The driver informed me that everything by the beach would be out of my price range, so he drove me to Biscayne street where I would find motels that I could pay for by the night, and that I could actually afford. After driving me up and down the street (and letting me know that I could just pay him a flat fee for the ride), and checking a few motels where they asked for the identification that I was of course claiming not to have, I sent the cabbie off. I wandered up and down the street with my belongings, one man leaning out a window asking if I needed a room, and if I wanted to share his. Two young men asked me if I wanted to get a room to share with them. I fought back and forth with myself, and agreed, but then they said that I was going to have to pay for the room and that they had no money to split the cost of the room. I apologized for the 'inconvenience' I had caused them, and walked away, down the street to the Camelot Inn.
I spoke to the guy at the desk, a black man named Mike. An elderly homeless Cuban man nicknamed 'Caveman' stood by with a bag of donuts and some Sunny D. Mike checked me in, not asking for ID, and asking what kind of room I wanted. Carpet, $35 a night, tile $45. Caveman helped me with my luggage to my room, and telling me that the next time I saw my mother I should thank her because she had made such a beautiful daughter. He gave me some donuts and Sunny D and I closed my door and locked it. Falling onto my bed, I wept into the filthy bedspread. I believed that I would never see my family again, and it tore me apart. I picked myself up and realized I needed to get myself together. I didn't have enough money to stay at the motel for much longer, so I wrote a sign, and found out where the bus was. I got on it and rode it. I was planning to go to the beach to bum cash off people, but I rode it too far.
I remember looking at the clock and thinking that my family must know I'm gone by now. Thinking about it for a moment. Then my thoughts turned elsewhere.
The bus kept going, and turned around. The driver asked me where I was going. I was too proud to admit that I didn't know what I was doing, so I just told him that I was on the bus to see what was around here. Asking me if I was hungry, he offered to buy me something from Burger King since he was taking his lunch break.
He brought me back a meal, and we headed back to Biscayne and 71st Street. I couldn't finish my fries, and gave them to a homeless woman in the seat across from me.
Once I made it back to Camelot Inn, another guy was behind the desk, Van. We talked for a little while, and became friendly. I learned from him that Caveman was homeless, but worked around the motel to earn a bed sometimes, making himself a kind of fixture.
I climbed the stairs to my room, making my way through the construction work that had obviously been sitting there for years, barely being touched, a,ways under construction, never finished.
My room was a shithole. The carpet was soggy, but why I don't rightly know; it was all soggy, the whole of the carpeting, and wasn't just because the window in the bathroom was broken, or the window facing the alley didn't close all the way. The television was there. It was showing that there was effort put into the room...in the beginning. But not in it's upkeep. Not a single channel worked. All static. The bed linens felt like they had never been changed, and I side the closet was enough crackhead graffiti to irritate anyone with a sane mind; not that I was at all sane, mind you. Speaking of crackheads, lodged on a ledge in the closet was a crack pipe. Not that I knew this at the time, but it was there nonetheless.
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