The Bridge Within IV

In the morning I woke up and after putzing around I went down the stairs to the kitchen. Daniel had gone to work and would be back at 5 pm. His mom offered me cereal and I gladly accepted pouring myself a bowl. After chatting she left for work and I decided to head out the door and down the street. It was a Friday and Daniel had invited me to a party with a bunch of his friends, I offered to steal alcohol for them in return for his hospitality. Stealing was one skill I had developed that offered me great leverage whether as direct assurance in getting my needs met or as a way to make money and exchange services.

After finishing breakfast I left the house and headed to downtown figuring I would kill time and walk around Naperville’s quaint town center. I found myself lethargic and bored, not wanting to walk too far and wrapped up in the uncertainty of where and how I would eat lunch. I stuck close to the Metra Station and cafe I had visited the day before. Around noon I ventured back into the same CVS I had been in the day before. Going back over to the aisle with the Cliff bars, I pocketed several more than headed back down the street to eat. As I wandered around the town center I remembered a friend telling me about how he used to ask people at the mall for a dollar to call his mom. His strategy was if he asked 100 people for a dollar and they all gave him one he'd have $100’s. Worth a try I thought, and so I set out to do just that. After a little while I decided I had had enough, with the $5 to $10’s I had made I bought myself a Chai tea at the cafe I had posted up at the day before when calling Daniel.

Later that afternoon I met up with Daniel and his friends. Running by the grocery store, we left with a bottle of liquor and headed to the party. It was your typical college house get together, parents were away, red Solo cups, cans of Olde Style and PBR, beer pong, white middle class college kids. I felt somewhat out of place, introduced as my brother's little brother. Not in college but still half a year shy of graduating high school with scraggly dreads; Daniel shared to everyone that I had ridden a freight train into town. I was somewhat of an anomaly and while several kids took interest briefly my shyness and the bravado and masculinity most of the guys displayed made it hard for me to relate to a deeper degree. Overall, however, I was accepted into the ever growing drunken group of Daniel’s friends and slowly the night faded out into a quiet inebriated end.

Waking mid-morning from a long night of debauchery I rolled out of bed, dressed in the same clothes I had worn the past three days, I strolled down to the kitchen, made myself a bowl of cereal and attempted to call Ashley once more, the phone rang. Still no answer, I left a voicemail. I decided to walk back into town, the rest of the day was spent wandering and observing people, occasionally I would stop and ask folks for change for a bus fare. After a little while I had re-accumulated the money I had spent. That night I would run around with Daniel and his friends.

The next day came soon enough, It was Sunday, and at the suggestion of Daniel’s mom I took the Metra into the city for the day. Walking outside of the station, downtown was quieter than I remembered. I figured I’d see the Sear’s Tower after remembering it from so many childhood movies and TV shows, after-all, it was the 2nd largest building in North America since the Twin Towers had fallen. It sat dwarfing the Metra Station 1 block northwest from where I had walked out onto the street. The free trolley operated a stop right out front, it was a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. The day was colder, overcast and windy, I got dropped off along the concrete walking path that separated Lakeshore Drive from Lake Michigan and spent a few hours sitting by the water. Revisiting Navy Pier I realized I was just bored, the rest of the day didn’t amount to much and after another futile attempt to call Ashley I bought a Metra ticket and headed back west towards Naperville.

The Metra ride was interesting, echoing with the quiet atmosphere of Chicago’s Sunday traffic. Sunday’s stillness had rendered the train line rather empty. A man sitting, facing me, two rows in front struck up a conversation. He was headed back to Aurora, a slightly bigger town farther west from Naperville. I asked him what he did for a living, he was a butcher in a kosher meat packing plant, he said. In spite of my former militancy around my vegan diet I was tactful and curious enough to listen. He told me how they butchered the animals. The more I listened the more it reaffirmed to myself why I ate the way I did. One hot button after another the man pressed on telling me about how much he looked forward to getting his next paycheck, telling me how he planned to go spend it at an Asian "spa" he knew of in Aurora. I curled back in my seat disgusted and became quiet. While my views on sex work were rather liberal my sentiment towards those who used them and the specific militant brand of feminism I had latched onto coupled with my own dormant traumas made his disposition difficult to stomach let alone feel safe with. The rest of the ride I spent staring out my window, soon enough it was my stop. Making my way back through Naperville’s downtown I walked back to Daniel’s house just in time for dinner. Tomorrow was Monday and when Daniel got off of work he had said that he would drive me the 30 minutes south east to Willows Springs to catch my train. My plan had been this whole time to make it to Southern California.

