Homeless and Hopeful

Noah woke up with a stiffness in his right shoulder. Shifting in his seat only caused him to notice the discomfort in his back. Groggily, he reached for his cell phone. It was fully charged. The screen displayed the date and time: 8:12 AM - Friday, September 17, 2020. He grunted, realizing that this Friday marked the fourth full week of him living in his car. A disappointing milestone. One full month of homelessness.

It wasn’t that long ago that Friday was a happy day, marking the end of the work week and possibly a night out with friends or family. But more likely, a perfectly fine evening in the company of Netflix and a Door-Dash meal.

Sometimes he thought that in an odd way, his lifestyle change had happened in ways that were both slow and fast.

Four months ago he’d been called into the principal’s office and been told that the school district was letting him go. They had budget cuts and were terminating one of their two social worker positions. He should not have been surprised because he’d heard rumors of budget cuts, but it was still a shock. He’d, fortunately, been hired before he’d even completed graduate school. Now he was, unfortunately, being fired before he’d completed even one year. One minute employed, the next minute not.

Fast.

That was in May and he figured he’d job-hunt like crazy over the summer and be placed in a new school by the beginning of the next school year. He applied online to more than 10 schools in his area. Then waited week, after week for responses.

Slow torture.

The pandemic had shut down hiring and slashed budgets for most school districts. Eventually, he started applying for positions with the state. Still nothing. Meanwhile, his paycheck stopped in June. By August, he was evicted from his apartment. In the battle between eating & keeping his car versus paying the rent - food and transportation were victorious. He caught a break when his sister let him store his stuff in her garage. But her house was jam-packed with her husband, kids, and a nephew so he figured he’d sleep in the car a few days until one of the jobs he applied for came through. Their parents lived half-way across the country, so not an option. He really thought it wouldn’t be more than a few days.

Now, it was officially a month. In that time he’d figured out where to go wash up and use the bathroom throughout the day; his sister let him shower at her place once a week; he found a spot that gave out free food, to minimize his spending; he knew the places where he could sit all day, charge his phone and use wifi to help him job-hunt; and he found a great place to park his car overnight that was safe and quiet. It was a corporate campus that was beautifully landscaped, silent and empty at night. And with most people suddenly working from home, it was pretty empty during the day too. Still, Noah chose to park his car behind the building that was the furthest from the road, slightly behind a low hill and near a dumpster. For the past two weeks, he’d had no problems.

As he thought about all the tips and tricks he’d learned over the past month, he mentally cringed. He did not want to get used to this lifestyle - did not want to develop the expertise of homeless living. He sat up straighter in his car, ready to drive over to the major shopping center to brush the sour, leftover taste of the vodka he’d drank last night from his tongue. He was late. He usually left the corporate campus no later than 5:30 a.m. to lessen the chance of anyone seeing his car in the daylight.

Just as he started his engine, a door opened and a man about his age, late 20s - early 30s came out of the building carrying a medium-sized cardboard box with various office items peeking from the top. The man was wearing a mask. He headed toward the dumpster.

Without thinking, Noah tapped his horn.

“Beep-beep!”

The man stopped, turned and gave a quick, jerk up of his chin in acknowledgment.

Noah slid his window down.

“Wassup. You ‘bout to throw out that stuff?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the man in the mask answered.

“You mind if I look through it first?” Noah asked.

“Nah. No problem. Do you,” the man said, and placed the box on the ground.

Noah had caught sight of a briefcase jammed in the corner of the box that reminded him of the one his Dad used to carry back and forth to work. From where he sat, it looked to be in pretty decent condition and big enough for his laptop and charger to fit. The fabric case he currently carried those vital items around in, was no longer sturdy enough for his rougher, homeless lifestyle.

Noah put on a disposable mask, and approached the man.

“Wassup,” he repeated. “Noah. You?”

“Jay,” the man replied.

Noah reached down into the box, picked up the briefcase and examined it closely.

“Perfect,” he thought to himself.

“Good lookin’ out,” he said to Jay, then peeked at the rest of the stuff in the box.

Nothing else looked good.

“Somebody get fired?” Noah asked, sympathetically.

“No. Some old dude died. He didn’t show up, or call or log on and they finally figured he died. Hospital called or something.”

“Hmmph,” Noah replied.

“Seen you parked out here a coupla days. Hard times, huh?” Jay asked

“Nah, I’m good. Fell into a little situation but I got stuff in the works,” Noah replied defensively.

