Throwaway People

Discoveries

Palm Springs, Sears Outlet: 3:45 PM

Jim was surprised to see Patty coming up Forest Hill from the East. She had to have taken a bus to Haverhill. He was up by the Sears Outlet this time. He had made his rounds along the strip plazas that lined the corners of Military and Forest Hill. Selling a few bottles of water. Jim had been thinking of going down to the Fresco and buy the Thanksgiving meal they had talked about.

"Little C. has a gun, he pistol whipped poor Bobbi with it." Patty told him. She had walked all the way from Lake Worth down Haverhill. Running across the parking lot to the Sears Outlet.

"I should have beat him up for good measure. His gun's in the canal. I tossed it in there myself. After I took it from him." Jim had Patty sit down next to him in front of the Sears Outlet.

"I don't know if that was impressive or stupid." Patty managed between pants. She sipped at one of Jim's bottled waters.

"If I knew he'd hurt Bobbi I'd have beat the crap out of him as well." Jim saw a Sheriff car begin to pull into the parking lot off of Forest Hill.

Cops meant trouble for the homeless, Jim got Patty up. Guiding the exhausted Patty down past the Sear's Outlet, Payless Shoes, and into a sub shop. Having Patty sit down at a table Jim ordered a couple of meatball subs and drinks. He took a Pepsi over to Patty. Outside the window he saw the Sheriff car pull up and stop. The Sheriff Deputy gave a hard stare at the shop. Seeing Jim and Patty sitting at the table with their drinks the Sheriff Deputy drove on.

"Do you think that had anything to do with Little C." Patty asked.

"I doubt it. You know how it goes. You try to earn a little money and they call the cops and say you're annoying people." Jim heard the man say his subs were ready.

Patty had rested enough after they had eaten their subs that she was able to walk down to the Fresco. She sat on a bench near the door of the Fresco as Jim shopped. He found slices of turkey breast at the deli. From the shelves he picked up yams, powdered mashed potatoes, a jar of turkey gravy. A box of brown sugar, package of marshmallows. A box of stuffing. Two quarts of eggnog from the dairy department. For under thirty-five dollars Jim picked up a Thanksgiving dinner for three. Enough for them to have seconds. By this time Patty was ready to go to the camp

Green Acres, Camp: 3:45 PM

Clothing is a dispensable article for many homeless. Why bother to wash clothes if you can get clothing cheap or free from some thrift shop or charity. To wash clothing at a laundry mat is $4.75 for a small load. That makes the assumption that a homeless person is allowed to do their laundry there. For some homeless people it is easier for them to either buy clothes at a charitable thrift shop or obtain clothes for free from the same.

At the camp Jim and Patty had piled their dirty clothes in the workshop, as they called it. It had been a mechanic's garage once. Kitty was looking the workshop over. There were two deep pits in the concrete where two car lifts had been. These work pits were filled with garbage. There was a utility room with fuse boxes and a old washer and dryer. Which had to run on electricity. Kitty came to the conclusion that the building wasn't meant to live completely off the grid. At some time it had been hooked up to the electrical grid.

Kitty thought about something Jim had mentioned to her. That this house was built or remodeled back in the fifties or sixties by a survivalist. She wondered if that was true, why this survivalist hadn't figured on a way to do the laundry without electricity. There was a two sectioned sink in the workshop. Perhaps that was it.

Going back into the workshop Kitty noticed something in the back far corner. The workshop was dark. No one might have noticed it before. Kitty was good at seeing in the dark. She took the grimy tarp off of a strange machine. She didn't know what it was. A tub, which had a pair of rollers over it. Inside the tub were stainless steel blades that rotated by a handle.