Surviving

Chapter 3-2

It took Terry a minute to figure out where he was when he woke the next morning. Then it all came rushing back—being dropped off in Denver, meeting Rudy and the others, coming to their squat as Rudy called it. Climbing out of his sleeping bag, he realized he had a definite need for a bathroom. But can I use it during the day? he wondered, remembering the ones at the construction site.

He shook Kel’s shoulder, getting a muttered “It’s too early” from his brother. Then Kel opened his eyes and sighed sleepily. “It wasn’t a dream and I gotta piss.”

“Me too. So hop to it and let’s hope the construction workers don’t kick us out.”

“They won’t,” Rudy said from the other side of the room. “They know us.”

“They know you, not me and Kel,” Terry pointed out.

“Same diff, but I’ll go with you this time.”

The three young men left the room after Rudy woke Snap to let him know what was going on and to bar the door.

“Question,” Kel said as they walked down the alley. “How do you keep people out when you’re gone? You can’t bar the door behind you then.”

“Trust to luck, and so far it’s worked. Or I should say that no one’s tried to steal anything. We’ve found dudes crashing there a time or three. We let them stay the night and warned them before they left they’d better not tell anyone about the place. As far as I know they didn’t.”

After making use of the Porta Potty, with no hassles from the men working at the site, the three teens returned to the building. Josie was awake by then and she and Snap took off to do the same thing. When they got back, Rudy passed around bowls of dry cereal, saying, “Sorry we don’t have any milk to go with it but the fridge seems to be on the blink.”

“You know,” Terry said thoughtfully as he ate, “if you ever find one, in an alley, and brought it back, you could use it to store bread and stuff to keep it freshish since they’re air-tight.”

“Like we could get one through the window,” Snap said.

“There’s no doors?”

“Yeah, but they’re padlocked.” Snap shook his head. “Someday they’re going to sell the property and then we get to look for a new place to stay.”

“Hopefully off the streets,” Rudy added. “I don’t want to be on them when winter comes. Been there, done that, and it’s not fun.” He finished his breakfast, collected up the rest of the bowls when everyone else was finished, put them and the ones from the previous night into a plastic bag and left the room.

“He’s going to wash them somewhere?” Kel asked.

“Yep. There’s a fast-food place a couple of blocks away we use for that,” Snap said.

“You guys know how to make use of everything you can, don’t you?”

“You bet. You learn that when you’ve been on the streets as long as we have. If you guys want to change into clean clothes you can use our—” Snap chuckled, “—bedroom.”

Terry and Kel took turns changing. When Terry came back in clean jeans and a T-shirt, he asked, “Is there a laundromat somewhere?”

Josie nodded. “Three blocks over. We usually do laundry on Tuesdays. Sort of part of our routine. It makes things seem a bit…more normal, I guess.”

Rudy came back a few minutes later, put the bowls away and then said, “It’s time to hit the streets. Since you and Kel need to get the hang of things, Terry, we’ll split up. Kel will go with Snap and Josie, you’ll come with me.”

Terry frowned. “Why separate?”

“One, because if there’s anyone looking for the two of you, they’re less likely to notice either one of you if you’re not together. Two, because people tend to shy away when they see a big group of street kids. We want to make some money if we can.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”