“And you has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:1-3)
After about two weeks living in the streets I got a job at Belmont racetrack walking horses. It wasn't the greatest job but it came with a place to stay. After a while I got a job working at the Frenchman’s which was a cafeteria for the people who worked at the track. I remember one day sharpening a carving knife on a steel rod when a co-worker called me. I got distracted for just a split second and the knife came down on my thumb. I grabbed my thumb real quick and squeezed it real hard to keep it from bleeding too much. I remember one of the lady's telling me to let her see it. I told her she didn't want to see it and she said that it wasn't that bad. So I let her see it and blood started gushing out and she screamed. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital where I got six stitches in my thumb. This one guy that worked there talked me into going to Wyoming with him to work at a truck stop. It was bitter cold in Wyoming and after about a month we both got sick and ended up getting fired. We took a bus as far as we could, which was Salt Lake City Utah, where I ended up leaving all my luggage in a bus station locker. It was 15 degrees outside and there was a blizzard. We hitchhiked to Las Vegas, Nevada where it was 90 degrees in the shade. I made the mistake of throwing out my coat because that night it dropped down to about 30. We managed to get some blankets and we slept under a bridge. There was a place where men would stand on the street and people would come and hire them to do odd jobs, mostly physical labor. I don't remember what happened to my friend but I had just given up and was walking away when a lady pulled up in a station wagon and asked me if I wanted to work and I said yes. She brought me to her house where she had me do some work in her garden moving rocks and things for a few hours. She gave me a good lunch and paid me one hundred dollars. I remember that night going to a casino to eat. They had an all you could eat smorgasbord for something like 4 dollars. After that we began to drift towards Los Angeles, California. We would stay at the Salvation Army or some other kind of shelter if there was one or sleep under bridges. When we got to California we had to hitchhike from the on ramps because it was illegal to walk on the highway. Usually if we didn't get a ride we would walk to the next town, but then we came to a town on the edge of the California desert. The sign said that the next town was 19 miles. There were no shelters in that town so we slept under the bridge at night and then went by the on ramp to try to get a ride. We stayed at that on ramp for three days before we got a ride. One morning after sleeping under the bridge I stood up rubbing my eyes trying to wake up and I took two steps right into an I beam with my forehead. I just laid back down. I don't know if I was unconscious or asleep but either way I was out! Another thing that happened in that town was my friend tried to kill me because I wouldn't give him a cigarette. He picked up this big rock and started attacking me. I threw the whole pack at him to get him to stop. Looking back this guy was totally demonized. There was something very evil about him, it just took me a long time to realize it. Besides being a homosexual he used to tell me these really weird stories about himself. The craziest one to me was that his grandfather had supposedly predicted that he was going to die at a certain age. We ended up somewhere in the outskirts of Los Angeles where there were all kinds of farms. I remember being so hungry that I went into a field and pulled up a head of lettuce right out of the ground and ate it. Actually it was pretty good. There were other times when I would climb into dumpsters at fast food restaurants like McDonalds’s and dig through the garbage to find food. Usually I could find bags with clean food in it. In Los Angeles we went to this supposedly Christian Mission to eat and sleep but to this day I don't remember anything that was said in the preaching. The only thing I remember was being on line one day when a guy asked a man who was passing by for a cigarette. The man had some in his hand and said no so the guy pulled out a knife and stabbed him.
Next we hitchhiked to San Diego, California which was probably the best town we had been in, at least as far as being homeless. There was a mission there that let us stay as long as we wanted, and tried to help us get work. Also the food was good and they gave us good clothes. I don't remember the name of it but it was right in the downtown area. We stayed there for about a month and then started going east. I think we took a bus to Phoenix, Arizona and hitch-hiked from there. We used to get money by either stealing from grocery stores or by selling plasma. When you sold plasma they would take out two pints of blood and put it through a centrifuge to get out all the white blood cells and then put the red blood cells back in. The going rate was 15 dollars each time and you were allowed to do it twice a week. While we were in phoenix I got to meet my adopted half-sister for the first time. When my Father was 20 years old him and his first wife adopted Polly so she was 30 years older than me. I had written to her and spoken to her over the phone but I had never seen her before. Her and her husband were real good to us. They took us out to dinner and put us up in a hotel room for the night and gave us a hundred dollars. Next we made our way to El Paso, Texas. I remember being by myself one day and being very hungry. All I had was 10 dollars so I decided to walk over the border into Juarez, Mexico to get some food. I figured it would be a little bit cheaper. Anyway I found this place that was clean and the menu said that a whole chicken with French fries and a bottle of Pepsi was only 780 so I got it. When I gave the lady the ten dollar bill she came back with 7 dollars change. As it turns out the menu was in pesos. Next we went to San Antonio and then to Houston and then to Dallas. In Dallas I remember seeing a man with a suit on with a six gun on his side. From Dallas we went to Texarkana which is on the border of Texas and Arkansas, and then to Little Rock, Arkansas. By the time we got to Little Rock this guy was flipping out more and more and I decided I had had enough so I ditched him and called Freddy so I could get a bus ticket back to New York. Looking back it all seems like a bad dream yet very real.
By William A. Cotton