Date: March 18, 2005

Unedited text sent to the Worcester paper, ROAD TRIP Part III.

After 9,818 miles of travel, two van breakdowns, a fire ant attack, the threat of scabies, a flu that rivaled heroine withdrawal, and an encounter with a drunken, hatchet wielding guy in a remote part of the Arizona desert, I sit here in a cold, wet room in Monterrey, Mexico wondering just how many miles I am from home. I am afraid it's not a distance that can easily be calculated in miles.

When faced with prolonged lack of rest, food, and essential human needs one can't help but feel the desire, "I just wanna go home". For many in our country, (over 600,000 per night by conservative estimates), that natural instinct is reduced to mere sentimentality when slammed with the response, "just where is home?" One kid on the streets of L.A. said, "It's not like you can just go home and watch TV".

It's been said that, "home is where the heart is". For me, that place is only 2,000 miles away, in Worcester. Though I don't have a house or a place to set up shop, it is where my partner patiently awaits my return, where I have friends and a familiarity with the social and physical environment, and opportunity for work. But it's a lack of that sense of belonging coupled with the lack of adequate shelter that defines homelessness, and it's afflicting more people each day.

I met former Worcester resident and Holy Cross graduate, Jan Sankus, in San Diego where she is director of The Storefront, a drop in center and emergency shelter for youth in crisis. Jan told me that there are about 1,500 kids under the age of 18 on the streets of San Diego each night. Her program shelters 20.

For the 1.480 that slip through the cracks the program has an outreach team that visits kids where they stay; on the beach, at bus stations and in abandoned buildings. Jan said the cops are fairly tolerant of squats, "until someone wants to build condos". Her programs provide kids with survival information, warm clothes and food. The flyer says, "The goal is to return young people, 'on their own' to their families when possible, or to find them independent living arrangements, and to prevent their sexual exploitation or victimization".

Meanwhile, San Diego has developed some clever policies for keeping people from sleeping in their cars in public parking lots; they close them from 2 to 4 a.m. As I sat in a lot at Mission Beach waiting for the official hour to legally sleep, I watched a guy wandering around with his dogs. At first I thought he was looking for cans, so I dug around for some change in case he approached me, then I realized he was picking up cigarette butts and trash. Chalk one up for us.

Later that morning, as I awoke to the sound of shoppers and tourists, I noticed a faint pattern in the sand surrounding my van. Closer examination revealed that there was too much detail in it for it to have been an artful act of nature alone. Looking around the lot I was overwhelmed with what I saw next. What were just cigarette butts and dust a mere 4 hours ago was now a full canvas of "sand paintings".

Enter Sandman, a.k.a. Alberto Avilla, a Chicano from Chula Vista, California, a romantic and a visionary in the true sense of the words. Several years ago while working in an oil refinery, Alberto prayed to Saint Jude to free him from, "the life that is slowly killing my spirit and body". A short time later, as he was walking the dogs in an abandoned 128-acre lot, he says, "Everything went quiet. The dogs were sniffing the air, they could sense it". The "it" he refers to alternately as, the Miracle, the Message, the Vision.

The angels told him to pick up the trash and do something creative with it. For the next 12 months, (one month for each apostle), he did just that. Alberto single handedly built a 128-acre park of sculptures made solely from the debris that was there. More visitors arrived each day to view the work and chat for hours about spiritual matters with the tireless artist. As the number of visitors continued to increase city officials became more concerned over the issue of, "liability".

To avoid the public outcry that a blatant eviction would cause, officials instead launched a subtle campaign to remove the artist and close the park. They created a no parking zone surrounding the site, secured fences, and finally erected signs saying, "Official city park 3 miles ahead". Visitors stopped coming, illegal dumping increased and now the site has reverted back to the abandoned lot it once was. City officials sit content behind their desks, and the masses have returned to their mundane routines at the refinery.

Alberto takes it all in stride saying, "This is bigger than them, they can't stop it. Everything will be taken care of." He believes that the apostles were tired of that place anyway and now they are competing to be assigned to him as his operation has moved to the sunny California coast. In Mission Beach he continues to entertain visitors as the Sandman, with his art, his stories, and his vision.

