“Come on, Joe,” I say. “You have to do a bit of work yourself as well. Bernard got his voucher yesterday.”
“Yeah, of course, the mayor,” he answers sarcastically. “They gave it to him because he is black.”
“Come on, Joe,” I try another time.
“Damn it,” Joe says, angry. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He goes back into his bunker and slams the door shut behind him.
Part 3
WINTER
January 1996
37. THE TUNNEL EMPTIES
A blizzard has hit New York. It is so bad it will later become known as the notorious Blizzard of ′96. Heavy snowstorms paralyze the city for a week. The tunnel people survive. In fact, not much has changed since last summer. I called Dov and Mike once in a while from Europe. They told me that everything was working out, albeit at a slow pace. Marc and Margaret also informed me about new developments: basically, there haven’t been any over the last four months.
I crawl into the tunnel through an emergency exit where some bars have been sawed away. It’s cold, dark, and damp. Packs of snow are below the grates, melting water is dripping from the walls. Carefully, I knock on Bernard’s door. He is expecting me. I left a message on his voicemail that I would stop by today.
“Git yer ass in here!” he calls out happily. He gets out of bed and lights a few candles. It looks as though time has come to a standstill. Bernard is still underground and his place is still the same old mess. Bob has returned definitively to the tunnel. He has lost his SSI benefits. He is no longer welcome at the YMCA or at Pete’s Place. And Tony is still down in his bunker.
Bernard hasn’t used his voucher: he could only get a place in the Bronx or Brooklyn, but he wanted to stay on the Upper West Side.
At one point, his voucher expired. It has been extended, but now Bernard is having trouble with his welfare, that is to say, he’s actually lost his benefits. He was on workfare and had to shovel snow during the blizzard. There were twenty inches of snow.
“The idiots,” Bernard says. “They can’t expect someone who doesn’t have a decent warm home to work in the freezing cold?” Bernard and Bob did not leave the tunnel for four days. A thick layer of snow had covered the grates, so they had hardly seen any daylight. They had, however, stocked up with plenty of water, food, and firewood so they could survive without problems. Bernard will talk with Dov next week to sort things out. He is now completely fed up with the tunnel. Most of all, it is Bob who’s driving him crazy.
“It’s an unbelievable chaos. Bob is sent by God to drive me out of the tunnel,” he says dramatically. Slowly, Bernard is making preparations to leave. Pedro and Harvey have saved some nice furniture from the garbage and set it aside for him. Bernard is also cleaning up his place and throwing away old stuff. He gives me an expensive Shetland wool sweater, fancy Italian suede shoes, and a backpack he won’t be able to use. Then, Bernard starts in on the usual tirade about Margaret. “Damn it. She is still yelling every day through the grate and whining I have to see Dov.”
“She is just concerned about you,” I say. Margaret had told me on the phone that Bernard’s voucher could expire any moment and wouldn’t be extended for a third time. She had asked me specifically to remind Bernard, because she realized she was getting on his nerves. “Fuck it,” Bernard curses. “Her book is finished but the tunnel remains an obsession.” He shows the publication. It has beautiful photos of him, but he is not happy with the final result.
“She did not put the best photos in it,” he says indignantly. “I offered to help her with the final edit, but she is a stubborn bat.”
I continue towards the South End. The house of Frankie and Ment has disappeared. Its smashed wooden walls lie on the ground in front of the bunkers belonging to Joe and Kathy.
“They ran into trouble with a Puerto Rican gang.” According to Joe, Ment had burglarized the leader’s home and stolen twenty-five thousand dollars. The victim soon realized who the perpetrators were, and paid a visit to the tunnel with his gang. Frankie and Ment drew the right conclusions and disappeared. Where they are, Joe does not know. Kathy and Joe finally got their vouchers this week. They are looking for an apartment. Project Renewal has given them a list of landlords and housing corporations that will accept the vouchers. One complication is that Joe slipped on the icy railroad tracks a week ago and has sprained his ankle. At the hospital they bandaged his foot, but he still needs to walk on crutches for three weeks.
Julio’s case is also closed. He got welfare and workfare: he is cleaning bathing facilities for seventy hours a month. He used to take showers there himself. He also says he’s seriously cut down on his alcohol intake. He proudly shows me a flask half-filled with vodka. “I’ve already had it for two days.” Next week, Julio will start looking for an apartment. It will be difficult, because he still has to keep on canning because he needs the money for clean clothes and subway tokens. He already blew all the welfare money he got the week before.
José got housing. He now has a room in an SRO hotel around 140th Street. But he has heart trouble and the hospital that treats him is at 72nd Street, too far to take a daily trip. That’s why José has decided to keep his tunnel shack as a second home. Six days a week, he stays over in the tunnel. Estoban has crept away under his blankets. He still hasn’t gotten his identity papers.
Margaret told me he visited the organization that helps Cuban refugees a few times, but he was discouraged and scared away by the long line of clients. And Estoban can’t afford time-consuming bureaucratic procedures, because he needs to work every day to get his daily amount of cans.
Hugo looks like a zombie, with an unkempt beard of months, ripped clothes, and a wild skittish expression in his eyes. He got his voucher three months ago, but he didn’t do anything with it. It expired and was not extended. His welfare has also been suspended. He never dared to call Project Renewal. Cans and crack are all that remain. In a soft voice, he gives evasive answers to my questions and stares at the ground the whole time.
“It was a promising case,” Dov says. “But Hugo turned out to be the biggest disappointment.” Margaret and Marc tried to mediate, but that did not help. Hugo has withdrawn into himself like a shy bird. “The moment he got the voucher, he threw himself off the cliff,” Marc says. “The challenge must have been too overwhelming.”
The good news is that Sergeant Bryan Henry of the Metro North Police in Grand Central has been promoted to Captain. The bad news is that Captain Combs has been demoted to Sergeant. The lawsuit against Amtrak has finished her. Streetwatch, a homeless advocacy group, had taken footage that featured Captain Combs harassing homeless people with her billy club. She is now working on a small train station close to her home in Delaware. “She is happy over there,” PR man Richard Rubel says diplomatically. “Sergeant Combs now can devote more time to her family since she doesn’t have to travel every day up and down to New York.” Enthusiastically, Rubel tells me about the station’s new approach towards the homeless. Under Combs’ rule, the police focused mostly on the way homeless looked. Now the police are only focusing on their behavior. A homeless person can be ejected from the station only if they break the law.
“For a small troubled group of hardcore service-resistant individuals, we have the law,” Rubel says firmly, “But we prefer a soft approach.” Since their positive cooperation in the tunnels, Amtrak is using Project Renewal to help improve the situation at its stations. They also stay in regular touch with the Coalition, and even allow Streetwatch to monitor the situation. “The beauty of our new program,” Rubel exults, “is that experienced and qualified outreach workers can get the homeless straight in touch with service providing organizations.”