A Novel Ephemeral Economy

So Congrats America. We did it.

Lets get right back to work. Unfortunately with the law of the local land and quite a few disagreements on how the microcosm of my life is i’m not in a position to do what I normally do. I hustle quite a bit, scurrying around town on a beat-up road bike. That bike is my only source of transportation.

I do scraps of work for an AFCH which never paid enough. There was an agreement to trade rent for labor but rent for a corner of a living room with roommates isn’t worth 300 dollars a month. It’s a half-way house of sorts that I am also expected to manage.

Before Covid-19 dominated our collective existence I was already struggling to not have my food not eaten by rats or roommates. In Port Richey, Florida unless you have a car you get low-tier gigs that pay minimum for 12 to 28 hrs a week. Work ethic not needed. They won’t pay you for it. I tried.

Complacent would be my attitude. There was a crappy routine and for the many times in my life since the 2008 recession I was trying to overcome it by myself. Even if I have a slew of health complications.

Then the facility lockdown initiated.

Everything went out the window through the thin plane of glass. For privacy reasons I will truncate most information to its pure basics leaving out names for Confidentiality and Legal Reasons.

On the 18^th of March I tried telling my mentally handicapped drug addict room mate about the dangers of the virus and how he needs to wash his hands. I tell him he needs to stay home and social distance soon because it may get interesting. I had just given him an old ps2 around and tried convincing him to fix it at a shop to alleviate his boredom. He already had a bunch of games, controllers, and whatnot.

He left the next day with everything he had. Presumably to sell it for his drug of choice. While all this is going on. I confronted the person I have The Deal with. To protect the chain of contact I tell the one other room mate since he moved out and has free will not to let him back in the house. I was relieved really. He ate my food, used my soaps, did whatever the hell he wanted. Sweet. He was an older adult so be it.

No, I’m told.

He has to move back. He’s going to move back.

Seeing how I was forced to sleep in a room with a drug addict who disappears for days at a time it left me in a no-win situation where I would have to move out of the corner of room I had to keep working and be homeless or stop working at the facility and find a new job and most likely get Covid-19 from the guy I share a living room with in a house with three other people. Yikes.

None of it made sense unless you consider the entirety of the story and see the motive. You figure it out.

The general response from the person with whom I have the deal with freaks out on me telling me I control too much.

But I am expected to take on responsibility for it but no control.

I couldn’t stand. For the first time in my adult life I was so infuriated with the logical paradox presented towards me; The lack of actual care for the well being of his residents, the lack of well being for someone he stiffs over on pay, the lack of care for the other people in the subrented house.

There was an agreement in place with someone else about the living room mate that made it economically feasible for him to stay and do whatever he wanted. So everything must be exactly as it was.

I left crying. Lately I have been shedding a few lachrymal tears but this was a sorrowful cry. I know this Deal Person personally. So it hurt. It hurt to see this person chose Trumps words over the concerns of the agencies responsible for paying out money for taking care of his Residents.

And not taking heed of my words, time and time again. This time though there was a real mortal danger. Choosing a deal over a life is not worth it. That night I slept in a park. It was better than that room that was infested with fleas due to it being a place where cats are deposited in the female residents room by the dealmaker’s wife. Plus the eyelids were giving up gravity.

I had an hour worth of sleep before light pieced through my eyelids. It was bright enough that in my stupor I had though the outline of a shadow was finally the aliens. They got me. No it was the police standing a good distance away asking I not trespass. Apologies tossed out I simply left for 'home'.

The haze text to the dealmaker I made must have stirred some deep emotions. When I had awaken at the corner of living space I had my phone was sparking. I had 48 hrs to leave or get evicted.

I spilled the beans on everything I had felt about the situation. The bottom of this whole shade was a pit. Then the threats of violence. Let me tell you I was not in a mood what-so-ever. I called him out on everything. He called me out on my two vices. Ten years of working for a slumlord. It didn’t start out like this until we Made America Great Again.

His bluff was obliterated. I was going anyway. The chances of living a normal life again were set back to zero. Again.

The cruel nature of this beast is I’m not sure how I am going to make it. At the current moment I am on lockdown with close friends. They are a married couple and are lucky enough to be in a situation where they can work from home for now.

For the past couple of days my brain has been racked at night while adjusting myself on a flealess but inflatable bed. The cat allergies are acting up due to the impossibly fluffy nature of the cat which sends me into just mild panic attacks. There is a garden growing next to a few different trees in the backyard.

Then there is the world out there. The Covid19 plague winds carrying bits of what seems like roulette death. A virus that seems to favor the old and vunerable but… “you’re good enough too healthy one.” I think about people that may not know they have it traveling down the road with the window open coughing droplets.

Those very droplets get carried into the street vortex of sheering into the wind giving a lift greater than a stationary human in the wind. Those droplets getting sucked into the open windows of the car Im in every time I risk going out. Yes I told my new quarantine mate my concerns and his response as an older male was to Roll The Windows All The Way Down In An Attempt To Spite My Caution. Don’t worry I’ll get him on board with that idea (I hope).

I feel like if it is going to be like this it is only a matter of time until I burden the health care system too. Even if I can dodge all those inevitable bullets I’m still a burden now with zero income and outside of the range of unemployment since the dealmaker decided paperwork and legitimacy was a burden.

A part of me feels like this is a slight on those on the very bottom of the barrel. I’ve already given up half of the possessions I’ve acquired at the dealmakers halfway house. Some items I’ve rescued from the house after I learned the living room mate at the former place returned. Right now those items are outside under a weighed down tarp for at least a week.

For now I am living off cannibalizing my collection of weird artifacts. Already ready to dispose of half or more items under quarantine due to needing less to move around when traveling.

I went from poor to destitute in nearly a flash and the current administration has let us know where the classes should serve. This does not appear to be a survivable situation if you are at the razor edge of poverty and a death sentence if you have underlying health complications you can't afford to figure out.