I was curious about the more basic details of Sandman's life, such as what his family thinks about all of this. He answered that one brother has given him the camper he lives in, another has given him a cell phone, occasionally his mother will send some money, and he gets the occasional visit from his daughters. He says none of them fully believe his vision, but they all support him. In fact it seemed to not even enter his mind, until I asked, that family wouldn't support each other in any situation.

In sharp cultural contrast is Nikki, a 20-year-old woman from the States, who has been dealing with homelessness and all it's side effects since the age of 13. I met her in Austin, Texas at a place called Bio-Squat, where she was facing eviction by the community of squatters. Her story is classic as it is tragic.

On Nikki's 4th birthday, her 13-year-old sister, Wendy Marie, hung herself to death in the schoolyard. She says that things became worse than they already were from that point on. Her parents' drug addictions, depression and physical abuse escalated to epic proportions. Her parents split up soon after, and Nikki continued to live with her father. Since then she has discovered through discussions with family members that their father sexually molested her sister.

While she's not certain if the same fate happened to her she is sure that she's felt severely uncomfortable. She says that he would say things like, "You look nice", while eying her up and down, and in outbursts of anger, "Kiss my dick", and, "Go play with yourself". Friends' parents would not allow them to stay overnight. Not surprisingly, Nikki turned to drugs and alcohol, became depressed and attempted suicide herself. She said, "The only way to leave him was to hate him and push him away".

Her early runaway pattern would often lead to "sketchy" situations. She felt that she had to put up with it, because they were letting her stay in their house. She became more street-wise and was eventually introduced to the activist scene through a cousin. There she found a more compassionate and socially aware crowd and felt encouraged. But these communities were simply not equipped to deal with the level of Nikki's problems and one at a time she'd be asked to leave them as well.

Nikki's cousin, David Nathan Chain, (a.k.a. Gypsy), was killed during a direct action protest by a logger who felled a tree on him. The family settled out of court and singer/songwriter David Rovick wrote and recorded a song in his honor, "The Death of Nathan Chain". Somewhere along the line they met, connected, and Nikki moved in with Rovick's partner Natalie.

At first everything was fine, but in time the predictable behaviors emerged. Nikki began sleeping a lot and crying uncontrollably, then to avoid the pain and shame of her emotions, she began to stay out all night drinking, occasionally bringing strangers home and putting her host at risk. Tensions mounted and the well-intentioned Natalie was forced to ask Nikki to move on. That is just one example of many that Nikki recounted for me.

When I met her she was faced with the tail end of the same situation at a different location. Bio-Squat is a community of artists and activists in East Austin. A few individuals own the land and a community has developed around their ideals. They are part of a bicycle culture that migrates to Mexico each winter in a project called Bikes Across Borders.

The land is peppered with sculptures of steel and stone worthy of museums along with recycled art. Even the functional structures are made to coexist with the landscape in artful fashion using everything from earth and stone to bottles and bike parts. The bio-toilets give only one subtle clue to their function - a toilet seat.

My empathy was divided between Nikki's desperate feeling of having absolutely nowhere to go and the rest of the community that could lose everything because of the risky behaviors of one. I've been in the shoes of both. As cofounder of the Spacement in Worcester, the security of my personal and professional space was constantly subject to the actions of others. One such action led to our temporary closing and accelerated my return to houselessness. On the other hand, as an addict, I had ostracized myself from family, friends, co-workers and even institutions, and I remember all to well that feeling of finding myself utterly alone and helpless.

For my part as an objective participant in the discussions, I was able to help Nikki conclude that she was ready for help from someone or someplace that was better equipped. As a group we arranged for an appointment with a local organization dealing with youth in crisis. Their mission statement was practically a mirror of Jan Sankus' Storefront model in San Diego.

All concerned seemed to experience a collective sigh of relief. Personal differences were put aside, Nikki would not be left dangling in the abyss, and the safety of the group was restored. Nikki decided to spend her, "last night of freedom celebrating". She didn't return for her appointment.

I had rolled into Austin two weeks earlier with $30.00 to my name and was only able to earn another few hundred during that time. To prolong my stay even one more day would only serve to deplete my already limited emotional and physical resources. As much as I hated to leave unfinished business, I felt no choice but to move on to my next destination, the border town of Brownsville, Texas.

