that happen to be short on labor for the time being. Anybody can order workers from the labor agency if they need help with monotonous chores around the house or heavy lifting or what ever.
In return, we (the workers) get a raw deal. We don’t receive anywhere close to $10 per hour. The average pay for unskilled jobs at EasyLabor is between $6 and $6.75 per hour, but after taxes and a one-dollar check pro cessing fee and this fee and that fee, workers usually walk away with $4.50 tops. Forget benefits or any other perks. The operation is advantageous to both the patron (they get rather inexpensive labor, and they don’t have to worry about insurance and other miscellaneous costs) and EasyLabor (they get a fat chunk of the action), but the worker—just as Sergeant Mendoza had suggested—gets screwed. The kicker is that there’s always a surplus of labor.
Big Bob was a very poor manager anyway. He would come out, bark orders, and then go back to the air-conditioned comforts of his truck. Nobody respected him. They would obey his instructions while he was around, but once he turned his back, they were right back to doing it their own way. Ironically enough, Big Bob had (by his own admission) earned the right to be lazy after years of his own hard work.
I knew that having somebody to hang with would not only make things easier, but it would also make my life more interesting outside of the confi nes of achieving my goals. Sharing the day’s endeavors and goals and dreams with a friend was more appealing to me than tallying my bankroll after dinner.
It was a great story, one I had been concocting for two days, and as I was going to find throughout my stay at the shelter, absolutely imperative to have. Everybody had a story. In fact, mine wasn’t even that impressive compared to many of the rest. It was our way of being accepted into the group. It gave us something to talk about, a way of relating to one another. It put us on the same playing field.
It’s always sweeter when you overcome adversity to achieve something than if you are handed your fate on that metaphorical silver platter.
Forget where we came from; we were more concerned with where we were going.
Dinner for my first night was spaghetti with meat sauce, bread sticks, and salad with Italian dressing. I learned to appreciate these simple dinners more than ham or meatloaf or chicken, since there was always an abundant supply. Meatloaf could run out quick, but more often than not I could keep going back for spaghetti until I was so full I had to roll to bed.
I had less money than when I started, but as the lights went out, a smile of gratification crept over my face. I knew at that moment, more than any other during my time in Charleston, that my wallet would fill up. I knew that I was going to succeed. Now more familiar with my surroundings, I knew what I had to do to make it happen. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had a plan, and now it was just a matter of putting my plan into action. And I couldn’t wait to start.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DOLLAR#
Thursday, July 27
Each guest would be assigned to a social worker that would help us to identify what exactly had gone wrong in our lives and what type of plan we needed in order to return to a self-sufficient lifestyle. We would set goals and meet with our caseworker on a regular basis—weekly or biweekly—to monitor our progress.
In the treatment room, she explained more about why everyone was required to take a TB test. I learned that the sometimes-fatal airborne disease tuberculosis has become more and more of a serious health risk since the 1980s, especially in enclosed settings that promote its spread, such as prisons, hospitals, and homeless shelters.
“If you can smell you today, then somebody else already smelled you yesterday.”
And on Friday, we could get up and either go to work, or we could sit out in the yard, insignificant to the rest of the world, and wait until noon when it was time for the volunteers to serve us lunch. But eventually we would all “get it”; whether it was that Friday or ten Fridays from then, eventually we would all wake up and realize that we were tired of the meaningless monotony of our lives, and that it was time for us to get going on living. Either that, or our allowed year at the shelter would run out, and we would be dismissed to the streets. Then, we would really get it.
BIG BABIES#
Saturday, July 29
If there was one thing that I liked about working for the temp agency, it was the anticipation and excitement that came each day with each separate job. Sure, the pay sucked, terribly, but every day was a different experience. One day I could be a construction worker, and the next I could be a landscaper or a baby-clothes hanger.
Any work was better than no work.
I had just met these guys, but I was learning that if there was one thing you couldn’t touch, it was the chemistry of four poverty-stricken workers standing up against abusive higher power.
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.
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.
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 the 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.
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.
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.
SUNDAYS WITH GEORGE#
Sunday, July 30
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.
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.
It was a common theme throughout my time at the homeless shelter when churches wanted to increase attendance at their outings: cook food. They’ll come for the hamburgers and stay for the service. And they were absolutely right.
Just as I had seen many times in my life before, one simple act of kindness could never hold up against the lure of the vices of such a freelance lifestyle.
