No Place (7 page)

Talia and I sat on the couch with Tory and Noah while some of the others shot pool or played arcade games. While Tory and Talia talked about going to the mall the next day, I couldn’t help thinking that a few miles away my bed was a couch in a rec room not so different from this. Suddenly it felt strange being with these kids who all had their own homes, while I wondered if, the next time I needed clothes, I’d be forced to go to Goodwill instead of the mall.

Talia turned to me. “You’re quiet tonight.”

I shrugged. “Just thinking.”

No one said a word.

“What? Is that so strange?” I asked.

“Definitely.” Noah grinned.

Tory’s mom came to the door to announce that the pizzas had arrived. There was a mass exodus toward the stairs, but I noticed that Ben was in the middle of a Space Invaders game. “Be up in a second,” I told Talia, then waited.

Ben kept playing, but I knew he’d seen me out of the corner of his eye. I didn’t know him that well. Talia had told me that once a month the Young Entrepreneurs invited a local businessperson to speak, and they’d asked her father, who told her afterward that he’d been seriously impressed with how Ben had grilled him about his real estate business.

Ben finished the game, turned to me, and frowned as if to say,
Why aren’t you upstairs chowing down?

“Nice move before,” I said, and as his eyebrows dipped toward puzzlement, I added, “in the church kitchen.”

Ben nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Thanks . . . It’s too bad, you know?” He went past me and up the stairs. I stayed behind for a few moments, wondering what he’d meant. Was it too bad about the people who had to live in Dignityville? Or too bad about what had happened to me? Or was it that in his eyes, there was no difference?

 10 

Noah and I usually went for a long run on Saturday mornings to keep the cardio thing going. When I got back to the house after the run, Dad was in the driveway, putting Uncle Ron’s Callaways in the back of our car. “Got time for a round?” he asked.

Maybe once a year Dad and I played golf at the public course just to spend time together. I knew it was a Saturday, and not a great day for him to look for a job, but given our circumstances, it still didn’t feel right. Besides, once again I had a chance to earn some money helping Uncle Ron’s neighbor do yard work.

“Don’t think I can, sorry.”

“You sure?”

I almost asked if
he
was sure going golfing was the right thing to do. I was going to spend the afternoon working; why wasn’t he?

*  *  *

I worked for about four hours, and had gone back to Ron’s to take a break, when Mike and Ike burst into the rec room.

“Your dad’s in trouble!” Mike announced excitedly.

I went upstairs. Dad and Ron, both wearing golf clothes, were standing in the front hall. Ron’s face was red and I got the feeling that he’d been chewing Dad out big-time. They both gave me a look that said I should make myself scarce.

In the kitchen Mom and Aunt Julie, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, were at the counter. Mom looked grim, although it seemed a little strange that Aunt Julie was the one who appeared really upset.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“Ron came home to play golf and your father had taken his clubs,” Mom replied.

The implication hit me. “He took them without asking?”

“Ron’s been in the office every Saturday,” Aunt Julie explained. “There was no reason to think he’d take off early today.”

It seemed odd that she was defending Dad, but I had a feeling it was because Mom felt the way I did—that there was no excuse for taking those clubs without asking. But that was the kind of thing Dad sometimes did. More thoughtless than malicious, but bad judgment just the same.

Aunt Julie left the kitchen to find Alicia and get her out of earshot in case there was a round two between Ron and Dad.

“This isn’t working,” Mom said in a low voice now that we
were alone. “The negative energy in this house is overwhelming.”

“You can’t blame Ron for being angry,” I said. “I mean, what Dad did was incredibly dumb.”

“I know, but it’s still unbearable here. He’s
always
angry. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“What can you do?”

Mom tapped a finger against the kitchen counter and gazed off. “We’ll see.”