Over the past two years I had befriended several friends through punkconnect, the punk rock dating website I was a part of, most of whom lived in California. One in Moreno Valley, another in Venice Beach, another in Barstow one in San Diego and finally another in Ukiah. While I so desperately wanted romantic connection, it was, after all, the internet, with a distance of roughly 2,300 miles, and, at the end of the day, I had never actually met these people in person anyway. Nevertheless the idea of spending time with someone, especially a girl, I had connected with and talked on the phone to for hours was as good a prospect and excuse as any, to head somewhere far away from the troubled home life I was so accustomed to. Up to this point all of my relationships had been flops, my hopeless romanticism coupled with emotional instability always led to me being over invested, losing myself and the subsequent torture that ensues any codependent attachment. This coupled with the greater turmoil I was experiencing around my own inner strife instability and conflict with my identity as a male made any type of dating or romance that much more elusive.

As Monday rolled around I woke in the morning and spent most of the day at Daniel’s house preparing: checking my scanner, getting on the squat the planet message boards, reading my time tables for the BNSF Willow Springs yard traffic and overall sitting with anticipation. I read more of Giovanni’s Room, it was intense, consuming and truly one of the most engrossing novels I had read. Reading had always been a chore for me, at least it had felt that way. As my experience with everything academic I had done up until that point, had been measured against the high academic expectations of my father and the achievements of my brother. With all I had struggled with, reading never seemed to come easy, not, anyway, until I had begun to find my voice and through my voice I began to find the books whose pages echoed back my own experiences. Giovanni’s Room was then, one of these books. Telling the story of a man who was living in Paris and whose girlfriend had gone to Spain for a time. In the interim Giovanni meets and falls in love with a man who is soon wanted for murder. The plot thickens but I won't spoil it for you. The book had all the elements of much of the turmoil, introspection and intrigue I was moving and sifting through. Coupled with a spice of international living, culture and travel; It was my cup of tea.

That night Daniel got home. After eating dinner with his parents I printed off a Google image of the train yard and some directions to the facility. We headed out, hitting the very tail end of Chicago rush hour traffic. It was dark when Daniel dropped me off at the Speedway near the southwest throat of the yard. Saying goodbye I went in and bought a gallon jug of water. Stepping outside I eyed the big overpass spanning the road from across the street. High above the Speedway and road, it ran out of the yard west, through god knows where, to Los Angeles. I walked out from the parking lot and across the street to the overpass. On either side of the train trestle running out and down alongside the road was a barbed wire fence about 10 feet high. Past the far end of the bridge it ran alongside the road for about 300 ft before vanishing around the corner where the street turned off onto a dirt access road. I followed the fence line along the perimeter of the yard making sure the coast was clear behind me before disappearing around the corner. The fence line ran alongside the tracks deep into a thicket of overgrown forest. On the other side of the fence the yard trackage was staggered one line after another in rows. Only this yard was different, much nicer, flat with a sea of concrete surrounding the tracks Willow Springs was Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway’s FedEx Intermodal facility. Strictly dealing in high priority freight sending shipping containers full of mail from one end of the country to the next. These trains were the quickest option for intercoastal freight travel, the only question now was how to catch one?