Marco took full responsibility for his actions. He knew that whatever cards he’d been dealt in his life (which had begun with promising potential, but had then gone downhill), it wasn’t anybody else’s responsibility but his. It wasn’t his mom’s or his dad’s or anybody else that had helped him or turned their back on him. It was his, and he knew it.
“It don’t matter what happened yesterday, dog. Today matters. Even if we fucked up yesterday, today is a new day, and we can seize today. What do they say? Carpe diem or some shit.”
HUSTLE TIME#
Tuesday, August 1
I knew they were in need of a good washing (in a real washing machine), but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. But when a homeless man remarks that it’s time for a new pair of pants, you get to thinking that it might be time for a new pair of pants.
I knew that challenging labor would be rewarded with higher pay, and I had never been one to shy away from a challenge. Shoveling shit excluded, how much more challenging could it get than hauling chairs and dressers and boxes around all day?
Most intriguing was the fact that it didn’t matter what the subject was. If a guy stated, “Kittens are cute,” sure enough, someone would support him just as someone else would interject with, “Kittens are a bunch of pussies.”
Philly, notorious for always borrowing money, would walk up to an unsuspecting newcomer and say:
– “Hey, man, do I owe you a dollar?”
– “No.”
– “Oh, a’ight. Cool. Say, got a dollar I can borrow?”
If there’s one good thing about being homeless, it’s the realness of the relationships. We were homeless! There was nothing we could offer each other financially, so we knew that whatever friendships we were able to muster came without ulterior motives.
Crack ruins lives before people even realize they’ve been ruined.
JOB HUNTING 101 WITH PROFESSOR PHIL COLEMAN#
Wednesday, August 2
“He’s had like fifty different jobs. He always has a different job. People say he can do anything—plumbing, painting, electrical work, masonry, frame houses. Everything ’cept keep a job.”
At dinner Wednesday night, I met a man named James who had fought through a bitter divorce eight years prior, in which his wife got nearly all of his assets—house, furniture, car. Everything. “I was hurtin’, man,” he said. “Hurtin’ real bad. I was stayin’ with my ma.” Forty-two years old and living with his mom for support, he took some time to save enough money to get out and on his own. Revived and poised to conquer the world, he got his own place. “And then my ex came back to me. Said she was struggling herself, that she loved me, and that she wanted to give it another chance. So I did.” He and his wife got back together and began to build a life again. Things were going great. Then, another divorce. “I’m not the only guy I know that has lost his hat, ass, and overcoat in a divorce. I am the only guy I know that has lost his hat, ass, and overcoat to the same woman. Twice.”
“I always had to have a fancy car with chrome rims and nice clothes. If you can afford it, cool. But if you can’t, you don’t need that shit. Right now, I just want my own restaurant.”
A lot of us spend our lives living beyond our means. We rack up credit card debt and spend money on material items and vacations that we can’t quite afford. We splurge for a private school education for our children, but then we offset it when we buy them the latest, mind-numbing video-game system and all of the cool games to go along with it. And we live in luxury homes and condos that we can’t even enjoy, because we have to work overtime to cover the mortgage payment. Why? Because we don’t know any better? Or are we compensating for a life that we didn’t have growing up? Couldn’t we be putting our money toward more worthwhile pursuits, like James in-tended to do with his own restaurant?
So she sat on the street corner. But, rather than sitting there with a cup in hand, begging for spare change, she held up a sign: IF I HAD A MOWER AND A TRUCK, I COULD START CUTTING GRASS AND MAYBE EVEN CREATE A FEW JOBS.
“Man, y’all are some dumb muthas. I mean straight dumb asses. How do you think this works? Employers call the number you put on that application and when Harold answers ‘Crisis Ministries’ they just get real excited that they get to hire a homeless dude? Shit man, y’all some dumb muthas. Listen, y’all muthas gotta change your whole way of thinking. This ain’t no fuckin’ game. Shit. This is real life. You gotta go down to these managers and be like, ‘Look here, homeboy. You need me. I’m the best worker you’re gonna find, so hire me or not.’ And if it don’t work, hell, it don’t work. You got like a million other places to go and give the same speech to. Shit, man, it ain’t no rocket science. You just gotta go do it. Ha! Do y’all really think they’re gonna call here and hire you. Ha! I ain’t never heard no shit like that.”
Yep, crazy Phil Coleman, a guy that most people ignored, had the secret. Be assertive. That’s it. Make the manager see it as a mistake not to hire you. “Take me or leave me. Whatya think? I need an answer, cuz, uh, I have another appointment in about fifteen minutes.”
