Bernard says he might have an interesting deal. A production company in Hollywood wants to make a dramatic rendition of his tunnel life, and is willing to pay a few hundred thousand for the movie rights. I have heard Bernard brag about it before to the supers Harvey and Pedro, but it is hard to check how serious the story is. In earlier documentaries about the tunnel, I read that Bernard said he wanted to move out of the tunnel as early as 1990. The Hollywood story has been going for years as well. Chris Pape, the graffiti artist, was also approached by Hollywood. He sent his archive with tunnel videotapes, but never heard back. Now Pape is using a bailiff to get his unique tapes back. “You can’t trust those rats from Hollywood,” Pape told me.
With a mouthful of chips, Bernard inspects the drumsticks and nods appreciatively. “Everybody that walks around hungry in New York is a complete idiot.” Bernard used to help clean a few restaurants in the neighborhood. He could take home all the leftovers: cheeseburgers, big steaks, and trays full of corn. “I could hardly drag it back into the tunnel.”
Now that the number of homeless has multiplied, good food is getting harder to come by. There are restaurants that throw bleach on their garbage to prevent people from rummaging through it. It hasn’t happened yet, but restaurant owners defend their behavior by saying any homeless suffering from food poisoning could then sue them for putting out spoiled food on the public road. Bernard has another theory: “The assholes just can’t stand that we sometimes eat lobster and crab for free.”
Other restaurants, however, donate their leftovers to organizations such as Meals on Wheels, who distribute it to the homeless or give it to the soup kitchens sprouting up all over Manhattan.
All in all, according to Bernard, no homeless person has the right to complain about food. “Food’s not the problem. It’s pride,” he concludes. “Even on our level, we have an excellent life…I have my little extra things, sometimes a modest splurge… I even have the luxury to deal with society when I want.”
Bernard takes a sip of beer and watches the New Yorkers who walk their dogs in the park. “Hello, mastiff,” he calls when a cream-colored dog walks toward us and sniffs at the chicken legs.
The owner is surprised a homeless person knows the breed of his dog and starts to chat with us. Bernard scratches the dog’s neck. “We have some magnificent dogs here on the West Side,” Bernard says, like he is one of the people owning an expensive breed. He tells us about the lady who had a Shar-Pei, a Chinese wrinkle dog. “Could you believe it? Only in food bills, the dog cost two hundred dollars a week. Six grand she had paid for the pup. I said ‘Lady, I am not out here to offend you, but this dog better do more than just bark. Can he do the dishes and vacuum as well?’” The owner of the mastiff has to laugh.
“People can’t give love to their fellow humans,” Bernard thinks aloud while we walk back. “They give it to dogs. Nothing wrong to love dogs, but still… So much wealth in this country, but also so much loneliness…”
The lottery jackpot is now seventy million dollars and New York is grabbed by lotto mania. If Bernard wins, he will buy an island in the Pacific Ocean. “Or a big-ass estate of a thousand acres. Then I wanna be left the fuck alone. Bottom line!”
Back home in the tunnel, Bernard prepares supper. Again spaghetti with tomato sauce, but this time with chicken. “Last winter, with the blizzard, we couldn’t get rid of the food. On the streets, people spontaneously gave us hamburgers and pizzas. The Jews in the neighborhood were hanging sausages in the trees. All in all, there are still a lot of good people. Not everybody is corrupted by greed and progress.”
Tony joins us, now dressed in a light T-shirt and shorts kept up with enormous red suspenders. Shivering from the cold, he keeps on throwing plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups on the fire. Bernard stirs the pan and lifts the lid to let me smell. I bend over, but nearly suffocate in the sooty, sharp, and poisonous fumes. Tony has just thrown a piece of laminated OSB board on the fire.
He hacks up a loogie, lights a cigarette, and gives some chicken legs to the cats who are crawling around him.
“Stop feeding these dirty cats,” Bernard says irritated. “The animals are here to catch rats.”
“Sorry, B,” mumbles Tony absently. Linda jumps on his lap. The two like each other’s company at the warm fireplace. Tony pets the purring cat while humming I can see clearly now, the rain is gone…
Bernard starts to rant and rave now about the inconsiderate behavior of the Kool-Aid Kid. The Kool-Aid Kid is a black itinerant kid who now and then shows up at Bernard’s camp. In fact, he’s named Junio, but they call him after his favorite drink.
“Unbelievable. The little prick again dirtied all my spoons with mayonnaise. And watch this.” Bernard gets a couple of coffee cups and shows me the sticky, green residue inside. It’s mint-flavored Kool-Aid. “All over he leaves his trademark.”
“You are right B,” adds Tony. And then to me, “Anthony, if you run into him, just tell him to see me.”
“The kid is no good,” Bernard continues. “He steals my food, he finishes the water and wood. Never will he bring something himself. He burns my kettles and fucks up my pans.” Bernard drains the spaghetti, but burns his hands. “And goddamnit, now I even lost my kitchen gloves! They were here lying on this chair.” Bernard gets up to look for them, but stumbles over a cat nibbling on a drumstick. “Dirty cat, fuck off!” he screams, and kicks the animal, who runs away with a loud howl.
Bernard’s irritation is understandable. After years of tunnel life, he has totally streamlined his household. He’s arranged the kitchen so that from his chair he can grab anything blindfolded. And it is an unwritten tunnel rule that everybody contributes to the daily wood, water, and food. Tony, and sometimes even Burk who lives half a mile away but who sits now and then at the fireplace, make an occasional contribution. It is Bernard, however, who is responsible for the supplies in the end. Water, especially, is a heavy job. In the summer, Bernard uses the fountains in the park. But in the wintertime, he has to fill up the jerry cans in a gas station more than a mile away.
The water is then transported in a shopping cart to the Northern Gate. In the tunnel, you have to drag the heavy jerry cans for nearly half a mile.
Bernard is frugal with water. He seldom washes himself in the tunnel; most of the time, he showers at a friend’s place in a residential hotel. He even recycles his dish-washing water; after rinsing his coffee cups, he throws the water in the little pan where his silverware is always soaking. But the Kool-Aid Kid wastes water. Sometimes he uses five gallons of water, nearly a jerry can full, just to wash himself. One night I saw him do it. Four kettles of water were boiling on the fire, and the kid had a ball splashing and washing himself with steamy hot water.
Bernard fills our plates and goes on about the Kid. “It’s fucking unbelievable. I have never seen this in all the time I am down here. What do you think, Tony, shall we poison him? Should be an easy job. We just have to put some rat poison in his Kool-Aid.”
Bernard is gnawing on a drumstick, and throws the bones over his shoulder. A few cats jump on it. “On the other hand, do we want to have that on our conscience?’