*  *  *

When you’re a kid, things are mostly black and white, good and bad. Then you get to be a teenager and you start to see the gradual hues in between. Is someone good or bad? Both? A little more of one than the other? Dad stayed home with me when I was little because as a stockbroker Mom was making more money than he was and they didn’t want to put me in day care or have some other person raise me. Think being a stay-at-home dad is easy? Even as a little kid I was aware of the looks other moms gave him in the supermarket, and at school when he volunteered for the book fair. And it’s not so hard to imagine what it must have been like for him at parties with the other fathers talking about their jobs as lawyers and bankers and whatever.

But he took all that crap for my sake, and guided me toward pitching, which is probably the best thing that I ever did.

On the downside? He didn’t have the best judgment. Not a lot of ambition, either. Liked to play more than he liked to work. Took his brother-in-law’s golf clubs without asking.

*  *  *

“Think of it this way,” Dad said in the car later that afternoon. “It’s not that much different from any other campground.”

I didn’t know what to say. We were parked on the street across from Dignityville. Earlier that afternoon Mom and Dad went somewhere while I’d gone back to Uncle Ron’s neighbor’s to work. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask where they’d gone.

Now I knew.

It was getting close to sunset, and inside Dignityville people were filing into the big tent in the middle of the park. A few were the grungy types you imagined homeless people to be—old guys with greasy hair and scraggly beards, ladies wearing too many sweaters. But others looked as neatly dressed as anyone who had a home.

The weird thing was, sitting there in the car, it felt like a scene out of
The Grapes of Wrath
—the Joads pulling up to a Hooverville. All I could think was,
They can’t really want me to live there, can they?

“Just have a look, Dan.” Dad reached for the door handle. Mom gazed over the seat at me with obvious concern. “Try to keep an open mind.”

“There’s no place else we can go?” I asked.

“Not if we don’t want to feel beholden to whomever we’re staying with,” Mom replied.

I couldn’t believe they were serious. So what if Uncle
Ron’s house was filled with negative energy? It had to be a hundred times better than living in a tent.

We crossed the street and went through the entrance. A big handwritten sign said:

WELCOME TO DIGNITYVILLE

We Thrive on Mutual Respect and Tolerance

No violence is tolerated.

No weapons are allowed.

Sobriety is required.

No verbal or physical abuse will be tolerated.

Anyone who cannot respect these rules will be asked to leave.

If they do not leave voluntarily, the police will be called to remove them.

“Is Aubrey around?” Dad asked a heavyset guy with shaggy eyebrows and a thick bushy beard.

“He went over to the church to get dinner,” the guy answered, then pointed. “There he is.”

A dented old van had pulled up to the entrance and a couple of people started off-loading big pots.

“Hey, Aubrey!” The heavyset guy waved and gestured at my parents and me. A tall, thin fellow with a neatly trimmed beard started toward us. Here in Dignityville beards and plaid shirts were definitely the go-to look.

“So, you must be Dan.” Aubrey offered his hand. It was obvious my parents had told him they’d be bringing me over for a visit. “Come on, let’s take the tour.”

I noticed right away that there was something earnest and welcoming about Aubrey, but it didn’t matter. This was seriously out of the question. Dignityville was basically a refugee camp: bottom of the barrel, end of the road. Maybe other people belonged here, but not my family. And not me.

As if Aubrey sensed what I was feeling, he tried to lighten the mood by making jokes. The dining tent was the “Grand Ballroom,” empty campsites were “deluxe building lots,” and the washing facilities and row of tall blue portapotties were the “International Spa.”

“And here are the meadows.” Aubrey led us around the portapotties to a plot of bare ground, weeds, and brush. “When I gave your parents the tour this afternoon, your mom thought this would be a good place for a garden, which would be a huge step toward making Dignityville self-sustaining.” He put his hand on my shoulder and led us back. “There’s a company that might donate some used solar cells. They’re not as efficient as newer models, but they’d do. We might even go with a small wind turbine. Imagine Dignityvilles all over the country, Dan. Self-contained, self-sustainable eco-villages
where people who’ve lost their homes will feel welcome and good about themselves. Like pioneers in the new world.”

“I thought Dignityville was supposed to be temporary,” I said.

Aubrey gave me an appraising look. “You follow the news, Dan?”

“A little.”