PUT UP OR SHUT UP#
Friday, August 4
It’s unrealistic for the shelter to be accommodating. Nobody should look forward to living at the shelter. They should come “home” thinking, “Man, I’m sick of this hole. I gotta do something to get out of here.”
But working for Fast Company was something that had piqued my interest, and Curtis was going to get the opportunity to hear what I had to say, a speech that I had been rehearsing in my head since I had laid down on my mattress the night before.
Curtis knew who I was from the messages I had been leaving for him. I was straight with him right from the start, asking if he had any job openings, and he was straight right back with me, telling me that he didn’t really need any other movers at the moment. He had my number if any job vacancies came up. That wasn’t going to do. I had been sitting in the office for an hour, waiting for him to return, and I had not been waiting so that I could hear that response. I might be going down, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. “Curtis, my man, I don’t want to sit here in front of you and be disrespectful to any of your workers out there, because I’m sure they’re all good guys, but, uh, I’m pretty much one of the hardest working guys you’re going to find in Charleston. Let me tell you about the bar, Curtis. There was no bar before I came along. I set the bar. And I set it high.” “All I want to do is work. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m no fun, actually. None of your guys, as great as they may be, have the work ethic that I do. None of ’em. Now, are they better movers? Of course. I mean, you can look at me right here across your desk and tell that I ain’t throwin’ a sofa over my head and walkin’ it off the truck. I mean, let’s be honest with each other from the start; that just won’t be happening. But I will work hard, and I will pay attention to learn this trade to the best of my ability.” He tried to speak, but I wasn’t through yet. My blood was flowing, and my heart was pumping as if it was independent of my body. “Look here, Curt, wait just a second before you respond.” Curt? Who the hell do I think I am? “I don’t wanna sit here in front of you and act like I’m all talk. Because I’m not. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I can talk a big game, but I can also back it up. So I’ll tell you what. Let’s make a deal. You send me out for one day with one of your crews. Any crew. And I’ll work for free. You will have the opportunity to see me work, and it won’t cost you a dime. If you like me, super, take me on. If not, well, then we will part ways, and I can promise you I won’t be a thorn in your ass, coming in here every day begging for a job.” I finished up strong and then yielded the floor to him. “Adam, I’m not gonna lie to you, bruh. That’s the first time I’ve heard that speech. Free, huh? Wow. Yeah, that’s definitely a first. That’s serious. But that won’t even be necessary. I like your attitude. You’re hired.”
“There are three kinds of people, and I’m not talking about just in the shelter. I’m talking about in general, three kinds of people.” He told me the three kinds of people are:
– those that go to school and educate themselves and go on to live professional lives;
– workaholics, who spend their entire lives breaking their backs, laboring to make somebody else rich; and
– the lazy, those people that don’t do anything with their lives. They crawl from job to job, paycheck to paycheck, somehow finding satisfaction in scraping by.
“I don’t have a problem with the first two,” he said. “They’re making an honest living. But those lazy people? They’re ridiculous. They piss me off. They’re up to no good. And the worst part is that they drain the life out of everybody else.” “I’ll give you an example,” he continued. “You ever seen crabs in a pot? When one of them climbs to the top to try to get out, all the other crabs grab him and pull him back in. Misery loves company. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Some of the people in the lower class start out behind. We all have the same freedoms, true, but those of us born into poverty don’t necessarily have the guidance.” Many people, he reminded me, are not fortunate to grow up with two loving parents and a backyard and somewhere to go after school. They grow up on sketchy sides of town, and their social activities are limited to whatever their friends are doing after school, which usually aren’t very legitimate activities. “But, I’ll tell you this,” he said. “There comes a time for everybody that it’s time to grow up. I mean, look at me. I came from a broken home. Mama’s got six kids. No daddy. Maybe the lights will turn on today; maybe not. Eatin’ mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches. I started out less fortunate than most people, and I lived my life accordingly. Streets, drugs, violence . . . all that. But then I turned twenty and realized that it was time to shape up or I would be in prison or dead just like everybody else I knew.”
“FIRST AND LAST DAY”#
Monday, August 7
Expectations were low, and I wasn’t even meeting those. I was tripping over “the bar” that I had so pompously told Curtis I had set. There was nothing I could do. Believe me, I wanted to be a good driver. I’m a perfectionist, and I hate when I’m slow to catch on to things. But that truck No. 2 was an enigma. I would have rather worked on solving the Rubik’s Cube blindfolded.
