Chapter One #2
I order the cheapest hot thing on the menu, a patty melt with fries and a Coke, and while I wait I spread my napkin out and try to make a plan with a borrowed pen that barely works.
Job. Bed. Laundry at some point because my socks could walk away on their own.
I ask the waitress if she knows anywhere hiring and anywhere cheap to stay.
She’s nice, doesn’t look at me like I’m trash, just wipes the counter and thinks.
She names a temp agency down on Third, a dish pit over in Belltown that’s always churning through guys, and tells me good luck on the cheap part.
That laugh she gives me isn’t mean, just tired.
I thank her and eat so fast I burn the roof of my mouth.
The cheese drips down my wrist and I lick it off.
The fries are deliciously salty and limp and the Coke’s icy cold.
For ten minutes my whole life feels manageable.
Then I pay, leave what tip I can, and step back out into the mist and start hunting for a room.
That’s when Seattle punches me in the face.
The first motel has a flickering vacancy sign and a lobby that smells like bleach and cigarettes.
The guy behind the glass doesn’t look up from his phone when he tells me one night’s one-ninety plus tax.
I blink and ask if he’s got anything smaller, a cot, a closet, anything.
He shakes his head. I walk out fast because I don’t want him to see my face panicking.
The next place is worse. Two-ten. The one after that, a hostel-looking spot I get excited about for half a second, wants sixty for a bunk but they’re full through the weekend.
Every door I push open, every clerk I ask, it’s the same story.
One night here would eat half my cash. Two nights and I’m broke with nowhere to go.
Three hundred and forty-two dollars sounded like freedom on the bus. Out here it sounds like a joke.
By late afternoon my bag straps cut into my shoulders and my mood sours.
I sit on a bus bench I can’t afford to use and watch buses hiss past and try to think.
If I eat gas station food and skip breakfast, if I find work tomorrow, if I find a room for like fifty bucks somewhere, maybe I can stretch it.
But there isn’t a fifty-buck room. There’s nothing.
I check a laundromat bulletin board, a telephone pole plastered with flyers, a coffee shop window.
Room for rent, eight hundred a month plus deposit.
Shared house, twelve hundred. It’s another language.
Dusk comes slowly, the gray turning darker gray, lights popping on in windows and signs buzzing to life.
I pull my hoodie on, the sleeves pulled down over my hands, and I tell myself I’ll sleep outside for a couple nights.
No big deal. Me and my brothers used to camp up in the Uintas all the time.
I’ve slept on the ground plenty. I’ve peed behind a tree.
I’m tough. How hard can it be to find a quiet corner in a city this big?
Very hard, as it turns out. Stupid hard.
I try under the freeway first, where it’s dry and the traffic hums overhead like white noise.
I’m unrolling my hoodie for a pillow when a voice barks at me from the dark and a man steps out swinging a metal pipe, eyes wild, telling me to get the fuck out of his spot.
I don’t argue. I’m gone so fast I trip over my own laces and nearly eat concrete. My heart hammers the whole block.
I try a doorway with a deep awning on a commercial street.
I’m there five minutes before a shop owner with a broom tells me to move along, she’s closing up and she doesn’t want trouble.
I try a park bench, then a bus shelter. A security guard taps his flashlight against the glass and tells me no loitering.
Another storefront, another guy pointing at a sign.
Three different people tell me to keep moving in the span of an hour and each time I feel smaller and more stupid, mumbling sorry, sorry, just looking for a place, sorry.
It’s fully dark now and colder than I expected.
The damp gets into my shirt and stays there.
My teeth chatter if I don’t keep my jaw tight.
I keep walking because stopping means thinking about how badly I messed up, and I end up on a quieter street closer to downtown, where the buildings lean in close and the smell changes to garlic and grilled meat and dish soap.
Between two restaurants I find a narrow alley, sheltered on three sides, dumpsters shoved to one end but picked up recently so it doesn’t stink too bad.
There’s an overhang from the kitchen vent that blocks the drizzle and a stack of flattened cardboard boxes some saint left behind.
And past the rooftops at the end of the gap, I can see a slice of the water all glittery with ferry lights.
It’s tucked away. It’s quiet. Nobody’s claimed it.
I drag a couple boxes into the driest corner and sit down hard.
My legs ache from miles of concrete. My feet throb.
I peel off my wet shoes and wring out my socks and put them back on because barefoot on alley ground seems like a bad idea.
I zip my hoodie up to my chin and pull the hood up and hug my backpack to my chest for a minute.
The kitchen door bangs open at one point and a cook tosses a bag in the dumpster and nods at me.
I freeze, waiting to get tossed, but he just nods again and goes back inside.
The vent above me puffs out warm air that smells like onions and butter and for a second I close my eyes and pretend I’m inside eating.
When I finally lie down, I use my backpack as a pillow and curl on my side on the cardboard with my knees tucked up and my hands stuffed under my arms. My jeans are still damp at the cuffs.
My T-shirt’s too thin, my hoodie’s too thin, everything I packed is for Utah summer, for dry heat and nights that stay warm.
This cold’s sneaky. It creeps up my spine and settles in my hips.
I shiver and squeeze tighter, trying to make myself smaller, trying to keep the warmth I’ve got.
I stare at those ferry lights till they blur and tell myself it’s only for a few nights, till I find work, till I figure it out.
It’s almost midnight and I’m still awake because my teeth won’t stop clicking together.
The shivering helps. It keeps blood moving or whatever. Mom used to say that when we’d lose power in winter and pile blankets on the couch. I don’t think she believed it much, but it sounded good.
Voices slide around the corner from the sidewalk.
I go still. Laughter first, some guys letting it out after a long dinner with drinks.
Then shoes scuffing, a door closing somewhere, a car beeping.
Three or four men in suits spill out of one of the restaurants next door, ties loosened, jackets open, talking over each other.
Under the streetlamp their watches flash.
One of them claps another on the shoulder.
They sound happy and buzzed and unaware or uncaring that anyone could be ten feet away listening from the dark.
I hold my breath and shrink back against the wall, knees tighter, hood pulled lower.
I’ve learned tonight that most people don’t want to see a guy sleeping by a dumpster.
They’ll tell you to move or they’ll pretend you’re invisible, and honestly I’ll take invisible.
Please keep walking, guys. Please get in your Ubers and go home to your warm beds.
Most of them do. Their voices fade down the block. But one pair of footsteps peels off and turns in here.
A man steps into the mouth of the alley and pauses to pat his pockets.
The light from the street catches his hair, short and neat and very blonde, and the clean line of his suit.
Older than me, but not by a lot, maybe early thirties, slim and put together in a way that makes my wrinkled tee feel even more gross.
He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, taps one free, cups his hand around a lighter.
I don’t say anything. I just watch him, chin tucked, eyes half lidded so I look half asleep.
He takes a long pull and breathes out through his nose, smoke curling up into the vent light.
He looks tired, but good tired, like he’s had a fun night and now wants five minutes alone before facing traffic.
He rolls his shoulders, checks his phone, smiles at whatever’s on the screen, pockets it again.
Then he turns his head and sees me.
He stops mid exhale. Smoke hangs around his face. Our eyes meet across maybe fifteen feet of damp concrete and old boxes. My stomach drops. Here it comes, the move along or the disgusted look or the quick pivot back to the sidewalk.
He doesn’t do any of that. He tips his head to the side, curious, and his brows lift.
“You okay there?” he asks. His voice is warm and clear, a little amused with no edge.
My throat’s dry and my voice comes out scratchy. “Yeah, fine.”