Will Our Homeless Times be Over?

Last updated on January 29, 2022

We turned left on the old gravel road and waved a last goodbye to my best friend, who was holding our little dog in her arms. Then we closed the windows, and we focused on the road ahead of us.

My husband’s GPS system, a reminder of better times, gave us an estimated arrival time in Memphis, Tennessee eight hours later, at 4 pm. We knew it would take us longer, we traveled with three dogs, and we needed to fill up the truck as well.

It was a nice day, with ideal travel weather -blue skies, the sun was shining, it would be a perfect Easter weekend for families with kids. We had planned on taking breaks to walk the dogs and stretch our legs, and we were hoping to find a nice rest area at the interstate, where we could enjoy our sandwiches on a picnic table.

We were in a good mood, which was only temporarily clouded by my request to take a 30-minute detour. The GPS system, programmed to show us the shortest way, wanted to guide us through our old neighborhood. I didn’t want to pass by all the familiar places where we had dined and shopped for many years. My mind made up crazy scenarios which fed my anxiety nicely. What if one of the cops we knew so well and had been friends with would recognize our car? We drove without insurance and I didn’t want to take this risk to get pulled over, but most importantly, I didn’t want to drive by the home we had lost.

Like most married couples, we pick our battles wisely. Not everything is worth fighting for, sometimes it’s just smarter to give in and that’s what he did. My husband didn’t understand, but he respected my wish and we drove around our old neighborhood, and after forty minutes we finally reached the interstate -ten minutes later we left the state where we had lived for twenty years.

When we crossed the state line, I looked at my husband, studied his face, worried he might show sadness or sorrow, but he looked happy. He was ready to conquer the world, he looked relaxed and optimistic. I felt the same way.

We listened to the radio and made plans for our future, wondering how we would get back to the normality we once had. We felt tempted to use the phrase START ALL OVER NEW, but there is no such thing. We start at birth and stop at death. What’s in between is our life, and so often it’s not a straight line from success to success. Most of us have setbacks, may it be a wrong marriage, a terrible job, or some other unfortunate circumstances on our journey through life.

In my late 40s, I thought I knew who I was, but I didn’t. I had no clue about my capabilities and didn’t know who I was as a human being, a wife, and a woman until we became homeless/houseless. It’s not so much about strengths, even though it sounds good, it’s about the way you look at things. Poverty starts in your head, misery starts in your mind.

You are poor when you think of yourself as poor. The things we once had taken for granted were gone, what was left was a man and woman, who would from now on only pay with cash, eat what they cooked at home, and live surrounded by things others threw out.

You make it or you break! You are thankful or resentful! You are happy with what you have, or you turn bitter thinking about everything you might miss!

At the end of my life, I wish to await death with a smile on my face, knowing I used it all, have seen so much, and have no regrets. Only the poor can be truly rich, the rich will never know what they actually have. I was the richest when we had nothing.

I called Gary, our future landlord -or the best scam artist on the planet- and let him know we were on the road. He was ‘working’ on the house, which surprised me a bit. What was there to work on?

I gave him our estimated arrival time. “Travel save guys. See you soon,” and we hang up. Neither one of us dared to mention the elephant in the room. We soon enough would find out if we had been scammed or if Gary was real. My gut feeling and my instinct told me he was real.

The dogs in the back seat were sleeping. The night outside on the back porch had worked as expected. Even my boy had found room to lie down under my legs on the floorboard, and I had discovered a comfortable position as well. We were traveling like gypsies, the car full of our belongings, our hearts, and our minds ready for new adventures.

Around 1 pm, we stopped at a gas station and filled up the truck. The two dogs in the back seat were still napping, and my boy did not try to get up either. My husband went into the gas station, paid for the gasoline, and came back with two ice-cold sodas and $2 worth of fresh homemade fudge, which had been carefully wrapped in a napkin. “I thought you might like it,” he handed it to me and smiled the way he does when he feels guilty but can’t help it. The smile I love so much because it allows me to catch a glimpse of the little boy he once was.

Again, we had spent money on things we could not afford to buy! When would we learn?

I carefully opened my car door, still not much movement from my dog, he just lifted his head and watched me. I walked into the gas station to use the restroom and to freshen up a little.

When I went back to the car, we kept on driving, we would leave the next stop up to our dogs. I handed my husband a sandwich, halfway wrapped in a paper towel, ate one myself, and enjoyed the diet coke more than I want to admit. We shared the fudge and laughed like we didn’t have a worry in the world. Construction work on both sides of the interstate slowed us down a bit. Now the GPS showed 5:30 pm.

We passed over the Memphis bridge at 5 pm, left West Memphis, Arkansas behind, and drove over the Mississippi River into Memphis, Tennessee. We hadn’t taken a break since lunchtime.

We looked at downtown Memphis for the first time, and in only twenty-five more minutes we would arrive at our destination.

We hit rush hour and were forced to slow down. I wanted to place another call to Gary, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He knew we were running late. I had given him an update in the afternoon when we had been stuck behind a long line of vehicles.

Right after we passed downtown I could no longer wait, I had to use a restroom urgently, could not hold it back any longer, and asked my husband to take an exit -any exit- and when he did and stopped at a gas station, I run in. I didn’t even say ‘Hello’ or asked permission if I could use the restroom. I had no precious time to waste.

On my way out, I apologized. The man behind the register nodded, he understood and smiled. He wished me a nice day. My first encounter with somebody in Memphis was a nice one.