If there was one good thing that I discovered I had going for me as a mover, it was that I didn’t stop. Sure, I wasn’t terribly strong, and I didn’t really know how to use the dollies to my advantage when carting furniture to and fro, but that didn’t necessarily matter to Sammy and Bruno. I kept going and they loved me for that. Maybe it took me an extra moment or two to get the right grip on a dresser, but I could carry my end of it up the stairs, and as soon as we placed it in the apartment, I skipped back down to pick up another piece.
Work hard, play hard. Knowing that one day I would have the time and resources to do so many other things with my life kept me getting up every day to do what was absolutely necessary for me to advance.
It’s crazy how we become the product of our surroundings. Early on, even after just two weeks into my project, I began to see myself transform. I started not to care what I dressed like or looked like. I started saying “I ain’t sure” and “Yeah, I done heard about that.” Without even thinking twice about it. While I was walking down the street, I would pick my nose and scratch between my legs. I’m sure I was quite the sight to strangers walking by, but I didn’t care. I was in my own world. I was invincible. I had more confidence than a room full of Tony Robbins’s greatest disciples. Nothing could stop me.
The confidence that came with having nowhere to go but up gave me the opportunity to really just let loose and be myself. And that was one of the greatest feelings I had ever experienced.
ADVENTURES IN MOVING#
Thursday, August 10
When he walked, he strutted from side to side and swung his arms back and forth—a walk that made you wonder as he approached you how much money you owed him or what you may have done lately to cross him.
Every $5 and $10 I could save might not matter so much for that one day, but it would be so valuable in the long run.
We adjust. That’s what we do. We seize the opportunities that are given to us, and we adjust to make up for what is kept from us. In some cases, and certainly in the case of the toilets on my forty-second day at the shelter, we don’t have a choice. We embrace change or we fight it off. In the end, they say, change makes us stronger. Even if we deny the change and retreat back to the norm, the experience has helped us to grow and understand what is on that other side, and it has given us the freedom to make more informed decisions in the future.
So I grabbed a couple of moving blankets from the back of the truck, and I slept outside. It was a very enlightening experience. Just me and the stars. And an occasional stray cat. My body was filthy from the dust and sweat of the move, and I was hungry as hell. And that’s when it really hit me: there were people out there sleeping under the stars just like me. For real. Not just for one night, not for some game or some audacious project they were working on. Penniless, hungry, and down and out, they either couldn’t get to a shelter or they had chosen the streets instead. But they were out there. I knew all of this before I had lain down on my oh-so-uncomfortable makeshift bed that night, but that’s when I really understood. Just as my experience seeing crack-cocaine in person had made everything so real, sleeping outside was opening my eyes as well. I mean, I was frustrated and scared and filled with anxiety, and I was only out there for one night! Just for one night, to be sleeping outside without a shower or a meal, I could only imagine what it must be like for the crushed spirits laying their heads down on park benches and under busy overpasses and in sleeping bags in hobo camps throughout the United States. People who would be doing the same thing the next night and the next night and the next. People who had grown up with such ambition and were now hopeless and discouraged. They had given up, either blind to the aid available at places like Crisis Ministries or shunning it all together. There I was, camping out for a night in the midst of my crazy little adventure, and there they were, wondering what they were going to have to do to get breakfast the next day.
But I knew that in the pendulum of life, the momentum would have to swing in my direction eventually. And my pendulum was preparing to swing back my way.
MOVIN’ ON UP#
Tuesday, September 26
It happened; I hit a roadblock. Okay, now what do I do? I could complain about my situation and feel sorry for myself or I could get back on the horse. If nothing else, I was discovering that life just simply isn’t fair, but the difference emerges among the people that accept that ideal, embrace it even, and bask in the unsung glory of knowing that each obstacle overcome along the way only adds to the satisfaction in the end. Nothing great, after all, was ever accomplished by anyone sulking in his or her misery.
I suppose that’s how it is in the moving business and so many other blue-collar service industries where many guys are expendable. It was a revolving door. One guy out, another guy in.
He was the best, and he knew he was the best, but he also knew that his work spoke for itself. He didn’t stop to take long breaks, and he surely didn’t slow down after he started. He was friendly to the customer, but he didn’t waste time with idle chitchat as other guys that I had worked with would do.
WORKERS’ CONSTERNATION#
Thursday, October 26
Our nearly flawless efficiency was putting a smile on the customers’ faces, and, as I said, a happy customer meant bigger tips.