I followed the fence line into the woods keeping it in my sight as I maneuvered through the muddy scrub, in and around trees and under hanging vines until I found a clearing I could approach the fence through. There was no barbed wire on this section, I threw my bag over, and with my gallon jug in one hand, I carefully climbed up one side negotiating the pointy tines of the chain-link at the top. Straddling the fence I swung the rest of myself over and landed on the other side. The trees and brush were much thinner in the yard but still provided ample cover. On the other side of the fence I scanned the yard... no movement. This yard, with its flat layout and completely concrete landscape, made it much more difficult to negotiate. From my vantage point I could not see where the main line was. In front of me a string of empty well cars mostly 53 footers sat idle next to several more. The thought of wandering through the yard as I had done in Battle Creek seemed all the more difficult and risky. The night was young, impatiently I decided to see if I could find a better spot from which to approach the yard. Heading towards the fence, I slung my bag over again and climbed to the otherside. Back through the woods I made my way, along the fence line out of the brush and into the clearing next to the dirt road. When I made it back out to the street, I cocked right walking back under the overpass, I headed back over to the Speedway.

The Speedway was in a prime spot, edged back off the street and close to the hillside next to where the tracks crossed the overpass. I walked inside and went to the bathroom, after filling up my metal canteen in the sink I walked back outside heading back behind the Speedway to investigate the area further. Around back I found a ladder to the roof, climbing to the top I had a birds eye view of the yard and a great radio signal. I relished in the thought of staying on the roof for the night. Safe where no one could find me or think to look, but that wasn’t my mission, and, after awhile, realizing how unhelpful this spot really was I decided to climb down. Before climbing down I peered over the edge. Sitting idly at the front of the store were two cop cars. “Oh shit,” I thought, “had the owner heard me on the roof?” Quickly I pulled out my radio scanner and flipped it on. Setting it to its general frequency mode I pressed scan hoping to pick up police chatter… With the volume low I listened and…. nothing. I felt safer, “they must be getting a donut,” I thought. I waited till they left and climbed down.

Directly across the street from the Speedway lay the packaging terminal and yard office. I headed out through the parking lot across the street and into the tall grass on the other side. The fence line curved away from the street and through an open field towards the terminal. Abruptly stopping in the middle of the field. It seemed to be an area under construction. Piles of gravel, ballast rock and rail ties lay strewn about in the mud surrounded by more tall grass. I began sneaking closer and closer from one pile to another trying to see if I could catch a clearer view of the yard activity through the lense of my binoculars. More confident I wandered closer to where the terminal met the concrete paved yard. There at the edge sat the yard tower. At this point I was pretty exposed. Then I saw it, its bright head lights flooded the dark corridor from which it emerged out of the shadows, an SUV pulled out from behind the yard tower. After turning off the paved lot it began to make its way through the field with its lights pointed in my direction. I fell to the ground on my belly laying as flat as I could make myself in the tall grass. The SUV pulled right up to where I was laying, I was sure they saw me. Its bumper could have been no less than 6 to 7 feet away and its lights blared down on me. The driver spotlighted the piles of rock behind me, I didn’t move… waiting, the SUV soon reversed, turned around and drove off. I was relieved and freaked out, “he didn't even see me?!” I thought, “I could’ve been killed, he could’ve run me over!” I slowly turned around and crawled back to the piles of gravel and ballast he had spotlighted. Putting my scanner and binoculars back in my pack I quickly hightailed it back to the road.

I was almost losing steam, this night had been rougher than I expected. Back at the road I followed the fence line down towards and under the overpass. The street and gas station lights faded behind me. Walking under the overpass I turned the corner sharply on the other side towards the fence line again. Disappearing into the shadow of its concrete foundation I mounted the fence, climbing to the top I underestimated just how sharp the barbed wire was. Resting my gallon of water on the metal barbs at the I began to negotiate the weird balancing act of shifting my weight ever so lightly over the top of the fence when.. I felt water. It was leaking. The fence had punctured my bottle even with the most careful consideration I had made for its placement. "Shit!" I exclaimed under my breath, I quickly climbed back down the fence and turning my jug upside down I found the hole. It was just big enough to let a slow stream of droplets out. With such a scarcity mindset I did not even deem it an option to go buy another jug.“How would I get food if I bought another jug?” I thought to myself. Keeping my jug upside down I walked back to the Speedway to regroup. It was 1 in the morning by now. I decided I would climb the hill to the train tracks next to the Speedway opposite the yard. It was the mainline and I had seen trains stopping and rolling slowly out of the yard there, earlier on in the night, I thought as I climbed my way up and through the thick grass and boulders creeping to the top of the train trestle. Exposure was high here, and not a train in sight was gearing to leave. The yard was quiet and empty. Were I to run across the trestle into the yard I would have no cover for at least 100 yards. I crept halfway across the trestle negotiating with myself what felt like the best move from here. turning around I snuck back across the trestle. Finally I decided to stay put and wait. I lay down in the grass next to the tracks where the top of the hill met the gravel, rolled out my sleeping bag and waited.

