to their corner of the room and pulled food from the bag. The others looked on as the girls ate, their beer-induced appetite increasing at the sight of food.
Crystal approached them. She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked out her hip. “You gonna share any of that?”
Alessa reached into the bag and gave her a half-eaten deli sandwich they had fished out of the dumpster behind a restaurant. Crystal took it without thanking them and turned back to Rob.
“Come on, Rob,” she said. “Let’s go score some beer.”
As the couple descended the stairs, others in the room were moving toward Alessa and Lucy to see if they could get food for themselves.
After three days in the abandoned house, the girls were settling in. They were surrounded by thugs and drug addicts, but for the most part, no one bothered them. At night, to keep Lucy warm, Alessa would let her sleep with her freezing-cold hands resting against her back. By day, the girls worked the streets. They had earned forty dollars from begging. Every night, when they returned to their new home, they brought back food other people had thrown away.
On their fourth night there, Crystal and Rob came into the room as they sat eating. Approaching them in a belligerent manner, Crystal barked, “Whatcha got for me to eat?”
Desperately wanting to make a connection, Alessa told her what was left in the bag. Crystal and Rob took a half-eaten chicken and a loaf of stale bread. Then they retreated to their corner without uttering another word to the two girls.
The next day, while looking for food, Lucy collapsed on a park bench to rest. “Alessa, why do we keep giving Crystal and Rob food? They’re never nice to us, and they don’t bring anything back to share with us.”
Alessa averted her gaze. Great question, she thought before answering. “Because I’m hoping they will eventually become our friends and we can hang out with them. I mean, they don’t seem so bad, right? At least they don’t bother us. And Crystal hasn’t been that mean to us since we started sharing our food.”
Lucy sat up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. Her face was pinched tightly. “But that’s not how it works! Everybody should contribute, not just us.”
“I know, Lucy, I know” was all Alessa said.
That night, it started snowing hard. The weather was calling for ten inches. Lucy and Alessa had done all that they could to find extra food to keep them going for a couple of days, in case they were snowed in. Back at the house, there were more people than usual. The house regulars complained it was because of the storm. The girls nestled into their corner and ate their dinner.
Before they were done, four girls entered the bedroom. Alessa hadn’t seen them before. Dressed in black, they all appeared hard as nails. Tattoos snaked over every visible inch of their bodies, and their faces and ears were decorated with multiple piercings.
The newcomers immediately walked over to Alessa and Lucy and stood over them. The girl who looked the meanest was missing several teeth and was about fifty pounds overweight. She wore a fake black leather jacket, and her hair was cut close to her head. Large, flashy rings adorned her fingers.
She kicked Alessa in her shin. “Give us your food!” she barked.
Annoyed at the intrusion into what they considered their home now, Alessa shook her head. “Go find your own food. This is ours. We walked the city all day to get this.”
The girl burst into laughter and appeared to turn away, but she whipped back quickly and snatched the bag of food from Alessa.
When Alessa stood up, a reflexive gesture of self-defense, rather than a threatening one, the girl pushed her back to the floor. The others in the room watched the scene unfold. It was common for homeless people to fight over food and liquor, but many of them felt sorry for Alessa and Lucy because the girls had shared their food with others. Still, no one uttered a word in their support. Crystal watched. She didn’t like Alessa, but she didn’t hate her anymore either. Alessa and Lucy had turned out to be harmless, and they knew how to find food.
The four girls proceeded to drink and smoke pot with the others. They made their way around the house. Everyone knew they were what the homeless called “DBs” or “destitute bullies.” The homeless had nothing, but the DBs took out the anger they felt over their lost lives on all the other homeless people. DBs were the worst of their kind on the streets. When they didn’t get their way, they usually resorted to violence. Alessa had heard about them and knew these girls were part of this sick crowd. Realizing that they could seriously hurt her or Lucy, she retreated into her corner and tried to get the child as warm as she could that night. Crystal had watched Alessa’s interaction with the DBs and was impressed that she had portrayed no fear of this gruesome bunch.
By morning, there were twelve inches of snow on the ground. Lucy was hungry when she woke up, but there was no food left from the night before. She was also eager to play in the snow, but Alessa couldn’t let her get her only warm clothes wet. All of the homeless stayed inside the “Abandominium,” their name for the abandoned home they shared. For most people there, the snowfall was like a signal for an instant party. They drank and smoked all day long. Some of the older people gave Alessa and Lucy small portions of food they had stashed away, which was enough to keep them going until the streets cleared and they could get out and scout for food in dumpsters.