Ed was passionate about one thing: getting paid. Which was respectable. So what if he made our salaries several times over despite never having to lift a single piece of furniture? He had earned it! With a college education and smart decision-making, he had earned the position that he had attained in life. Good for him. But at the same time, it seemed like he had little or no compassion for what we were going through. “Shit, that mother ain’t never lifted a piece of furniture in his life,” one of the guys told me later. “He don’t know what it’s like for us out there.”
WINTER WITH BUBBLE GUM#
Saturday, November 25
– “Yep, that’s the one.”
– “Are you sure?”
– “Yeah, why?”
– “Oh, wow. Have you been inside yet?” You know it’s bad when even the realtor is skeptical about one of her own properties.
Before, Derrick and I had been turning down the used TVs and furniture that were being offered to us almost daily by our customers, or we had been taking them to the pawnshop. (“If it ain’t broke, sell it to somebody.”) Now that we had a place to put things, BG and I could start accepting the pieces for our own. Beautiful pieces. If you’re ever trying to furnish a house or apartment, go work as a mover. Derrick’s place and his sister’s place around the corner were both filled with hand-me-downs from customers, so BG and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before our place would be filled as well.
He was a cheapskate, he knew it, and he didn’t care. So, I had to buy everything, which wasn’t a huge deal beyond the fact that I had wanted to get us in the habit of pulling our own weight. I should have fought harder in the beginning, because for the duration of our time as roommates, I was always the one buying paper towels or dish liquid, and he was always the one “borrowing” toilet paper or a glass of milk. He would spend $15 a day or more on cigarettes and beer and lottery tickets, but he never had a bar of soap.
In the end, though, isn’t it really more about the journey, the process; about setting goals, finding something you’re passionate about, and giving it all you’ve got? Isn’t it, as BG would say, about “shooting for the stars; even if you miss, you’ll land on the moon”? (Or as Les Brown would say, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”)
We all have our vices, though. For some, it’s alcohol or drugs. Maybe gambling or adultery for others.
I was quickly learning the value of a dollar, too. Early on, living at 409B Pine Hollow, I realized why my youth had been filled with scoldings from my mom to “Close the door or I’m gonna forward you the electric bill! What are you tryin’ to do, air condition the great outdoors?” On January 9, the electric bill came, and it was crazy. Crazy to the tune of $209 for our two-bedroom duplex, just for the month of December. BG was already sensitive to spending a dollar on anything he didn’t deem absolutely necessary, so he was particularly annoyed when we got the electric bill. He spent the entire month of January making sure all of the doors and windows were shut tight and lights were off in the house.
We started smartening up about our energy usage, and by the end of January, our bill was back down around $125 where it was supposed to be. As a matter of fact, we were conserving across the board — water, laundry detergent, dish liquid, toiletries. Everything costs, and we did everything we could to keep our costs down.
CULTURE SHOCKED#
Wednesday, January 24
The greatest part about moving was the end of the day. As is the case in so many professions, it was so gratifying to look over what we had done. Every day, after settling the bill, we would hobble through the house to the truck, exhausted, with a smile on our faces. “We did that?”
One time, Derrick and I got sent out on the “two-hour mini” from hell to move one piece (a bulky 375-pound oak and leather desk) down three flights of stairs and up another three. I was perturbed and confused at the same time. Why oak? Why not pine? Pine is grossly underrated, at least from a mover’s point of view. Lightweight, durable, stylish. And leather? I want to meet that man, the man that looked at a cow and thought, “Well, I do need somewhere to put my computer.”
I was just upset that she was so much like my own mom, unable to throw anything away, ever. “Oh, dear, can’t throw that away,” Mizz Sully would say. “That was the first (enter item of your choice) that Gerald and I ever bought. Sentimental value, you know.” I could understand photo albums and pictures that her daughter had drawn when she was four years old. Her son’s first baseball mitt or a pair of his baby shoes. Fine. But this lady had taken it to another level. She had saved every shirt, blanket, dish, and book that she had ever come across. She had six garden hoses. I couldn’t believe all the stuff she had. And most of it was in mint condition, untarnished. She had $13 less than God, and she wanted to make sure we knew it. “Guys, please, please, please. Be careful with this. It cost twenty four hundred dollars. It can’t be replaced.”
– “Dog, why you even worried about it?”
