Squatter (MF Hobo)

[psiberzerker]

"Poncho Holmes"

Katina calls him Holmes, but she's black.  So, he doesn't get offended, even though that's the joke.  She doesn't call anyone else that, it's just because he's Homeless.

He's been coming in to the store, for a few years.  Usually in the morning, which is when I work.  For coffee, and the occasional pouch of Bugler.  Rolling tobacco, I carded him once.

"Are you 18?"

He chuckled, "No."  Showed me his empty wallet, so I pretended to check his ID, and rang them up.

Obviously, he looks older.  Even has a lot of grey in his beard, and joked about dying it pink so people would notice it was a heart.  That was back in the summer, before he started growing it out.  It started getting colder, and rainy, of course.

The summer ended, the few months out of the year when it doesn't rain, but he sleeps in the woods.  So, I started telling him to "Keep warm," or "Stay dry."  Instead of the customary "Have a nice day."

"I'll try."  He has a dry sense of humor.  Doesn't laugh at his little jokes, which would help you realize he's joking, because he peppers them in our long talks all the time.

"That'll be $5.37."  He looks at his wrist.

"That late already?"  Early in the morning, or if it's like $14:95, he'll say "Excellent year!"

Like that, then he might hang out to keep warm.  Refil his [Thank God it's Friday] coffee mug, or stop by the trash cans to fish some nickles out.  That's what he calls them, bottles and cans with deposits to turn in for $0.05 apiece.  People just throw them out on the way in, because it's just a nickel.

We just take them 1 at a time.  He has to go to Fred Meyers to turn in a load to the vending machines.  That's his job, he says.  "Recycler," he calls it.  One of the things we talk about, all the time is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, but he's not one of those guys.

You know the ones that only really have 1 thing to talk about?  Whatever you want to talk about, they always find a way to turn it around to them.  Usually sex, I went out with a guy like that.  We broke up, but he always managed to make everything about Sex.

Which was fine, for a while.  I like sex, and he was good in bed, but it gets old after a while.  He talked me into trying Anal, and I liked it, but that's not a relationship.  That was fuck buddies, at some point we weren't even friends with benefits.  I still have his number, I can still booty call him, but that's about all the breakup was.  I just decided to stop pretending we were friends, I was his girlfriend, or anything more than a fuck to him. 

Poncho.  That's not his real name, just what some people call him.  Like Pancho, but he doesn't look hispanic.  Okay, maybe he's got a tanned face, with freckles, but his eyes are this piercing grey.  We talked about that too, and he even showed me how they seem to change color.  It's just a reflection, but he took off his navy blue hat, and pulled the hood up over his bald spot. 

I knew he was bald, since the first time he came in for Tobbacco, and I asked if he had any ID.  He just lifted his hat to show me, "Does this count?"  Well, it says right on the placemat, if you don't look 40...

He looks about 40, and honestly I don't care.  When I broke up with Tyler, I took a long break, but finally I figured out what the real problem was.  He's young, and a good fuck, but that's all there is.  "Scratch the surface, and they pop."

That's what Poncho said, about shallow people.  We talked about my relationship problems too, my sex life, and my lack of a lovelife, but I think he was talking about Hipsters, actually.  I don't know, that was a while ago, but you know how they put on all this stuff?

All this fake stuff, like the old timey mustaches, curled up like Salvador Dali, and the nice haircuts.  Tattooes, Tyler was like that.  He had the sides shaved up to his ears, really short on the sides, and kinda like an Army cut, except the bangs.  Yeah, he had like a crew cut, only with bangs he'd spike up, or let hang down, when he woke up in the morning.  Which was kinda cute, when he actually spent the night, so he was still there in the morning. 

Never mind.  "Douchebangs," Pancho called them.  He was a douche, and I laughed so hard when he told me what that means:  "He exists for the sole purpose of pumping girls full of fluid."

"Right?"  Forget about that douche, I'm so over it.

[psiberzerker]

"So, I was watching this video on youtube."  Tess leaned over the counter to look at my phone.  "Blaming #MeToo for men's behavior.  Appaerntly, they're more reluctant to approach women because they're afraid of false allegations.  As if there's this feminist conspiracy to cockblock men, with false allegations instead of make it easier for men, women, and children to report sexual harassment."

"Worth watching?"

"Probably not."  I scrolled down, to check my comments.  She giggled.  "What?"

