Travelogue #41 - I want to play spontaneous semen checkers with your gingham dress. King me.
April Fool's Day in Reno, Nevada. A group of desperate, tired men are sitting in an emergency shelter because of the freezing temperatures. The movie Speed is on. Men are audibly grunting and gesticulating towards the intensity of movies. Something tells me that these guys find the title of the film a double-entendre. Everyone is tired, but sleep doesn't come to most of us underneath the fluorescent cafeteria right. This emergency shelter is a slapdash entity--the entire cafeteria is converted to a shelter; hard plastic tables with bench seating house more than forty men. Some snore, and no one is lying on the floor (the obvious place). A large Hispanic old man next to me chews on sausage and the free bologna sandwiches, adding his own jalapenos. The smell turns my stomach, and after a day of escaping from Auburn, California to this hell-hole in the desert--The Biggest Little City in the World--an emergency shelter is my conclusion.
"If I catch anyone sleeping on the floor, you're out of here!" warns a large, bearded man with a serious demeanor. These shelters are staffed by volunteers, the same men who once slept on the streets, and very often, are in the late stages of their escaping their drug addiction. This man is one of these men. He never seems to laugh--"I swear to God I'm tired of your shit lately..." and he leaves. I try to sleep at "lights-out", but men continue to watch the television after Speed has finished. An episode of Law and Order is now on. Men seemed surprised by the show's easy plot dynamic, and still, I cannot sleep to the cat calls when a pretty witness to a crime gives her testimony.
Fuck it, I say, desperate for sleep. The night before I slept on concrete only to be awoken by a police officer who jovially asked "what {I'm} doing?" What does it look like? This night, I'll get a few hours, so I think back to the large man's wording--"if I catch anyone on the floor." Hmmm, I think, I can laydown on the countertop, next to the television. That's certainly five feet above the floor. Any janitorial standard of cleanliness would certainly endorse the cleaning of this entire cafeteria after everyone leaves at the unholy hour of 5am.
Within ten minutes of uncertain rest, I hear, "You! Get the fuck out!" I mutter something--"semanitics... five feet..." Whatever, I have a sleeping bag, I'm young, and I can do anything I put my mind to... This night, its survival in forty degrees of Fahrenheit desert. Okay, sure... I stop to get a notebook at Walgreen's and have my guitar and banjo stolen.
I'm too tired to care. A call to the police yields to an automated response: "Please call back at 8am." I speak to an officer. "Sir, we cannot help you file a report until 8am".
I am tired, I have enough money for a small appetizer and coffee at Denny's. I fall asleep in front of an abandoned gas station until I'm awoken in the morning by the construction crew and traffic. It is the day after April Fool's Day.
Outsmarting is Not Necessarily Rewarded
April Fool's Day in Reno, Nevada. A group of desperate, tired men are sitting in an emergency shelter because of the freezing temperatures. The movie Speed is on. Men are audibly grunting and gesticulating towards the intensity of movies. Something tells me that these guys find the title of the film a double-entendre. Everyone is tired, but sleep doesn't come to most of us underneath the fluorescent cafeteria right. This emergency shelter is a slapdash entity--the entire cafeteria is converted to a shelter; hard plastic tables with bench seating house more than forty men. Some snore, and no one is lying on the floor (the obvious place). A large Hispanic old man next to me chews on sausage and the free bologna sandwiches, adding his own jalapenos. The smell turns my stomach, and after a day of escaping from Auburn, California to this hell-hole in the desert--The Biggest Little City in the World--an emergency shelter is my conclusion.
"If I catch anyone sleeping on the floor, you're out of here!" warns a large, bearded man with a serious demeanor. These shelters are staffed by volunteers, the same men who once slept on the streets, and very often, are in the late stages of their escaping their drug addiction. This man is one of these men. He never seems to laugh--"I swear to God I'm tired of your shit lately..." and he leaves. I try to sleep at "lights-out", but men continue to watch the television after Speed has finished. An episode of Law and Order is now on. Men seemed surprised by the show's easy plot dynamic, and still, I cannot sleep to the cat calls when a pretty witness to a crime gives her testimony.
Fuck it, I say, desperate for sleep. The night before I slept on concrete only to be awoken by a police officer who jovially asked "what {I'm} doing?" What does it look like? This night, I'll get a few hours, so I think back to the large man's wording--"if I catch anyone on the floor." Hmmm, I think, I can laydown on the countertop, next to the television. That's certainly five feet above the floor. Any janitorial standard of cleanliness would certainly endorse the cleaning of this entire cafeteria after everyone leaves at the unholy hour of 5am.
Within ten minutes of uncertain rest, I hear, "You! Get the fuck out!" I mutter something--"semanitics... five feet..." Whatever, I have a sleeping bag, I'm young, and I can do anything I put my mind to... This night, its survival in forty degrees of Fahrenheit desert. Okay, sure... I stop to get a notebook at Walgreen's and have my guitar and banjo stolen.
I'm too tired to care. A call to the police yields to an automated response: "Please call back at 8am." I speak to an officer. "Sir, we cannot help you file a report until 8am".
I am tired, I have enough money for a small appetizer and coffee at Denny's. I fall asleep in front of an abandoned gas station until I'm awoken in the morning by the construction crew and traffic. It is the day after April Fool's Day.