– “I’m just sayin’, I just hate that you eat all my food, all the time. Sandwiches, chicken, cereal. But, what ever. Just forget about it. You need to save your money anyway, so you can afford to buy wholesale packages of Chap Stick for your big-ass lips.”
– “My lips, huh? Dog, look at your ears. Dumbo. Yo’ goofy ass got the biggest ears I ever seen in my life. Them bitches are like satellite dishes. Shit, go stand by the TV and see if you can fix some of that static.” Such was our conversation, at least once a day. We would then retreat to our neutral corners for a couple of hours until BG needed a favor.
– “Hey, man, can I borrow your truck to run up to the gas station right quick?”
– “Sure, here’s a dollar. Grab me a Mountain Dew.”
– “Cool.” I wondered which gas station he was going to, though. Maybe the one down in Savannah. He would be gone for at least three hours — usually more like five — and that would tick me off even more, so our dissension would begin anew upon his return.
Or my favorite, the time he went to Bike Week up in Myrtle Beach, which was jam packed with the biggest and baddest motorcyclists on the East Coast riding the biggest and baddest motorcycles in the world. BG rented a moped, and was “actin’ a fool” on the strip. Among thousands of men showing off their hogs, there was BG showing off his moped. “I was lucky the cops got me befo’ one of them Billy Badasses did,” he told me. BG had a personal relationship with mischief, which had left him with many stories to tell and many more to create.
And once he got going, he didn’t stop until he was tired of listening to himself talk. – “Dog, what the fuck is that on your lip? Son, please, tell me. I gotta know. That shit is real aggressive. You get in a fight? You burn yourself? It looks like it has a mind of its own. I feel like we should distinguish it as a separate body part or at least give it a name. Do you put a leash around it and take it for a walk when you wake up in the morning? I don’t know whether to sit down and write an ode to it or grab a fly swatter and try to kill it. It doesn’t bite, does it? BG, go get some bug spray. I wanna pop it, but I don’t want to catch that shit, too. It’s not airborne is it? Dog, if I was your roommate, I’d have you quarantined. I was gonna try to bring some broads over tonight, but you can forget all that. You need to just buy some medicine and go to your room for a few days until that shit disappears. Unbelievable. That thing is real aggressive. And look right there. I think it’s having babies. Damn. That sucks. An entire herpes family on your lip. Dog, go to your room . . .”
Everybody needs a guy like him in their life, to keep things honest, and I was happy we had him as a part of the crew. He was the guy that would say what everybody else was thinking and, ironically, didn’t care what anybody else thought.
I took a step back, for a moment, long enough to see the smiles on the people’s faces around me. Wal-Mart employees, welders, electricians, landscapers, people with their own car-detailing businesses—lots of people with their own car-detailing businesses. Maybe we were just “getting by,” but most of us were doing our best to keep our spirits up, finding little bits of inspiration to keep us going. Our moving customers, surely, were thinking, “Could be worse. I could be moving furniture for a living.” I was thinking, “Could be worse. I could be broke.” The people that were broke were thinking, “Could be worse. I could be locked up.” Not sure where the people in prison were getting their inspiration, though. Nevertheless, many of us in the free world had our sights set. Some of us had goals, plans for the future, and some of us didn’t. Some of us wanted out and some of us were living day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck. But all of us were making an hourly wage, and all of us were able to find our own level of happiness. A few of us, though, were able to maintain our discipline—distinguishing wants from needs and sacrificing what we wanted now for what we wanted later—while others couldn’t.
I was still always looking for ways to save money, always on the hunt for a deal. “Two for a buck? I’ll take ’em!” I didn’t care what it was. Pork and beans became a new food group to me just because it was always on sale at Food Lion. If the price was right, I could find a use for it. I was a scrooge, greedy. My money! Get your hands off. I’d worked hard, and I was surely going to see to it that I continued to be wise with what I earned. After all, is this really where I wanted to be? If nothing else, I had merely ascended into poverty—certainly not out of it—so I wanted to continue to save, making plans the whole time for what I would do with my loot: How I could invest it to make it so much more valuable to me. One can do a lot with $2,500, so I could only imagine the possibilities in July after I accumulated six more months of paychecks. Night classes at Trident Tech? My own moving truck? An entirely different trade altogether? That’s what kept me going: the idea that I had a better lifestyle in sight. I’m not moving furniture forever. I can promise you that.
