Lost December (21 page)

Actually, the interviews for the custodial positions were more painful than those for the managerial positions. One of them was with the daughter of the owner of a wholesale plumbing supply outlet. I had graduated summa cum laude from ASU, earned an M.B.A. from Wharton, had managed a multimillion-dollar business before I was twenty, and there I was in a warehouse, sitting in a taped vinyl chair at the mercy of a nineteen-year-old girl who had a lip ring, two nose rings, a massive tattoo on her neck and kept saying “we was.” I didn’t get the job. I didn’t get any of them.

By the end of my third week on the street, I was overcome with despair. I felt like I was walking in a haze, which is no surprise since I don’t think I had slept for more than two hours straight since I’d left the Bellagio.

One morning I saw my reflection in the glass window of a building and had to stop to make sure it was me. I was unshaven and dirty and my hair was long and matted to one side. I realized what people saw when I applied for a job. I looked miserable. I looked homeless.

Under the Las Vegas streets resides a silent,
subterranean village of the city’s homeless.
“It’s not a bad life,” one of the tunnel dwellers said to me.
“Two walls and a roof overhead. Beats sleeping in the park.”

Luke Crisp’s Diary

Living in the park was getting more untenable. One night I heard a drug deal going down just on the other side of the bush. Fortunately for me they didn’t know I was there. Another night, I woke to the sound of a police radio. I peeked out of my space to see three patrol cars parked on the near side of the park. Someone had been stabbed to death. That’s when I decided to move.

The next morning I went into a thrift store and bought a flashlight with batteries, a sleeping bag, an inflatable cushion, a package of toilet paper and a bowie knife. I strapped the knife to my leg and fastened the sleeping bag and cushion to my pack. In my walking I had passed the opening to one of the flood tunnels about a mile from the park. As I walked toward the tunnel, I felt like I was walking into the mouth of a beast—one that might swallow me forever.

I turned on my flashlight and went inside. I passed two people—one drunk, the other passed out—about twenty yards from the entry. I kept on walking through the darkness. Not counting the rats, I didn’t see anyone else, though I passed several places that stank of urine or feces. About
a hundred yards from the tunnel’s entrance I found a place where someone had spray-painted
HOME SWEET HOME
.

I laid my flashlight against the concrete wall, then made a nest of some scraps lying around, cardboard and newspapers, inflated my pad and rolled out my sleeping bag. I turned off the flashlight, and lay back. Before I fell asleep, a thought went through my mind—the same thing I had thought in Saint-Tropez:
If only Dad could see me now
.

During the time I spent underground, I met scores of people, including a couple who had brought in a bed with a headboard. They also had Ansel Adams prints leaning against the tunnel’s concrete wall—all the comforts of home. I don’t know if the tunnels ever flooded, they didn’t while I was there, but most of the time a small stream of runoff ran through the center, which we used to bathe.

Some time after I’d moved into the tunnel, Christmas decorations began appearing in the store windows outside. It’s strange how irrelevant time becomes when there’s nothing to pin it to. I had no calendar, no watch and no reason to own either. There were no events in my life, no dates, no holidays, just daily survival. I kept telling myself that I was still going to escape, but each day it seemed less likely. I ate at the soup kitchen when I could, but not always, and my money was dwindling. The weather got colder, but not intolerable. I suppose the moderate winter is one of the reasons
Vegas attracts so many homeless—at least those that it doesn’t produce itself. If I was just one state north, I might have frozen to death.

As I became more depressed, I became more nocturnal, usually beginning my day around 4
P.M
., eating dinner at the soup kitchen, then wandering around at night. I preferred the world at night, when it was less crowded—when normal people slept and the world was left to us, the invisible. I didn’t do much but think. That’s all there was to do, think and walk.

One night I was crossing through a home supply store’s parking lot when I was attacked by two men. I didn’t run as I didn’t even see them coming. I was immediately knocked to the ground.

Looking back, what was most disturbing about the assault was the quiet, settled nature of it—two predators surrounding their prey. Their eyes held no remorse, no guilt, no mercy, just a quiet understanding that that’s just the way it is in nature, red in tooth and claw. Being homeless is dehumanizing, but I think it was only then that I realized just how much of an animal I was.

Both of the men had knives. I had a knife too, but my instincts told me that to use it was certain death. I might die anyway, but maybe not. Frankly, it didn’t matter a whole lot to me.

The entire incident was like an out-of-body experience—flashing about me like images in a strobe light; splatters of sweat or blood, a fist or shoe followed by a flash of pain. Yet, even in my desperation and fear, my mind continued
to process. I wondered what my father would think when he learned that his only son had died homeless. Would it make the papers? The
Wall Street Journal?
It might. It was good copy—son of multimillionaire found homeless and murdered. Crisp’s stock prices might even drop.

The press would likely blame my father—the public is always looking for a scapegoat—but I knew better. I had brought this on myself. I could blame Sean, the system, fate or even God, but in the end, I had been on this path from the moment I turned from my father. It was my choice. I may not have liked my destination, but I had chosen the path.

I have learned that real angels don’t have
gossamer white robes and cherubic skin.
They have calloused hands and smell of the day’s sweat
.

Luke Crisp’s Diary

I was beaten unconscious. Everything was taken from me except my boxer shorts and my life, which I now regarded with equal value. I woke in a puddle of water, but not blood. My nose was bleeding, but that was it. They hadn’t cut me. They hadn’t killed me. My backpack was gone. The last of my money was gone. The streets had beaten me.

As I lay there, aching and gathering my senses, headlights appeared. I was exposed, curled in a fetal ball. The vehicle pulled close. My body shook from the trauma. I saw a man getting out of his van and more terror filled me.
What did he want from me? What was he going to do to me?

The man knelt down at my side. “You okay, brother?”

I looked up at him. Through the haze of my pain and fear, I saw a Hispanic man, short and broad, probably in his mid-to-late fifties. His eyes were dark as coal, and he had a large, thick scar on his right cheek, wide, like a burn. “I’m hurt,” I said.

“Do you think you can get up?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll help you.”

I groaned as I forced myself to my knees. He took my arm
and helped me to my feet. As I stood, a sharp pain flashed across my abdomen. “My ribs,” I said. “I must have broken some ribs.”