Less than a half a day out of Austin I began to experience chills followed by bouts of fever. A friend once asked what homeless people do when they get sick. I replied kind of smugly, "They don't have time for such indulgences". I was pretty proud of the fact that I had remained in relatively good health through all of these climate changes and social situations, and I fully expected this bug to pass quickly. I was wrong.

To make matters worse, there had been a scabies outbreak among the activist community in Austin. As I drove along I got an itch on my arm and in my fever and paranoia I decided to pull over and wash myself in sulfur soap as a precaution. I was on a deserted farm road in southeast Texas and apparently I was standing on a nest of fire ants. The trick of fire ants is that they first quietly swarm you, and then they emit a chemical signal to each other and simultaneously bite.

After about an hour of damage control I rode the free ferry to Port Aransas, a small island off the coast of Corpus Christi. There, you can buy a beach pass for $6.00 that's valid for one full year. Free camping on the beach is allowed for up to 32 hours and countless RVs and vans were taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Under different circumstances I would've appreciated such access and I would've visited my neighbors, but for the next 48 hours I was tormented by chills that only let up when the fever took over, and itchy bites that I couldn't distinguish between scabies and fire ants.

Finally free of parasites and the flu reduced to a nuisance, I continued to my friend's mother's house in Brownsville. Alicia Fraire had never met me, but on her son Luis' word alone she opened her doors to me in a way that I am unaccustomed to. She gave me a key to the house, pointed me to the frig and left for two days. It was a little difficult to leave that kind of hospitality, but Alicia also owns a house in Monterrey, Mexico that she would like to see put to good use. Luis was already there playing music with the Worcester band, the Pandas, and collaborating with local musicians. My task was to access the repair needs and see if her vision for the property could meld with her son's.

Luis would like to see the place used to create, perform, and showcase art as well as being a respite for travelers. The Pandas have made great strides in that direction already. Alicia would like to see a soup kitchen and a free school for local kids to learn English as a second language. They both want the property to impact the neighborhood in a positive way and be used for the good of family and the community.

Over the next few months they will be discussing the logistics. I am confident and encouraged by what they have begun here. I am also looking forward to continuing the Spacement where it left off and somehow helping to unite the two ventures.

In an interesting aside, I attended a jazz concert at a government funded art center here in Monterrey last week. I felt a little uncomfortable at how "Americanized" the place felt. Muzak, in English, was being piped throughout the grounds. Inside at the concert, the MC introduced the band by saying, "We are proud to have this Canadian band playing for us here tonight in the United States". The MC was the Mexican Ambassador from Canada and we were in Mexico.

As humorous as that sounds, it illustrates the sad reality of what is happening. As the U.S. continues to impose it's political and economic policies around the world, it brings with it our cultural habits of individualism and selfishness. In Monterrey, the divorce rate has increased tenfold since the onset of NAFTA, (the North American Free Trade Agreement), in 1994. In our culture we have created an environment that produces the likes of Nikki, myself and countless others, and further we offer them inadequate solutions. Let's at least not spread that around the world.

Places like the Spacement in Worcester, the cultural centers in Mexico, and resource centers and artist groups around the world are one step toward solution. For the most part these are places where one can temporarily be freed from the insidious hype and propaganda that infiltrates our every waking hour through TVs, billboards, and our sleepwalking co-workers. They are places where one can be reminded of what's important; each other. The good news is that this is not something that's difficult to learn, it is instinctual - we just need to be reminded.

Today, March 1st, I will be beginning the long trip home - where my heart is. There is plenty of work to do. The first thing will be to secure some "legal" space for the Spacement to work from. The Spacement's Mission Statement is; "To create and maintain a safe and loving environment that fosters creativity and free political expression".

In less Hallmarky terms, we're creating a space that's like the quintessential "Grandma's house". A place where you can color outside the lines and still be accepted, where, no matter what you go through, their will always be a comfortable room waiting for you.

For more discussion about the Spacement you can contact us at: spacement@riseup.net

To comment on this series, I can be reached directly at: beanphoto@riseup.net

Finally, if you're able to contribute much-needed funds to this effort, you can send donations to Rose Tirrelli.