FIGHTING FOR RESPECT#
Sunday, April 1
Before that night with BG in early April, my record as a fighter stood at a disgraceful one out of four, and that was in my neighborhood, the suburbs — Heather Hills — home of some of the worst fighters in the history of fighting. We were such bad fighters that people actually got bored watching us fight at school. “Eh, this sucks. Let’s go back to class.” And I was a particularly poor fighter.
ONE LAST MOVE#
Wednesday, April 18
So there I was, the bed of my pickup truck packed with boxes of toiletries and wall decorations and lamps and bags of linens and clothes, ready to hit the road to begin life anew, again, with new people and challenges to meet and new ambitions to pursue. While paying monthly expenses and buying food and fuel and funding my own social agenda, my bank account and cash on hand totaled just under $5,300 from wages and tips, more than enough to finance whatever my next dream would be. I was pumped. I looked at what I had done, and I looked at what I had experienced. From my first night on the streets of Charleston to living in the shelter to working with Shaun at Fast Company and then finally working my way up to join Derrick’s crew and live with BG, I was proud of what I had accomplished. But, in truth, I really looked forward to tomorrow. In the future, no matter where I stood financially, I could rest easy knowing that things were going to be okay. Look at what I’ve done with $25. Imagine what I can do with $5,000 and the money that I’ll continue to earn as I complete my project.
Leaning on the bed of my truck, I took the time to explain to BG how I had come to arrive in Charleston, what my project had been all about. I explained that I had started with virtually nothing and was now heading back to Raleigh with, well, something. We discussed how I had done it—with thrifty spending and aggressive saving—and I told him that he was ahead of where I was when I started. With a little patience and discipline, he could accomplish the same things that I had. I told him that if he wanted out of this lifestyle, he could get there; it all started with a little goal setting and a few budgeting techniques and then it would sprout from there. I told him that it would be a shame for him to be scraping by for the rest of his life when he had the potential—I know it—to do so much better.
Epilogue#
A YEAR LATER: A Didactic Look at What I Learned and Where I Go from Here
But, in the end, what did I really learn about the vitality of the American Dream? What conclusions am I able to draw on the persistence of poverty in America? What am I able to take away from my experience? And most importantly, where do we go from here? For starters, I learned that we are the product of our surroundings — our families, our peers, and our environment. If a child grows up among poor attitudes, zero ambition, and parents that say, “I ain’t got no sugar,” then he or she is probably going to one day have a poor attitude, zero ambition, and is going to say, “I ain’t got no sugar.” Many break out, of course. There are countless stories of PhDs and corporate executives and attorneys that have broken free from the reins of the lower classes in spite of their humble beginnings. It happens all the time, but the odds are most certainly stacked against them. I consider myself even more fortunate now than when I began my project: my parents are educated and loving and they showed me the way. Now, more than ever, I understand that things could have been much different for me in my life. I was lucky.
I learned that life is a bitch. Everybody faces adversity. Everybody. Nobody is immune. I met—and lived alongside—poor people in Charleston who were miserable and others who were delighted with their lives. By the same token, I’ve met millionaires in my life who have found true happiness just as I have met millionaires who are some of the least happy people on the planet simply because they don’t know how to handle their wealth or, worse, they have never even had the opportunity to discover what happiness is in the first place. Adversity attacks at every level.
Yeah, life is a bitch for sure. Or actually, let me rephrase that: life can be a bitch. It’s all about how we look at things. Moving furniture sucks. Breaking your toe or suffering through seven days of diarrhea sucks. I would have loved a day off, time to relax and rest, maybe a vacation. But that is unrealistic. Good times abound, but time off is a poor investment if you live at the bottom. There are plenty of ways to have fun, plenty of ways to look at our lives as more than just tolerable. All the while, we have to be more focused, keeping our eye on what we really want to do with our lives: move up. Or not. We’re either on a mission or keeping our flight grounded. Either way, we are the pilots.
Coupled with the ideal that you have the freedom to work hard and accomplish what you want in your life, it’s about finding happiness and solace in your present lifestyle. This is a fact. I know it, because I saw it. Just as I met people that would rather own a Cadillac with shiny chrome rims than a home, I met people who didn’t care about their car or their furnishings or where they lived; they knew they’d have all of that one day, and they were driven by that satisfaction and that motivation. Some are happy now and are on a quest to stay that way. Others, in search of unworthy pursuits, are after a happiness that they may never find.