Back in the car, I buckled up. A look at the GPS system showed me we were close. Only ten minutes away and now I got curious. We went back on the highway and a few exits later, we drove into a nice, older neighborhood. Old Victorian houses left and right. We passed by a strip mall, turned the next street right, passed a park and a school with a tremendous playground. I saw people walking their dogs, kids were playing, people were putting up Easter decorations, and got ready for Easter Sunday.

We drove up a little hill and turned left into a smaller street. The houses and yards were well-taken care of, people here were proud of their homes. It wasn’t a rich neighborhood, it was a nice middle-class community with houses that weren’t cheap, but affordable. “Turn left and in 200 yards you will reach your destination,” the robotic GPS voice announced.

A couple of minutes later, we parked on the other side of the street and looked at the place we wanted to call home. It was an older house, built in the ’50s. It had seen better days, but to us, it looked like a palace. The side door stood open, the front door was as open as well. A plumber’s van was parked in the driveway and another car had been parked right behind it. A nice amount of trash bags full of leaves were lined up the road verge. I had noticed the old oak trees right away.

A very tall man in his early 40’s greeted us like we knew each other for a long time, and I felt the same way. The man I had called ‘The Scum of the Earth’ asked us in and I felt like hugging him. He was real!

The house was so much bigger than it had looked from the outside. A living room with a dining area right in front of a large window that overlooked a gigantic backyard. When I pulled up the bamboo shade, I noticed the cracked glass. “The previous renters had two Rottweilers. One got scared when the weather was bad and he wanted in,” Gary explained. It was a 3-panel window that couldn’t be opened. The crack was on the left side, they had secured it with heavy-duty transparent tape. The broken window could be easily hidden behind a curtain panel or a large plant.

“Go look around,” and we all stepped into the next room. A nice kitchen, with a door to the backyard. Lots of cabinet space. A gas stove and oven, a built-in microwave, a dishwasher, and a fridge with a freezer department. Two windows left and right, but only one could be opened. There was even room for a washer and dryer to be hooked up. It had everything I had wanted and more.

The windows in the house were all old, people had been painting over them for years and most of them couldn’t be opened anymore. The paint had glued them to the frame.

The house had 3 bedrooms, a hallway, and an older bathroom. There was no carpet, all the rooms had old wood flooring, the good kind you can sand off and restain over and over.

The rooms needed to be painted, the windows had to be freed of the paint, small repairs were needed but overall the house was perfect for us.

When Gary opened the door to the backyard, I couldn’t believe my eyes. We all stepped outside. “I checked the fence line and covered all the holes where the dogs could get out,” he ensured me. “Why don’t you get your dogs out of the car and show them the yard?”

We went out the side door, through the bonus room, the only room with stone flooring and a ceiling fan. The perfect space for a family room or a playroom for kids. In the corner stood an old desk, one of the cheap ones you can build on your own -laminated particleboard with a hutch, one drawer, and two small cabinets that could hold files or binders. An old chair had been placed nearby.

The plumber joined us, told Gary he would come back Monday at 9 am to fix ‘the problem’. Gary moved his car so he could leave and we got our dogs out of the truck. A water pipe had burst and needed to be fixed. There would be no hot water until Monday.

We went back into the h house, and when we let our dogs off the leash in the backyard, our dogs hesitated at first, then they took off and explored the area.

We went back inside, we had some talking to do.

The rent was set at $850 a month. “How are you going to pay next month’s rent?” he wanted to know.

“I start a job next week,” my husband assured him, and he sounded as confident as he could be.

Gary brought up the deposit. “What for?” I asked him. “Are you planning to make all the necessary repairs,” and I pointed to the broken window and the walls.” He couldn’t, and he openly admitted it.

I listed the repairs and the tender-loving care the house needed. “I promise I make this house look nice. We will paint every room, and I will put shades on the windows, the expensive ones that are custom made -by me because it’s a hobby of mine. You won’t have a problem renting this place out when we leave.” I heard myself say and I meant every word.

“What if you can’t pay the rent anymore and decide to leave in the middle of the night?” Gary asked and with his question, he hit a nerve. That’s exactly how I had left our old home, like a thief in the night.

But circumstances were different now. This was a rental place. You can talk to a landlord and make arrangements, but you cannot talk to a bank or expect humanity from a person who has to follow the rules that were given to him by the rich, who get wealthier when they show no mercy.

“You will have to trust us,” I said and looked him in the eye. “We just showed our trust in you, don’t you think?”

He nodded, smiled, sat down, and filled out the leasing agreement. $850 rent per month, no deposit. He didn’t ask for our IDs, didn’t run a background check or a credit check. We needed each other and we all knew it.

We all signed and he handed us the keys.

Gary showed us the breaker box, showed us the hot water heater, which was hidden in a closet outside, behind the carport. He explained the A/C and the heater thermostat, told us again not to use the hot water before the water pipe was fixed. When I thought he would be leaving I wanted to shake his hand but got a hug instead. It felt right!

He then asked my husband to join him. “Let’s go I show you the neighborhood,” and the two men took off in Gary’s truck.

I got the dog bowls out of the car, filled them up with water and food, and put them outside. I watched the dogs eat their food. We had found a place to call home, a house with a big fenced-in backyard for our dogs. That’s all we had wanted, now the rest was up to us. We were no longer homeless.

My husband came back 30 minutes later. He had a bottle of wine under his arm and carried a 12 pack of beer. “Gary wanted to buy us a bottle of champagne, I told him what we liked.” My husband grinned, I smiled. We didn’t own a corkscrew anymore.

We unloaded the truck, filled up the freezer with all the meats and sausages we had brought with us. Everything else we still owned fit in one corner of the living room. We blew up the queen size mattress and placed it right in front of the big window in the dining room area.

Then I made our bed. We were home!