Dawn yawned and opened its tired eyes over the horizon. It was about 5 A.M. and the birds were beginning to sing their morning song. Tired and groggy from a night of next to no sleep I turned my head over to look towards the Speedway down the hill from where I was now. Slowly an object came into focus, long translucent with an orange cap on the end. It was a syringe. I immediately got up and checked underneath me, nothing. “Shit that could've been bad,” I thought to myself. I picked the syringe up and tossed it away from me down the side of the train trestle into the nest of boulders and grass below. It was cold, I pulled out my granola still ¼ of a bag left and ate a few handfuls. I was hungry but more hungry to catch a train than stick food in my mouth. The anticipation was killing me. A train off down the mainline in the yard was edging closer towards the bridge and slowly it rolled its way on over. The three locomotives stopping just past where I was crouched next to a tiny tree in the tall grass, trackside. I scanned down the line for a rideable well car. Intermodal trains were a beast I had not been around much and their cars were a little more tricky to read. Referred to buy there length and what type of structural floor they have, well cars mostly come in two different sizes. The most common being 53 footers and the dying breed of rideables, 48 footers. 48 footers, more times than not, have a solid floor which holds the shipping container. Almost all 53 footers are suicide wells, having only structural steel beams to hold the containers from falling through to the tracks below. On either end of both styles of cars are a platform flush with the top lip of the well where you initially climb onto in order to climb down into the well. In the many circles of riders out there the ones I paid attention to always strictly held an anti suicide well disposition. From the stance that not only was your life at stake and it was a good way to die but also that it was a good way to bring heat to the scene and shut down the greater riding opportunities for everyone else. I chose to heed this stance, and so for what limited access I had to the few train cars that had pulled over the bridge to idle, none of them provided an adequate riding opportunity for me. “Nope,” I thought, all 53’s. I sat with anticipation, the sun was still early in the sky. Whispering to the train under my breath, I called it forward, “come on give me a 48.” Slowly the train began creeping forward, just as soon as it had begun inching it was rolling. But no rideables in sight. Unfortunately the best way to tell if a well car is rideable is to look, so catching one on the fly can be a dangerous crap shoot. The train began to pick up more speed, at this point it was rolling too fast to catch. I stood in the brush and watched it past. No sooner than it had left, another train, inbound, came rolling down the pair of tracks farthest from me. Over my scanner the channel scan cleared, a conductor’s voice came over the line, “Yeehaw! The boys from San Berdoo are back in town!” This was the inbound train I had slated myself to catch outbound. BNSF’s Z-WSPSBD 9, the mail train from Willow Springs Illinois to San Bernardino California. The train barreled past, storming over the trestle and slowing down into the yard. I sighed, tired and cold , I was anxious, nervous and felt half hearted about this whole next leg of the trip. My water jug had already lost a significant amount of water and I continued to second guess myself over whether I should go buy another one. I chose hesitation, not wanting to leave the tracks for fear of missing my chance at catching the next train, telling myself to have faith that this punctured container would work out.

Soon enough two more trains pulled through, both outbound, both steadily rolling without stopping. The train on the tracks closest to me consisted of about 30% well cars in the front and the rest were flat beds, about shoulder height on my 4”9’ figure with a stirrup at my waist. These cars were rideable, and as I would find out later many folks would stow away under the back wheel wells of the semi trailers. However with my lack of knowledge and confidence in addition to the steep grading running off from the tracks this was an impossible catch on the fly. Standing back I let her pass.