“No doubt,” Jay said, dismissively.

He took out a vape pen, pulled his mask down and began to smoke. The faint smell of marijuana floated through the warm air.

As Noah was about to leave, Jay said, “Want some?” and handed the pen to him.

Noah blinked.

He thought to himself, ”A contagious virus is playing tag with the human race and killing off a fair number of people. And this fool is offering me his vape pen. My thing is liquor, anyhow. Cheaper.”

Out loud he said, “Yeah.”

He took the vape pen and sucked in the fumes.

“Fuck it,” he thought. “Being homeless is stressful.”

He nodded a good-bye to Jay and drove to get a fast-food breakfast. He purchased a hot tea and swallowed a few Vitamin D capsules to fight any possible coronavirus that was on the pen. Next, he headed to his wifi spot. In the parking lot he popped open the briefcase ready to slide his laptop in when he saw that it contained a little, black notebook. Looked high-quality though he couldn’t tell whether it was faux or real leather.

Curious he leafed through it. The contents were not what he expected. Instead of calculations, lists, or charts, he saw pictures. Really good drawings of different spots around town. Easily recognizable. Most of the sketches were in pencil or pen, black & white. But in the middle of the book was a beautiful, double paged drawing of a spot in the local park. There was a bench with a small gold plaque on it which stated that it was donated by the Moore family.

Noah knew that exact spot in the park. Recognized everything in the drawing except the dashed line and the “X” that was drawn near the tree behind the bench.

“Am I crazy?” Noah thought to himself. “Or is it this like a treasure map?”

Just then his phone “pinged” notifying him that he’d received an email. He checked the message. It was from one of the state jobs he’d applied to. He opened the email and scanned it seeing words and phrases like,

“Thank you for your interest… Job Posting #9uy8y337… at this time… unfortunately…”

He wanted to smash the phone.

But he was more mature than that.

Briefly, he wondered if his sister would let him put a small futon in her garage…

He returned his attention to the little black notebook. He had nothing better to do, than to sit down for the next several hours applying for more jobs.

“Maybe a day off wouldn’t hurt,” he decided.

He drove out of the parking lot and headed to the park. Finding a parking space was easy. He walked immediately to the place where the bench was. When he got there, he sat on the bench and began studying the dashed line and the “X”. He flipped a page over and saw a map key. Definitely a treasure map! Each dash equaled one foot. He got up and estimated walking 11 feet to match the 11 dashes, and stopped. Having found the X spot, near the base of the tree behind the bench, he looked around until he found a thick branch with a somewhat pointed end. He began digging. He kept digging - making the whole a little wider, a little deeper, using his hands sometimes, until after about 30 minutes the stick thumped into something solid. Was it a root? He cleared more dirt, until he saw it. It was the top of a highly polished, mahogany wooden box.

“Yes!’ he shouted “YES!”

At that point he almost didn’t care if it was a box of shriveled up potatoes. It felt like a win. Like something working out. Like something going right.

He dug around and under the box furiously, with a fresh spurt of energy for another ten minutes or so until he was able to pull the mahogany box free from the earth. He was filthy now. Hot and sweaty. And happier and more satisfied than he had been in months. He looked up at the sky and smiled. He caught the eye of a masked woman pushing a baby stroller down the path and she quickly glanced away.

“Ha!” he laughed, then turned his attention back to the box

There was some kind of mechanism for opening it. Undeterred, he pulled the notebook from his back pocket, wiped his dirty hands on his pants and flipped carefully through the book until he saw a drawing of the very same box that sat before him, sketched on one of the pages. Following the directions carefully, he turned a final small knob, and the lid popped open. Noah pulled out two Ziplock bags.

His heart began to pound.

It looked like money.

He unzipped the first bag. It was not shriveled up potatoes.

It was money.

A stack of hundos. Some Big Bens. Multiple one hundred dollar bills!

Noah opened the other Ziplock bag. More one hundred dollar bills. He swallowed, then breathed deeply in and out. He put the notebook back in his pocket. Shoved the Ziplock bags down the front of his pants and walked back to his car with the wooden box under his arm. Back in the car, he washed his hands with hand sanitizer and a napkin, then counted the money.

$20,000. It was $20,000!

He looked over at the contents of his passenger seat. It held the briefcase, the mahogany box, and the little, black notebook.

Those items had just changed his life.

Just like that.

Fast.