Living At The Edge Of The World. - Review - book review

A NEW MEMOIR TELLS THE TALE OF A HOMELESS TEENAGER--AND HER YEARS SPENT UNDERGROUND

Sometimes the hardest task for a New Yorker is to look a homeless person in the face. To be without a room of one's own in the most crowded, competitive city in America is to find yourself an outcast, a mockery of popular terms like "safety net." Tina S.'s autobiography of homelessness, Living at the Edge of the World (St. Martin's Press), practically aichemizes its printed words into shouts. For four long years in the early 1990s, Tina called Grand Central Station home. Even though it rings with the noise of commuters, it remains a secret haven for a numberless society trying to stay out of the cold, sleeping wherever they feel momentarily safe.

Tina panhandles, flees cops, spends handouts on drugs, and inspires a homeless friend to comment "Tina's just waiting to die." In the following passage, near the very end (and bottom) of her lost years, with typical, blunt clarity, Tina takes us through some of the humiliations homelessness inflicts.

PATRICK GILES

I didn't pick the man, he picked me. He'd always stare when he passed, eyebrows up like he was asking question, and I'd always shake my head no. On this night I shook my head, yeah.

He had those saggy cheeks a lot of older guys have, and a suit and briefcase--the uniform. I told him I wanted ten dollars up front and watched while he took the wallet from his pants pocket and pulled out a ten. There was a wad in there. And that's when I knew for sure I was going to go through with this thing.

He followed me down to the lower level, to the boiler room, and I jimmied the door open. He asked me, "Is this place safe?" I told him sure, and he followed me down the stairs. I had the upper hand but I was as scared as he was. I could feel my heart going bu-bump, bu-bump, bu-bump inside my chest. I couldn't believe he couldn't hear it.

I climbed the ladder to one of the catwalks, it was about four feet high, and he followed one step behind. Up on the catwalk was the first time we were actually close enough for me to notice he'd been drinking. I don't think he was drunk, but he'd had enough liquor to smell of it.

I knew what I wanted to do; I just wasn't exactly sure I could make it work. I told him, "Take off your pants," and he did--first his shoes, then his pants--and hung the pants over the railing. Now he was standing there in his shirt, jacket, tie, high black shoes and a pair of navy briefs about the size of a bikini. He was trying to smile and be cool, but he looked nervous, like maybe he was having second thoughts. He wasn't the only one.

"Underwear, too," I told him, trying to sound tough and growly. And while he was bent over I grabbed the pants, jumped the railing, and started running.

I heard him holler, "Hey, hey, hey, where are you going?" and then, "Stop!" and what's crazy is, I actually did stop for a second. I saw him climbing down the stairs; he had his shoes back on and his bare legs looked white and chicken-scrawny. He was trying to run down after me, but he had to keep hold of the railing for balance. When he saw I'd stopped he yelled, "Come back with my trousers, you little whore!" and I took off again, running toward the stairs, holding his pants tight against me. All the while I was thinking, What the hell am I doing?

I don't know why I went back to Grand Central the same night. I'd spent the money on crack and I guess I was too high to be thinking straight. Officer Korsoff grabbed me as soon as I walked into the waiting room, and I admitted the charge because the guy was going to ID me, anyway. He was there in the precinct too, but I never saw him. I guess he was in one of the back rooms. He must have still been in his bikini underpants.

The funny thing is, the guy told the cops some bullshit story. He said there were two men with me, and they forced him down to the boiler room at knifepoint, made him take off his pants, and I ran out with them. I told the cops, Korsoff and DelGardo, that there was nobody with me, the guy paid me ten dollars for a blow job and I took him downstairs all by myself. They questioned me a little, but I could tell they believed my version. Because the other one didn't make sense, and, anyway, Korsoff told me the guy kept changing his description of the two men.

They asked what I did with the pants, and I told them I didn't remember. Korsoff said, "Come on, Tina, the guy needs his pants. We can't send him back to Greenwich without his pants."

DelGardo said, "Yeah, what's his wife going to say?"

I told them, "Maybe he oughta think about that the next time he propositions some teenaged kid."

Finally Korsoff said, "Look, Tina, if you cooperate and tell us, it'll be easier for you." That made sense and, anyway, I liked Korsoff. He was always a pretty fair cop. DelGardo came with me, we went to the garbage cans that were under the Park Avenue ramp. I found the right can and pulled the pants out. They were a little wrinkled, but not too dirty considering where they'd been.

DelGardo came back to my cell a couple minutes after we got back. "Tina, the guy wants to know where his belt is."

"I don't know where the hell his belt is. I guess someone took it."

DelGardo went back down the hall and I could hear him telling someone, "Poor bastard, I bet he's in no hurry to get home tonight."

From the book Living at the Edge of the World by Tina S. and Jamie Pastor Bolnick. Copyright (c) 2000 by Jamie Pastor Bolnick. Reprinted by arrangement with St. Martins Press.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group