The tracks cleared and for a while it was still. I laid back down in the grass next to the tiny tree I hid from the sun under. It was a sort of umbrella providing overhead cover while the tall grass hid me in between its blades. Munching on a few more handfuls of granola, 20 minutes or so passed, when finally, another slower moving intermodal train crept out of the yard and across the bridge to settle its three units just past where I was stationed next to the tracks. I was thrilled. Slowly rolling over, I crouched in the cool dewy grass next to my bag I had leaned against the tree. Stepping forward about 20 to 15 feet from the tracks I stood just out of the shade of the tree. Eyeing down the line of cars spanning across the tracks, I was on the lookout for my ride.

Before I knew it a crunch of ballast rocks from beside the tracks alerted my attention towards the locomotives that had stopped just a few yards past me. An engineer had climbed down from the train and was giving the units one last once over before getting the go ahead from the yard tower to leave. As soon as I noticed him he saw me. Looking at me standing there in the brush, with my matted dreadlocks and dirty jeans, my hiking pack leaning against the tree and radio scanner in hand. In a thicker mid-west country drawl he asked me, “you gonna ride this train?” I was stunned, my first encounter with a yard worker. I went with my first instinct, "No,” I said. At that moment I turned towards my bag. The man turned away back towards the train and pulling out his radio started talking. Over my scanner clear as day his voice came on the line, “We got a guy on the west side of this bridge, looks like he's gonna try to ride this train.” At that moment instinct kicked in, grabbing my bag I hastily scurried down the boulders through the grass, weary of re-encountering the syringe I had tossed down the side of the bridge. Back out onto the street I headed under the trestle and down the road away from the Speedway. I crossed a footbridge that spanned the Des Plaines River. The foot bridge fell below the traffic bridge meeting the shore of the river and turning into a walking path. I followed the chat paved trail following signs to the Metra Station. It was just a platform baking in the sun next to the tracks. I was exhausted from no sleep and a night of unevent after unevent. With no one around I rolled my sleeping bag out on the platform, crawled inside and fell asleep.

Sooner than later I woke up sweating, the sun was now roasting me alive beating down on me in my sleeping bag. It was noon and a police car had pulled up. He ushered me out of my sleeping bag, Crawling into the hot midday sun; I hadn’t realized just how uncomfortable and sweaty I was. He asked me what I was doing, Thinking on my feet I replied, “I was visiting a friend, she dropped me off to catch the Metra back into the city but it hasn’t come yet." The officer looked at me puzzled, "the Metra doesn’t run through here today,” he said. “Oh,” I replied. looking me up and down he asked rhetorically what kind of friend they must be to drop me off at the Metra Station without even checking the schedule. I thanked him for informing me. After he had left I flipped my sleeping bag inside out emptying leaves, some dirt and an earwig. “Gross!” I thought, earwigs freaked me out. Stuffing my sleeping bag back into the bottom pouch of my pack I pulled out another handful of granola and shoved it in my mouth. Wandering back along the greenway across the river I made my way slowly back towards the Speedway, finally arriving there after spending sometime by the river. It was late afternoon by now, hovering around 4 P.M. Walking around to the side of the Speedway I sat down in a shady patch of grass between the hill I had been waiting for my train on that morning and the Speedway parking lot. I sat in the grass lounging against my pack in the shade of a tree. Behind the Speedway sat an industrial park with several businesses tucked in and dispersed around a small central parking lot area. Around 20 minutes had passed, Stretched out in the grass I had made a sign to pan handle with. Stationed at the entrance to the gas station and industrial park I figured it was as good a spot as any.

