Because That's How Jack Chose It — Chapter 5 — Mr. Nestor's Shop
First problem of living on the street: where to sleep. Mr. Nestor comes in here.
Nobody ever asked. So he never told. Now he tells it — laughing, the only way he'll do it.
First problem of living on the street: where to sleep.
It's not the most urgent — the most urgent is food — but it's the one that scares you the most, because sleep is when you've got no defense. Five years old, on the street, and the night is a beast.
I solved it with Mr. Nestor. He never knew. Or he knew and pretended not to. An old man is sharp, so I prefer to believe he knew.
Mr. Nestor had a little shop, odds and ends and repairs. Shoelaces, batteries, a counter for fixing radios, that kind of thing. He closed around seven at night, put the padlock on, and went home.
I found out that the little window on the back storeroom didn't latch right. After he left, I'd climb in there, lie down on the burlap sacks between the boxes, and slip out before dawn. I did that for a good while — not every night, but most of them.
The shop smelled like coffee grounds and old wood. There was a little space heater Mr. Nestor left on the lowest setting, I think for the cat. The cat hated me for a week and then adopted me. It was my first commercial contract: it let me sleep, and I didn't tell anyone it was sleeping inside the shop instead of hunting mice. Confidentiality both ways.
And hold on to this shop. Mr. Nestor and that little store come back in the last chapter, and they come back important.
Before the shop, in the first weeks, I ate off what people gave me.
I'd come up, make the face, ask for food. And it worked. People pity a kid on the street. For a couple of weeks, pity is a business model that balances the books.
Then I saw the problem.
Pity spoils. Pity spoils like milk out of the fridge.
Week one, you're the kid on the street and everybody wants to help. It's nice, everybody feels good. Week four, you're the kid who's still on the street, and now you're a problem that didn't get solved. The same lady who gave you bread on Monday crosses the street on Friday to avoid you.