Although he imposed upon himself the life of a recluse, Bernard did not break his family ties. His mother, a retired nurse, lives with her daughter in Florida. They write each other letters regularly; Bernard receives his mail at the local post office. As a good son, he always sends her flowers for her birthday. “My mother and my sister are my greatest fans,” Bernard says. “They always respected my decision to live in a tunnel.”
It is with his father, a plumber living in Harlem, that he has problems. “The old man is still telling me how to live my life. Every time he keeps on nagging me that I should leave the tunnel,” Bernard says angrily. “Fuck him. Nobody has the right to tell me what to do.”
Bernard also has brothers. The youngest is his favorite and is currently studying for his Masters degree in political science at New Jersey State University. Sometimes he surprises Bernard with a visit. His oldest brother is a filmmaker in Atlanta. Bernard will never forget how he was offended by him. Bernard had suggested he make a film about tunnel life. “Your life is not interesting enough,” the brother rudely replied. When the first wave of documentaries about the tunnel started, the brother returned on his knees. He even offered a large sum of money. Of course, Bernard indignantly refused.
Bernard’s youngest son is a child actor who plays in popular soaps. “That little boy makes more money than his mother,” he says proudly. But Bernard hasn’t seen him in years because the mother keeps the boy away from him.
His oldest son works for the FBI in Baltimore and is totally used to the fact that his father lives in the tunnel. “I just let him mess around,” Bernard says in a fatherly tone. “He makes tons of money, drives a fat BMW and thinks he is happy. Later he will realize it all means nothing.”
“Well, we got used to it,” the FBI son told me matter-of-factly when I met him over Christmas in the tunnel. He was an impeccably dressed young man, in an expensive long leather coat and an elegant velvet tie. He had come down to the tunnel with Bernard’s younger brother, the student from New Jersey. The two of them came to pick up Bernard and take him out clothes shopping and later to a fancy restaurant.
Bernard treated them to some relevant quotes from Ecclesiastes—Everything is Vanity—and then proceeded to warn his son to be careful with all the diseases in the modern world. “I’ve had my share of pussy, my son,” Bernard said. “Just ask your grandma. She got crazy from all those girls on the phone.”
3. LORD OF THE TUNNEL
A few days later, walking through Riverside Park on my way back to the tunnel, I see a piece of paper nailed on a tree. “Walter Dorfman died October 27th 1994. GOD BLESS YOU. Loved by friends,” it says. It is written with a blue pen in big, sloppy letters. Under the tree someone has put some bouquets of flowers and devotion candles that are now extinguished. So there has to be some truth to the story of Walter’s murder. When we had left the tunnel, Williams had told me the tale was an example of tunnel mythology. In his study, Williams is devoting a whole chapter on all the various stories that go around in the tunnel. There are stories about mysterious murders, disappearances, ghosts, and strange animals that crawl, fly, or walk around.
Bernard, as well, has a nearly mythical status. Because of his penchant for philosophical and biblical quotes, Williams calls him Glaucon in his study, the protagonist in Plato’s Cave dialogue. Among the underground dwellers, Bernard has the nickname “Lord of the Tunnel.”
Bernard shrugs the whole thing off. Once, two guys had posted themselves at the entrance of the tunnel. They were called Hector and Shorty, two bums living in a small shack at the South End of the tunnel. They demanded an entry tax of a few dollars, if you didn’t pay, they would beat you up. When the racketeers approached Bernard, he exploded. “Who do you think you are talking to,” Bernard exclaimed spontaneously. “I am the goddamn Lord of the Tunnel!”
A few days later, he went to redeem some empty bottles at the supermarket, and was mockingly greeted by other homeless: “Make way, gentlemen. Here is our Royal All Mighty Highness the Lord of the Tunnel.” Somehow, the name stuck, and all the homeless on the Upper West Side now used this name to address Bernard. Hector and Shorty didn’t stay in the tunnel for long. Together they had raped Sheila, a woman living with her friend in Bernard’s camp. Bernard and Bob called the police and pointed the cops to Hector and Shorty. Currently, they are still serving time.[1]
“Whatever, Lord of the Tunnel,” smiles Bernard. “I don’t mind if the people want to call me that. And maybe they are right. I am the only one who gives the people down here some support.”
I am down with Bernard in the tunnel, and he explains his work collecting and redeeming cans and bottles to me. In 1983, New York State introduced a five-cent deposit law. The Bottle Bill, as it became called, was meant to protect the environment, but soon the poor and homeless saw an opportunity to make some money. Most affluent New Yorkers did not find the five cents attractive enough to bring their empty cans back to the store; they just put them out with the garbage instead. Others saved them up and put them in small bags out on the street on purpose, to help the homeless.
Within no time, homeless people carrying huge bags of empty cans started to appear on the streets of Manhattan. People started to call them can men or redeemers.
In the mid ’80s, when the city introduced mandatory garbage separation with special transparent blue bags for recyclables, it became even easier for can men to earn their daily bread since they no longer had to rummage through the ordinary garbage.
According to Bernard, there are professional can men and losers. The losers roam the streets of the city without a preconceived plan, and go through every garbage can. They even take glass bottles. These are also worth five cents, but because of their weight they are very labor-intensive to handle. A few dollars worth of empty cans weighs hardly a pound, the same amount of bottles adds up to maybe fifty pounds.
Professional can men like Bernard, have a fixed route at apartment buildings where they show up at fixed times every week, when the superintendents put the sorted garbage out on the sidewalk. For can men it is an easy and relatively clean job to go through the bags that contain only glass, plastic, and metal.
The garbage bags are tidily closed after inspection; it is a matter of pride for a serious can man to never to leave a mess.
Bernard also helps the supers putting out all the buildings’ garbage, sometimes hundreds of heavy bags. That’s why the supers not only tip him ten dollars now and then, but also actively do their best to bag up the recyclables. Bernard’s working times are Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. “Never skipped one day,” he says proudly. “The supers know they can count on us. Last year with the blizzard, it was only me and Bob doing the buildings.”
Before his neighbor Bob left the tunnel to enter rehab, he was Bernard’s partner in business. It was a smooth cooperation except for a few small glitches. “The idiot spoilt a few of our best business relations. Bob’s total lack of long-term thinking and his cheap pettiness were exasperating,” says Bernard shaking his head. “Once, we were working and the super asked Bob to get some coffee. He didn’t have change so he gave a twenty-dollar bill. Bob left with the cash but disappeared and never returned. He pulled that trick a few times. And I had to explain it all to the supers.”
1
Detective Thomas Frye from the 24th precinct on the Upper West Side arrested Shorty and Hector. Bob and Bernard were witnesses at the court session and were compensated—as usual—for lunch and travel costs. Detective Frye told me that Hector was released on bail, paid for by the Coalition for the Homeless. Hector wanted to flee, but was arrested again at the Port Authority Bus Station where he was trying to board a Greyhound bus to Texas. It appeared that he was also wanted for murder and rape in San Francisco. Bernard told me that it was Shorty who was released on bail. According to him, Shorty was the illegitimate child of a senior executive at the Coalition. Mike Harris from the Coalition for the Homeless told me the bail story was nonsense. Shorty was sentenced to five years; Hector got a sentence of ten to twenty years.