After about 10 minutes the police had been called, 3 cars one right after another showed up. Seeing them before they turned into the driveway towards me I had tucked the sign underneath my butt. The first cop car pulled up and the cop stepped out. Approaching me he asked what I was doing. I told him, “just hanging out,” he asked to see my ID. I handed it over to him. Looking around me he eyed the cardboard sign sticking out from under where I sat. He asked what it was, I showed him. Turning he walked away motioning for me to stay put and mosied back to his car to run my ID without saying a word. Before long he returned, handing me back my ID he said, “we can’t have you sitting out here, is there anywhere you can go?” At this point I was tired and just wanted a warm bed to sleep in again, the entire journey had taken its toll. I told him, “I have a friend in Naperville, but the Metra's not running today.” Then gave him my spiel, that I had told the other cop from earlier that afternoon, about visiting my friend Ashley in the area. The officer resolved to drive me back the half hour northwest to Naperville. Handing him my pocket knife I got in the back of his cruiser.

The ride was quiet, and, after dropping me off at the Metra Station in downtown Naperville, I made the rest of the journey back to Daniel’s parents house on foot. Exhausted, I trudged through the upper middle class neighborhoods in the evening sun, past the well manicured front lawns with there sprinklers still running. Getting to Daniel’s house, everyone seemed surprised to see me. His mom heated me up leftovers from there dinner, and as I told them what had happened his mom with concern stated, "I'm glad you came back, I was worried about you."

The 4th of July was that Wednesday and Daniel was planning with his buds to see Umphrey’s Mcgee in Millenium Park, they were playing a free show and he invited me, afterwards they were planning on driving up to Michigan State in Lansing MI. Perfect I thought, my brother would be at MSU too and Daniel and him had plans to hangout and meetup. Resigning myself to heading back to Detroit I enjoyed the rest of my time hanging out with Daniel, my brother and there college buddies as they played beer pong and did there college guy things. Driving back I had a story to tell and would spend the next few weeks looking for a job.

I eventually found one at a pizza and grinders shop near my parents house, learning the art of short order pizza and sandwich making for carry out and running the register. The job was short lived, however. My parents were headed out of town one weekend soon after coming back, and my brother and I decided to have a get together with a bunch of our buddies. Just as I had done for Daniel and his friends, I decided to supply the alcohol and food. To the grocery store we went, making off with numerous litres of foreign beers and cuts of steak,despite my veganism, from the specialty grocers by our house.

Our friends showed up one group after another, into the night. we grilled, drank, played pool and eventually passed out. It was saturday evening and I had work the next morning, after getting sick I decided to be good to myself and retire early despite the egging on from friends to chase my vomit with another beer.

The house was a mess after the party. Our friends had departed late morning, mid afternoon. Upon getting home I found my brother laying on the couch in the dark watching TV. I asked him what the hell he was doing, alarmed he had not made any effort to clean up the house. After all my trials and tribulations with my parents I was still aware of the unspoken boundaries that lay like landmines in our relationship. And while I had earned a great deal of autonomy through my struggles with them I knew this was an untouched issue. My brother, eventually through his sluggish sleeplessness, moved from his idle hole on the couch and ventured through the house to help me clean. Our parents would be home with our younger sister later that afternoon and we only had so much time.