“So maybe you’ve heard that conditions around the country are getting a little better? But unemployment’s still high. People are still losing their homes. Towns and cities are having a really tough time. Believe me, Dan, nothing would make me happier than seeing everyone get a job and be able to afford a place to live, but in the meantime shouldn’t we be preparing for the possibility that it might
not
happen? You can think of Dignityville as temporary if you want, but I wouldn’t be surprised if twenty years from now it’s still here.”

I understood that he was trying to spin it in a positive way. Maybe
he
believed what he was saying, but I didn’t. To me Dignityville wasn’t the future. It was a bunch of tents and portapotties for unlucky people who’d otherwise be sleeping in doorways and old cars. My family may have fallen on hard times, but we weren’t like these other folks. I couldn’t say it to Aubrey, but we just didn’t belong here.

By now the Grand Ballroom was crowded with people eating on plastic plates. A humming generator in the background provided electricity for the lights. The air smelled of diesel exhaust.

“Hungry?” Aubrey asked.

It was dinnertime and I should have been, had my stomach not been knotted anxiously at the prospect of moving here.

“Come on, take a look.” Aubrey pulled back the clear plastic sheets that formed the walls of the dining tent. “Any different from lunchtime in the cafeteria?”

It was, but maybe not as much as I might have imagined.

“Let’s give it a try,” Dad said.

I didn’t want to, but couldn’t figure out how to say so without sounding like a brat. We got in line. It was strangely quiet inside the tent. A few low conversations took place here and there, but mostly people were focused on eating. On the other side of the serving table a couple of volunteers in white serving aprons were ladling out . . . chili.

I hardly ate, not because I knew what had gone into making that chili, but because I had zero appetite. I kept telling myself this couldn’t be happening. My parents couldn’t really be serious about moving to Dignityville. We weren’t these people.
We
were supposed to be the ones volunteering to help
them
.

*  *  *

By the time we got into the car to go back to Uncle Ron’s, I’d begun to prepare my arguments. But Mom had prepared hers as well: “I know you don’t want to do this, sweetheart, but I feel very strongly about it. It won’t be easy, but I truly believe it’s the best thing we can do as a family. There’s a positive energy there, and we can be part of it.”

I said exactly what was on my mind. “If we go there, everyone’s going to think we’re homeless.”

In the front seat, Dad and Mom glanced at each other. Then Mom looked back at me. “We won’t be homeless. Dignityville will be our new home. We’ll be on the forefront of a new way of living. You heard what he said. Someday, there’ll be lots of Dignityvilles.”

“I get that, Mom, but that’s far in the future. Right now the people in Dignityville aren’t on the forefront of anything, except homelessness.”

The wrinkles around Mom’s eyes deepened. “Are you worried about what your friends are going to think?”

It wasn’t just my friends; it was everyone. We may have been having a tough time financially, but as long as we were at Uncle Ron’s, at least we had a home. “We just don’t belong there, Mom.”

“That’s a mindset, sweetheart. You need to think positively about this.”

Positive thought . . . yoga . . . meditation . . . those were her things, not mine. “Okay, you want to know the truth? Yes, I am worried about what my friends are going to think. I’m worried what
everyone’s
going to think. Because basically, they’re all going to think we’re losers.”

“If they’re real friends, it shouldn’t matter,” Mom said.

Just then Dad caught my eye in the rearview mirror. The look he gave me told me to stop arguing and go along with it.

“Have we ever done wrong by you?” Mom asked.

I sat back and didn’t answer. It was hard to remember the last time I’d felt this miserable. For most of my life—at least until I was twelve or thirteen—my parents had made the important decisions for me. Since then we’d shared decisions, or I’d made them on my own. But looking back, I couldn’t remember them ever deciding something for me that was so totally, absolutely misguided.

 11 

The next morning I got up early to clear brush and chop wood with Ron’s neighbor again. While in the bathroom I glanced outside and saw Mom and her brother strolling across the backyard toward the tennis court. I had a feeling they’d gone outside because Mom didn’t want the rest of us to overhear what would be said.