Why? Mainly, because so many of us don’t have five-year plans on how we are going to better our lot over time rather than search for quick fixes. A five-year plan is invaluable. It gives us a sense of purpose in our present lives, the peace of mind every day that what we are doing has a purpose, a means to an end. A five-year plan doesn’t have to be set in stone but should be an amendable draft that serves as a guideline for our future. A fat savings account, a house, a business, a management position. Knowing what we want and setting the gears in motion gets us up in the morning and keeps us going throughout the day. “In five years, I’m going to be doing bigger and better things.” Exactly. Now, go do it.
Unfortunately, few of us take ownership of our lives. We live in an “It ain’t my fault” society. Nothing is our fault. Ever. We’re fat because of our genetics, we suck at math because we had a bad teacher, and we’re cheating on our wives because they aren’t putting out like they used to. It has nothing to do with the fact that we aren’t eating right or exercising, that we aren’t doing our homework, or that we aren’t pulling our own weight in our marriages. It’s everybody else’s fault. It ain’t ours.
And that’s the biggest difference I noticed between the people who appeared happy and those who didn’t — those who I could tell were working their way up, like Derrick, and those that were “lifers,” like Shaun. Derrick knew what he had to do and he didn’t make excuses to cover his mistakes. Shaun, always the victim, walked around like some-body owed him something.
It’s a pretty simple concept, actually: one day, you’re twenty and full of potential, and the next day you’re eighty, submerged in a world of reminiscence. Are you proud of those last sixty years, or are you looking back with a chip on your shoulder, mad that you could have done a little more?
The bottom line is that we have a lot of work to do. Attitudes need to change, big time, on both fronts: the livelihood of the poor is at stake just as is the livelihood of the higher ups. We’re only as strong as our weakest link, right?
In the end, though, where do we turn for help? Whose responsibility is it to offer assistance to those in need?
Well, everybody’s.
I’ve already made an attempt at pointing out that those at the bottom can work harder to do their part. Pull yourself up by your boot-straps. There’s nothing revolutionary about that aspect of my story. That’s just life. Some people get it done; others don’t. Some people merely have a dream, while others have a vision of turning that dream into reality. Some people put ten percent of their paycheck in the bank, and others buy lottery tickets and beer.
If $7 an hour isn’t supporting your current lifestyle, then you have other options:
(1) team up with a friend or family member to help cover living expenses,
(2) change your lifestyle, or
(3) use that job as the stepping stone it is meant to be in your quest for better opportunities.
I am unable, however, to excuse the repetition of the same mistakes: the twenty- five-year-old adults smoking and drinking and chasing women or the deadbeats sitting at home, in poverty, watching a movie on their big-screen TV, waiting to scratch off the winning lotto numbers. (I met a guy once on the bus who spent several minutes telling me his method of picking a winning scratch lottery ticket. “There’s a science to it,” he told me. “And I know that science.”) Because that’s all they know? It’s time to grow up. Do you really want to live like that forever? Many have given up, refusing to work hard, and, as I said, I am unable to have sympathy for them.
I was at the airport once, and a guy really put this attitude into perspective for me. We were at the baggage claim, standing back, watching everyone attack the front of the conveyor belt to retrieve their bags. “Look at this,” he said. “Look at these people. They’re all so hungry to fetch their own two big bags of luggage, but nobody cares about that little old lady over there who is struggling with just her one. Ha. That’s life for ya.” There it is. Life is like a baggage claim: you can be aggressive and self-serving or you can be aware of those who need help and lend a hand.
But let’s be honest here. Excluding my college education, is my life really that different now? I’m going to use the same spending and savings tactics that I used in Charleston. I’m going to continue to eat Rice-A-Roni and buy shirts for $10 and search for cheap entertainment. I’ll seek inexpensive transportation until I can afford a nicer car. And you better believe that a series of corporate executives are going to get the same speech that I gave to Curtis at Fast Company. I won’t stop until one of those guys hires me on to fetch him coffee in exchange for his expertise and the opportunity to climb into the ranks of management. I’ll work my way up that infamous corporate ladder or perhaps go into business for myself, hopefully finding something that I am passionate about along the way.
That’s how it’s supposed to be. A blank canvas and unlimited upside potential. It’s the foundation of the American Dream.
In chapter eight, toward the end of my stay at Crisis Ministries, Leo told me what he thought the three types of people are in our world.
My friend Surry offered me his version:
– Those who make things happen;
– Those who watch things happen;
– Those who sit back, scratch their heads, and wonder, “What in the hell just happened?”
There it is. Three choices. Reread that and think about it for a second. One, two, or three. Three choices. That’s it!
Which one are you?