Upon their arrival the house was back to normal. With relief and vigilance I circulated through the house eyeing anything that still might be out of place or seem conspicuous. The next thing I knew there was a commotion from the garage. My mother calling for me walked in with my brother defiantly arguing with her. In her hand was a Labatt Blue box with directions written to our house on it. My mom had found it in the recycling and after asking my brother why it was written on a beer box, as if that was somehow bait for incrimination, my brother spilled the beans seemingly less in guilt and more out of defiance. I began to realize this was my brother’s way of rebellion, he had tasted his freedom in college and was beginning to know what it meant to push back against the grip of control he had felt for so long. With his academic clout behind him, his tenure in school and his new found independence he was being given more of a glimpse at his own power and he was pushing the envelope. However much I realize this now, I was still pissed at him for his lack of tact in handling the situation. This blunt approach clashed with my own MO and totally exposed me to a volatile backlash I was trying to avoid. Still operating through my own power and relational dynamics I was more covert, subversive and manipulative; aware of my endgame which was to finish school. I wished to still cut my losses and leave altogether on my own accord. When my father caught wind of what was going on it was as if a nuclear warhead had gone off, instantly we were given 5 minutes to get our stuff and get out of the house. Easy, I thought, grabbing my hiking pack I stuffed my clothes and repacked everything as I had for my previous trip to Chicago. I would go up the street to my friend Mike's house. My other friend James, who lived in Lansing, had an empty home he was watching for his parents that I could move into with him and finish my last few credits of high school, then I’d take off for the west coast. With my pack and a Miami dolphins vinyl tote bag I had since I was a child, I walked down the stairs of my parents house and to the front door. My father was waiting for me. I was unconcerned with him or his anger, he checked my bags, then looking at the tote bag he said “this isn’t your bag!” my mother, standing behind him, protested, “We gave him and his brother those bags as gifts when they were kids.” my father conceded and I walked past them out the door. My brother was still inside at this point, he was making several runs to his car from the house, I was pretty sure the 5 minute mark was closing in on him. Out by the mailbox I saw my father walk out of the house. He had been mowing the lawn, my sister had stalled me for a second as I stood at the street. She told me my brother wanted me to wait for him. Looking at my father he avoided eye contact, his face was angry and he started up the lawn mower, within a split second he furiously jerked and pushed the lawn mower forward away from him storming back into the house erupting into yelling. I walked away, “fuck that,” I thought. I told my sister my brother could find me at my friends house up the street, then with my tote bag in hand and hiking pack I ventured out to the cross road at the end of the street and started walking towards where Mike lived. A car was coming up behind me, still in view of my parents house, I stuck my thumb out. The car stopped, two people I had never seen in the neighborhood before were inside. The driver, rolling down her window, asked if I needed a ride. The woman was middle aged and in the passenger seat next to her sat her son, he looked about middle school aged. Just then my father out of nowhere came running up towards the car. Aggressively he challenged the woman? “What are you doing?” he demanded. The woman explained, “It looked like he needed a ride so we were seeing if we could help.” Shooting a look of judgement at me he asked if I were concerned? “Are you really gonna get in a car with someone you don’t even know?” As if to undermine my decision and imply I was in the wrong. I looked at him blankly, “yes,” I said. He seemed at a loss, turning, he walked away. I looked back at the woman, she offered again, I got in the car. “Was that your father?” she asked me. “Yeah,” I said. "We used to travel throughout Europe and would often hitchhike and pick up hitchhikers," she explained. Asking me where I was going, I directed her to Mike’s house. When we got there no one was home. She waited in the street for me. When I came back to the car, she offered to drop me off somewhere else. I decided to go back to my parents house where I’d wait for my brother.

Returning back to the house things had calmed down, my brother was still inside getting stuff. I threw my bags in his car and when he was done we headed out of the neighborhood. Parking in a grocery store parking lot, I made a few calls. I was able to get a hold of my friend Nick, he had an apartment just down the road and invited us to stay there for the night.

At Nick’s house, my brother, still reeling from the all nighter before, crashed hard. Nick was moving out and his apartment was empty. We sat on the floor drinking beer until the wee hours of the morning talking. Nick and I had known each other loosely through high school, and, as I did with many other friends, would enter and exit the small group of hardcore scene kids he was apart of maintaining a loose and casual friendship with them. I was so grateful for him, to have a kindred spirit who was not only willing to let me crash on his floor but someone who was on the same page with me, who saw the world in much the same light as I did. I had not known him that well until that night and was glad we had gotten to connect through such interesting circumstances.

I was scheduled for work the next day but I decided not to go, I was too tired and it just didn’t feel right. Instead I called more folks. My friend Laura responded with another place to stay. She was also friends with Nick and I had worked as a busser with her back in my Junior year at a bar and grill in town. Her apartment, she said , was vacant. She had just moved out of it with her sister and was riding out the end of the lease. We could card the door and simply sneak in, there even was a couch either of us could sleep on. That night we drove south to Royal Oak and found the address, after a little finagling with the door we were in. It was a top floor duplex, the place was in shambles, it looked as though Laura had had a going away party and got a little too excited. The bathroom door was kicked in. The disarray of the apartment just mesmerized me more, I soaked the whole experience in romanticizing what it would be like to really squat a house. It was something I had talked about doing along with riding freight trains for a long time, something much of the content of my punk music talked about, a cry of rebellion from everything I had grown up with. It represented a break, a hatred I had for my family and the hollowness I felt but could not put a name too. My brother and I got cozy, and with the glow of the street light just outside the window we fell asleep.

