It didn’t take long for me to find out what I wanted to do with the time I had left. After being homeless for so long, I decided to enjoy my time indoors, and that’s just what I do. I spend most of the time lounging around in the staff room; watching television. Showering every night so my scalp no longer itched, and eating every single day until I couldn’t feel my bones when I poked my side. Most of the formally homeless people seemed to do the same.
Most people woke up on Thursday. Daniel got his results back, and we hung out a couple of times in between his gym sessions, and his time in the ring. Jack mostly read.
Most of the books in the library were fantasy, mythology, and the like. However, there were other books that seemed out of place: mineral identification books, basics of jewelry crafting, rock-hounding handbooks, bird identification pamphlets, books on fishing, and other equally odd additions to a base’s library. Nothing that I wanted to read, however, as sitting down to read was never really my strong suit. Jack, however, read three books from Wednesday to late Friday: a botany pamphlet, a short story about some guy flying over Antarctica after WW2, and a fairy tale book.
Most people avoided me or just nodded courteously when passing by with their noses upturned as if they were better than me. I got along with some of the other ex-homeless, and we would hang out in the cafeteria, the bunk area, or the longue.
Friday evening, Eli; a homeless man from Seattle who I had been hanging out with, was watching some movie or another. Eli was a rougher sort. One of those tramps that trainhopped, and made his living as a nomad. The last of the hobos, as he called himself. Heroin was his demon of choice. We swapped stories of our best highs, and our favorite spots to do it. His black hair held a permeant aura of dust, and his long, curly beard looked as if it must itch all of the time.
“I once shot up on a boat right below Niagra.” He had told me in the cafeteria while pushing a piece of a pizza into his bearded mouth, “Water roaring all loud and shit, and the rush...man it was insane. It was like I was talkin’ with GOD.”
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The closest thing I could compare it to was shooting up underneath a train bridge with a train rattling over it.
“I need to take a piss,” he said as he pushed himself off the reclining chair he was seated at.
I was sitting in the middle of a three-seater when a small woman came into the staff lounge, holding a book clutched close to the too-big gray sweatshirt she wore. She had light blonde hair that bordered on the boundaries of white and that she wore pulled back into a ponytail, and I swear, her blue eyes contained the slightest hint of purple in their glow. Otherworldly, was the only thought that came through my mind the moment I saw her. She glanced down the hall on either side, before letting the door shut quietly behind her before approaching the couch and turning toward me. The scent of lavender wafted off of her.
“I noticed you’ve been mostly relaxing during this time.” She said.
By her stature and by the tone of her voice, I recognized her at once as the short proctor by the punching machine.
“Yeah, so?” I say somewhat defensively. “I was homeless, cut me some slack.”
“Well..” She glanced at the door before pushing the book she carried toward me. “I think you should read this. “
“Trap Making Basics.” The cover read as I took it from her hands.
“Why?”
“I can’t say, but I really think you should read this.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed.
“Read. It. You’ll thank me later. “
She left the book on my lap and hurried out of the room. Maybe she left a note or something in there for me? That’s the only thing I think as I flip through the pages.
“Really? Why when I’ll have a gun.”
Ignorant.
Colorful diagrams of a variety of traps cover these pages. Snares, punji pits, boar traps, pitfalls, and many others. I found it interesting enough to read through.
“Dude, Lyle, you alright man?” Eli snapped his fingers in front of my face three times.
I snapped out of whatever trance had held me.
“Y-yeah, why?”
“You was just staring at the book for like an hour, man. The movie’s over.”
“Shit, really? Damn.”
“Want to watch it again?”
“No...I’m suddenly really, really tired. I’m going to hit the hay.”
“See ya tomorrow, bud. “
“Yeah, same...”
I staggered out of the lounge room and to the bunks; nodding my acknowledgment to Jack as I passed him by the hall in front of the cafeteria. I climbed into bed and quickly buried myself in the blankets and fell asleep.