Bernard throws some fresh wood on the fire and adds a few plastic bags and bottles with a metal stick. “Good fuel,” he explains. Slowly, the plastic transforms into a dark, boiling paste and catches fire while producing black, sooty fumes. Hot flames scorch the pans while the dark, fat coils of smoke disappear through the grate.
From afar I hear a baby cry. I remember seeing a baby crib close to Bernard’s camp and think of the basket in which Moses drifted down the Nile. The crying baby comes closer. “Don’t worry,” Bernard says. “That is from above us in the park.”
Bernard continues peeling onions and throws them with a can of tomato sauce into a big frying pan. Two cats are crawling towards him. “Fuck off, you animal,” Bernard screams. The cats fly away. “They are here to catch rats,” Bernard continues cooking. “They need to stay hungry. They are just like people. If they are well fed, they become lazy and complacent.”
Rats are a problem in the tunnel. Especially in wintertime, when nobody has picnics in the park or feeds the ducks on the river, and food outside becomes scarce. That is when the rats start to invade the tunnels in big numbers. At Bernard’s camp, the rats are under control. He keeps his garbage far away from the camp, and keeps his food in closed containers. The cats deal with the rest of the problem. “Only that idiot Tony spoils everything,” complains Bernard. “Can you believe it? Last time he brought a fried chicken to feed the cats.”
Bernard cooks spaghetti and finishes the tomato sauce with garlic, salt and other spices and herbs he gets out of his kitchen cabinets. From another cupboard, he gets plastic plates, knives and spoons. He tastes the pasta once in a while, and when it is cooked al dente, he drains it, using an old T-shirt as an oven mitt so as not to burn his hands.
“Dinner is ready,” he says, serving the pasta and the sauce onto the small greasy plates. It is my first tunnel meal, and carefully I try a little spoonful. “Is the sauce not too spicy?” Bernard asks with concern.
“It’s delicious.”
“You see, I told you, food is not the problem here,” he says proudly.
We go to bed early. Tomorrow is Thursday, the big can day for Bernard. We need to start working at six AM, SO we have to get up at five to have a relaxed breakfast.
I retreat into my new tunnel home and light some candles. Soon, Bob’s bunker glows in the light of half a dozen flickering lights. The radio plays soft, smooth New York jazz, and I can hear the big city rustle in the background. I hear police sirens wail not too far away, a comforting sound. The world up top is within ears’ reach. Commuters stuck in a traffic jam on the West Side Highway honk their horns. I start to read The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. “The classic study of the black experience,” blurbs the book. Invisibility is a metaphor for the black protagonist, all but ignored by society.
Just like Bardamu in Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, the man is on a journey searching for truth and justice. Needless to say, without much result. Ultimately, he buries himself alive in a dark hole underground. In their publications about tunnel people, Jennifer Toth and Professor Williams love to refer to The Invisible Man. At the end of the book, the protagonist has a thousand light bulbs illuminate his cave, while playing jazz from an old record player. Of course, the electricity is tapped illegally from outside sources.
It is impossible to imagine a better environment than Bob’s bunker for reading this book. I open a bottle of good wine and light a cigarette. I look around at my new comfy and cozy home. Now I start to understand what Bernard meant when he said “Heaven of Harmony.”
After a while, I go to bed and slide between the clean sheets. Bob has a blanket and a sleeping bag as a cover, so it is nice and warm
Up top, the traffic jams have dissolved: now speeding cars are making the concrete plates of the highway create strange sound effects. Through the metal beams of the tunnel, vibrations resonate and start to have a life of their own like the scary sounds from a house of horror or a nineteenth-century jaiclass="underline" rattling chains, clashing metal doors, steps stumbling on metal staircases. A shrill horn indicates the approach of a train.
The bunker vibrates, some chalk is falling from the ceiling. Slowly, the cacophony of sounds puts me to sleep.
4. CANNING 101
Someone is knocking on my door. “Duke, Duke, the coffee is ready!” Bernard tries hard to pronounce my name correctly, but like most Americans he has trouble with typical Dutch vowels and consonants. I offered to let him call me the American version of Teun, which is Anthony, but he keeps on trying names that vary in sound from Duke, Dune, Tut or even Zueg, which always makes me crack up because it is the Dutch word for a female pig. I look at the clock. it is one minute before 5 AM; the alarm can go off any moment.
Outside in the tunnel it is damp and cold. An orange fog has formed, caused by tiny droplets of rain that fall through the grate and reflect the reddish glow of the streetlights in the park and Bernard’s fire. Bernard offers me a hot cup of strong coffee and we listen to the radio while he eats a hot bowl of oatmeal. On the morning news there is a big story about a financial scandal involving a policeman, a fireman, and even a rabbi. Bernard laughs cynically. “What’s the big deal? This is America. Everybody steals. Why be surprised about a cop and a rabbi?” He tells a story about an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency who had stolen a million dollars. “The idiot had hidden it in a bag under his bed. And every evening before he went to sleep, he pinched his treasure to make sure it still was there.”
He laughs and offers me oatmeal. “Take this, Duke, we need a good breakfast before we go to work.”
While I eat my oatmeal, I see an old man approaching in the light of the fire. He is dressed in pajamas and wears woolen slippers. “I can’t sleep, B,” he says in a whiny voice.
“Come on, Tony, you want some oatmeal?” Bernard serves him a bowl.
This is the first time I meet Tony. He has wild, gray hair on top of his tough looking, unshaven face. From beneath heavy eyebrows, two eyes look softly and sadly into the fire.
“Have you heard it about Walter? “Tony asks me. Walter’s murder obviously shook the homeless community. “I tell you, it is fucking dangerous up top.” Tony points his head in the direction of the grate. Now I notice his pajamas are decorated with bunnies playing in the grass. Tony starts complaining about his sister; he always goes over there to watch TV, even pays the cable, but never gets offered even a cup of coffee.
“Yes, your sister is quite something,” Bernard says with badly faked indignation. Tony has obviously said his thing, and disappears with his bowl of oatmeal in the darkness.
As we leave the tunnel, Bernard explains that every month Tony gets a few hundred dollars worth of welfare and food stamps. During the day, he roams the streets of Manhattan, looking for valuables in the garbage. Late afternoon he visits his sister who lives on the Lower East Side.
Food stamps are a good thing according to Bernard. “They prevent a lot of theft and crime. On the other had, they cause a lot of crime.” Many people sell their food stamps to get cash for booze and drugs. Korean groceries and Chinese restaurants are lining up to purchase the stamps for 70 percent, sometimes only 50 percent of their original value.
“But yes,” Bernard continues, “this country owes it to us. Our land is built on rape and robbery. They tax the hell out of you. Cigarettes went up another quarter,” he complains. “Can you believe it? In New Hampshire they already cost four dollars a pack. If it comes to that here in New York, then I’d rather quit.”