The morning came and we ducked out of the apartment and back into my brother’s car, pulling away we devised a plan for the day. Our friend Matthew was in a predicament of his own. His mother was threatening to kick him out of their house if he did not join the army or go to college. My brother's friend David lived in Royal Oak and his mother was offering to let Matt stay in her basement. We decided to head over to Dave’s place, Dave’s mother was one of those mothers that turns all their children’s friends into their own children. Although overtly religious she was always very warm and inviting. We chatted with Dave’s mom and hung out with Dave the rest of the day. His girlfriend at the time, Siobhan, came over and as we were all talking she offered up that we might be able to stay in an empty room at her parents house. Siobhan had had a rough go of it with her family, her dad had an off and on addiction to crack and her grandmother, who had dementia, lived with them. We decided to give it a go, sleeping on the subfloor of the unfinished room in their cigarette smoke filled house. We were grateful, but one night was enough for me. The next day my brother and I ventured back out to Rochester where our parents lived and split. I met up with my friend Courtney, she had agreed to let me sleep in her walk out basement after her parents had gone to bed. I spent several nights there. Courtney had gotten a job working under the table for an Oakland County judge in Oxford doing landscaping work at his house. She spoke to him and he agreed to bring me on board. After a few days with Courtney my brother and I met back up, he had been staying with his friend in Farmington Hills. When we met back up he told me he was considering trying to make things right with our parents. By this time I was switching gears and had my sights set on a different option.

I had met my friend Bruce at a coffee shop across from the public high school I had attended for the majority of high school down the street from our parents house. He was 30 and managed halfway houses for youth with developmental disabilities, on the side he was a magician and at the time had been in the middle of negotiations with Scholastic over getting a spiritually based children’s book published that he had authored. He had invited my brother and I over that evening to look at an empty room in his home in Pontiac. When we went over he showed us two rooms, of which, he said, he was willing to rent out to us for $300/mo. My plan was to stay here, perhaps my brother and I could rent one room and only pay 150 which we’d split. I’d get a restaurant job and ride my bike to Niles to finish out the year and then I’d head out once I graduated. It seemed doable. My brother, on the other hand, had a different plan.

There was another roommate in the house, he was an older gentleman who lived in the basement. Bruce speculated that he was alcoholic, saying that he made the perfect roommate since he kept to himself and you hardly knew he was there. Bruce’s space in the house took up the entire second floor. He was into all sorts of different health trends, from a gallbladder cleanse that involved drinking olive oil and lemon juice then crapping out gallstones to drinking his own urine first thing in the morning. Whatever the case my enthusiasm for the space was thwarted by my brothers reliance on our parents. The day after seeing Bruce’s house Andrew told me he was in conversation with our parents and was negotiating moving back in. I was crushed. No matter the turn of events, I had not been looking forward to stealing the small Kmart bike I rode around town from my parents garage and riding it from Pontiac to Troy for school every day, a journey of about 9 miles one way. At the same time the prospect of independence had me gripping the edge of my seat, yet I was side blinded. “How could he do that?” I thought, “he’s just gonna go back to that?” My disappointment in my brother’s lack of determination and self reliance grew and without the extra income I did not have the will nor the foresight to figure out how to pay for the room without him.

I folded, returning to our parents house we knocked on the door one afternoon, my father was still at work and my mother answered. I knew I needed to get a job and that meant I would cut off my dread locks. They had been growing for about a year at that point and were to my shoulders. Reluctantly I borrowed a set of clippers from my mom and at a gazebo in a nearby park my brother shaved my head. From then on I would razor my head bald until the next summer.