Michael didn’t even like Rob that much, but even he seemed surprised and maybe even a little disappointed in Rob’s decision to stay behind.
“But what about the cops? They’ll find him if he stays and they’ll come for him,” I said.
“He seemed to think that he wouldn’t have a problem with them if it was just him alone. He mentioned something about staying in upstate New York and maybe even having his own motorcycle repair shop. We all know that Rob can take care of himself. If he doesn’t want to be found; he won’t be.”
It got quiet for a moment.
“Are you okay?” Adam asked as he reached to put his palm on my knee.
I was strangely more okay with it than I thought I would be. Now that I knew it was what Rob wanted, I was okay with it.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I mean, it’s a little strange not having Rob here anymore, and knowing that I’ll probably never see him again. But it also kind of feels right.”
“How so?” Michael asked with his eyebrows crinkled into an inquisitive look.
“It’s just the three of us again,” I said with a faint smile.
Adam smiled right back at me, and Michael pulled me a little bit closer into him.
“You’re right,” Michael said. “It does. Okay, so what are we going to do now? We are quite literally on the streets.”
“That doesn’t always equate to something horrible,” Adam replied. “I spent a long time on the streets and some of those days were actually pretty good. I think we can manage the same thing here.”
“I agree with him,” I said. “We are starting over completely fresh, which is what we wanted. I’m sure that we can find some cash-paying odd jobs to be able to get a place to stay.”
We used the money that was in the backpack to rent a room for a few nights while we looked for work and then looked for an apartment that we could hopefully afford to get soon. Adam was a genius at surviving on the street. He picked up a few jobs painting murals in the city, and Michael picked up a few students to tutor in English by hanging out on the local college campus and flaunting fluid English to native French speakers that had also immigrated from Europe. I still hadn’t found anything, until one evening when a woman happened to wander into our little encampment that we had set up inside of the abandoned train station. It had been such a nice place to stay out of sight, and no one ever came by. It was also aesthetically pleasing and safe from the elements. Now that springtime was almost here, the weather was getting slightly warmer and there was a whole patch of fragrant wildflowers just outside the entrance. The guys had made enough money to keep us fed and even to transform the little space into a makeshift living space. Adam had painted a beautiful mural on the large wall, thanks to the donation of the paints that someone had given him for the work that he had done for them. And Michael had been able to scrounge around the college campus dorms for some beanbag chairs and floor cushions that some students were getting rid of. He was even able to get some pillows and blankets and managed to have one of the guys that he was tutoring wash them for us in the campus laundromat. It strangely almost felt like home. It was our own little space where we were free and unbothered. Things were peaceful and quiet, and it didn’t even really feel like living on the streets.
There hadn’t been any further talk of Michael and I living alone. For now, it was the three of us all together again, just trying to get by, and I liked it. At night we curled up together on the cushions and sometimes we were treated to the sound of the rain falling outside the open doorway.
But when a woman showed up and poked her head into the empty train station just as we were about to cook some food on the open fire, it caught us all by surprise. Both guys jumped up to their feet and I was right behind them.
“Hello?” she asked as she gingerly stepped in through the open archway. “Do you three live here?”
“Why are you here?” Michael asked. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her palms up in the air to show that she meant no harm. She looked around and saw the food cooking on the fire, and the cushions, and the mural on the wall. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Who are you?” I asked from between the protective stances of the guys.
“I’m Lizbeth. I run the local homeless shelter and I was just making some rounds.”
“Rounds?” Adam asked.
“Rounds in the streets to canvas areas I hadn’t been to yet and look for people who might benefit from some help.”
“What kind of help?” I asked.
“Well, I run the shelter and its outreach program. I can bring you there. It’s warm and there are beds and food.”
“No thanks,” I said a bit too abruptly. “We are just fine here where we are.”
“I understand that,” she smiled. She seemed like she was kind enough. “It’s good to have a place that feels like home, no matter what kind of place it is. But I do need to tell you that eventually the city will see that you are living here and kick you out.”
Michael eyed her accusatorily.
“No, no, not me,” she said quickly. “I won’t report you. You don’t need to worry about that. But I know from experience, and from what some of my other homeless clients have said, that the city will find you here and one day when you come back to this place that you have claimed as your home, it will be gone. They will take your things and will board off the entrance so that you cannot access it. I’m not here to tell you what to do; I just want to help.”
The fact that she referred to the homeless people that she served as “clients” made me think she was probably a halfway decent person. I paused to think for a minute about what she had said.
“She’s right,” I said to Michael. “As much as I love this space that we have made our own, we need to get an apartment and legitimate jobs before we end up getting deported.”
After I said it, I realized that I shouldn’t have. As nice as this woman seemed to be, it was risky for anyone to know that we were inside the country illegally. All it would take is one phone call to the state department and we would be shuffled back to America, which would be the equivalence of a death sentence for us.
She picked up on my wary look and again told us that we didn’t have anything to worry about from her.
“You’re Americans?” she asked.
Michael hesitated before answering her with a “yes”.
She thought, and then her face brightened as if she had just come up with a great idea.
“I have a proposition for you,” she said enthusiastically.
I knew that none of us were really in the mood for any more propositions—ever. That didn’t stop her from continuing though. And I didn’t want to protest and piss her off. The last thing we needed was anyone ratting us out. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t trust anyone. Even when they seem like they won’t double-cross you. I was pretty sure that Michael and Adam had learned that lesson already too.
“I could use some help at my shelter. If you three would want to come and work for me there, I can give you an hourly wage and employment sponsorship.”
“A what?” I asked.