"[If you're truly afraid that men are more hesitant to approach women, for whatever reason now, there's an easy solution for women:]"  she read out loud, ["They can approach men.  I seriously doubt the men will cry "Rape."]"

"Hahaha, yeah."  It was bothering me, all day really.  So, I packed up my phone, and coffee cup.

"Where you running off to, now?"

"I need a bath."  I smelled myself, while she was leaning over my shoulder.  Okay, her shampoo, but that just made me self-conscious of my clothes.  From Dumpster Diving all morning, but that gave me enough to buy a pouch.  To load my pipe, just a chunk of bamboo I cut off, and poked holes in the web between sections for a screen.  Clamping it in my teeth like a Churchill Reject, I stuck the papers in the pouch, and zipped it up on my way around the back of the Plaid Pantry.

Looking around, before I pulled back the dry branches, this morning.  It cleared up, which means it warmed up a little, and even evaporated the dew clinging to the pine needles, but no sign of a trail.  Mixed temperate, but the hardwoods were bare from Autumn.  It hadn't snowed yet, but the rain was cold enough, if you don't have the sense to get in out of it.  I'm just glad that the year and a half was established, so I could start building up my home.  

I'm not homeless, any more.  Technically, I own it, or I will just as soon as the owners of the gas station decide to fight me for it.  It won't hold up in court, all I need is for them to establish Adverse Possession.  I'm not in any hurry, because as soon as they do, I'll have to start paying Property Taxes, but the worst part is over.  I had to keep a low profile, so the "Building" had to be too small to really notice.  My coming, and going not withstanding, everyone that works there could testify that I'd been here well over the minimum to claim Squatter's Rights.

"Huh!"  It just takes a while to boil the stock pot.  At least I still have embers left from the breakfast fire, and while that heats up, I can get started on the basement.  Before, about all I could really risk was a ridgeline with my Pancho over it, for camouflage.  Now, at least I've got some boards leaned up, from old signs, and some cargo palates down to keep me off the ground.  A dug-out, which filled up fine with rainwater, once I figured out how to filter it running in from the slope.  

My stuff out, piled up to the side now that it's dry, and won't get rained on.  Then, drop the water hose in 1 side, and roll it down the hill.  Suck start it, and walk back up to drain it enough to pour the hot water in.    That done, I pinched it off to hold the water in, so it'll be easier to get going, and checked the cistern.  Boiling, so put on oven mitts to pick it up by the handles.  Pour it in my bathtub, and get undressed, to climb in, and lay back.

"Huh!"  Enjoy the hot soak, on my back especially.  It's tired just from raiding the Recycling Bins.  Mostly PBR cans, the hipsters are like it's Stealing.  Oh yeah, you woke, brother.  So woke you're worried about what might happen to your property values, if anybody saw someone digging through your recycling bins.  Through the longnecks of microbrew doppelhopped IPAs, with old school bicycles on the label.  At least they buy local, amiright?

FAQ: "Isn't the city just going to pick them up off the curb, anyway?"

"Yeah, but my back doesn't cost any Gas to load up.  The fewer stops they have to make, the more they can pick up with each run, before they have to drive back to the plant, and back out to the neighborhood to pick up your trendy fucking vanity beer bottles."

"You talk to yourself."

"Uh?"  My back turned, to the clearing.  I didn't hear her walking up.  "Of course I do, nobody else understands me."

"I was wondering, how you can take a bath without running water."

"I've got running water, it's just cold.  What I don't have is a water heater.  You on break?"

She sat down, on my bike trailer.  Unfolded, and set up, with the wheels taken off, so it doesn't roll out from under you.

"No, I'm off.  I love what you've done with the place, but how do you get clean, taking a bath out of a hole in the ground?"

"I fired it.  I had to find some clay, down by the river, but once it baked dry in the summer, I just filled it full of wood, and baked it for about 16 hours.  This summer."

"Oh, right?"  She laughed.  That's how she talks, it's not uncommon up here.  Or father north, in Washington, or Vancouver Island.  If I had to guess, that might even be where it came from.  They sure didn't say it in Northern California on my way up here.  Stopped by Eugene to get that bike trailer, direct from the manufacturer.  "So, you know what you're saying earlier, about not waiting for a man to approach me?"

"Uh huh?"  Not exactly, it was just a comment I wrote, on a youtube video, because it bothered me...