Crusty Row

"I don't know what these cops are doing. Fucking assholes."

I got a hundred dollars from Denzel Washington in Venice Beach, California. In my first month traveling. It was really cool. Like the day before these kids jumped me. Kicked me in my face. Took all my money. So that sucks man. Actually he was really cool. Pounded knuckles with him and stuff. Talk for like five or ten minutes. He was really nice.

I don't know what these cops are doing. Fucking assholes. I've met cool cops, I mean. A good majority that I met do suck but there's a lot of cool cops. I can't hate on them. 

Like today we got caught at our squat where we were sleeping and the cops they just, "they're like I don't care what you do. Just leave. Just don't ever come back." They didn't even care so. Under this bridge. Under the Williamsburg Bridge. In this big fenced in area. They didn't say anything really. They just told us to move. So really really can't hate all coppers. Those cops seemed like assholes a little bit.

I guess they were down there shooting up. Cops walked up on them. Just busted them. Yeah kicked them out of New York. It's crazy. I'm surprised they didn't take them to jail or anything. Anywhere else. It's crazy out here. Up north it's crazy. In Texas, that type of stuff don't go. Certain towns. They'll either like, if you were to talk back to them, like certain towns, like Austin or something they would definitely try to rough you up a little bit. Or would have definitely took you to jail. Yeah they definitely got lucky on that.

Trash Can

"Tried living in a house a few times. It's just garbage."

I did a little bit of modeling just for fun and cause like people were asking to take my pictures. If was fun though definitely. Taking pictures for money. It's a good deal. Win win.

I've been on the road, this is my fourth year. But on and off, you know I tried going back to school. Tried living in a house a few times. It's just garbage. It doesn't work for me. I windup getting into way too much trouble and or just going insane in my own brain cause I can't handle all that bull crap. Like having to do stuff for people, like having to feeling the necessity to do everything. Make money. Stress. Too much stress. Like people trying to tell me what to do all the time and what you're supposed to do rather then what you want to do. And I'm not like, when you're younger you think it's supposed to be like, all that like teenage angst and everything or whatever. But once you're not a teenager anymore, it just becomes like part of life that you wanna get away from, all that crap cause it just makes you crazy. It makes people wanna kill people.

And my friends are awesome. People on the road are awesome. Life; you get to live it like one step at a time. In our lives that we live; we live day by day like every second is fate and it's like happening right in front of us. Like we don't have anything. We don't have anything we need or want, we just kinda like go around and just like, it falls into place. Manifestation. I'm sure you've heard about manifestation. Wanting something and then like, knowing that you're going to get it I guess. Like knowing it's going to happen and then it does happen. Knowing that you're not going to go hungry. You can't go hungry. So you're automatically going to get fed. Knowing you're going to have a place to sleep. You're automatically going to have a place to sleep. Like a lot of people think that it's scary but it's not even scary. Cause it's like, fuck.

Cause none of us try. But look at how happy we are. How we just get to like; we get everything, we get everything. It's not like we're asking for everything. Boom. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to explain it other then that, if you know what I mean. It's like cut into the ground already and we're just falling after it. I just feel like this is my job. This is like my job, when your job is to do what you do. The president's job is to do what he does and you know everybody's got a job and maybe mine's not one you get paid for but it's still a job. I get to go around and meet everybody and talk to people and tell them about, about this and I don't know. I feel like it's my job. I dunno.

I do. I do get paid for what I do. You know what I mean. I get paid, just because people don't understand me so automatically. Automatically when you think like someone is in trouble, you offer them money. It's like the world just doesn't understand us. What you don't understand your either scared of or you just like. That's why I think everyone's scared of us. They just don't get our life is completely different, But yes we should get paid for it and I think we all do. And that's why we keep doing it.

Confusion, fear, anger. Mostly confusion. Then second anger and then third, like fear kind of. Cause like the angers like, Ifd feel like probably like sixty percent of people wished they had done this themselves. At least went out, not necessarily what I do because I've been doing it for four years right. But at least when I got out of high school and stuff. At least like wished they had went traveling and seeing the country where your born in, where you've grown up your whole life. Like I don't watch the news but I still know what's going on. And I'm not scared because I am like the news. I get to see what's really going on. Even though I don't get to hear about huge things like shootings and stabbings, do I want to surround myself with that kind of information all day? Do I want to live in fear every single day? Not particularly. I'd rather just like go, be smart, be safe. You know what I mean? And you definitely have to be smart to do what we do, even though we might seem like a bunch of dumb ass people because we like to have fun and whatever but. You have to be smart otherwise your going to wind up another headline in the news. I wouldn't change anything for the world. But I wish people would realize we're not here to hurt anybody.

Skamper

"When it comes to the concept of modesty, fuck modesty!"

Basically, you probably won't be able to tell by looking at me, but I chose to live the lifestyle of a transient and a vagabond based upon on all my studies that I've done at school. I went through three years of philosophy and history. I went through three different majors. History, pre-law, criminal science and uh an english major. I've been on the road like this for three and a half years going on four. But I've only been really hopping and leaving my home state for about two years now. It's hard to explain exactly what happened when I decided to go on, like decided to just stop living and corresponding with real society but it probably had to do with getting kicked out of my last college when I was majoring in pre-law. I was going into constitutional law and criminal justice. I was gonna be basically the public defender. I was shooting to get public defender and environmental law. I was doing really good in school. Actually I had really good grades and all of my teachers that I worked for their classes loved me. But I didn't get along with the religious department and I didn't get along with any of the security. One day when I was wearing my old vest that had a giant fuck you back patch on it and a bullet belt security cornered me on school and said that I wasn't allowed to dress on school the way I was dressed. I wasn't allowed to speak my mind. And it came to me like well I'm paying what twenty five thousand a year for an education in a system where they don't even respect who you are. I'm not going to take that bullshit, fuck them. So I grabbed my shit. Walked to my teachers class and said, "thanks to your security guards I'm dropping out of school." And I turned my back and walked out of the classroom. I haven't stopped learning. I mean every day I'm picking up a new book or studying some new oddball fact. Like my old road dog Trashcan used to call me Infidel. Because I was one an infidel because I would always go against the grains of society. Because I was fucking smart as shit and I had this random like knowledge that no one else would, no one else would actually think to learn or study. I could come up with some random weird ass fact to any quote that they would do but if you asked me how to fix a car. You ask me like numbers or science I don't understand those. I'm dyslexic when it comes to numbers I guess. But when it comes to philosophy, when it comes to history, when it comes to common sense, when it comes to surviving. I'm pretty, I'm pretty smart when it comes to that. And when it comes to the concept of modesty, fuck modesty! Know who you are and be as bad ass as you can fucking be. And if you know that you're a bad ass, just fucking say it and just be ok with it. Don't gloat about it but be like you know; yeah I know that. I'm good. I know what I'm doing and I'm good like that. Yeah it sounds cocky. It sounds arrogant. Sometimes you just got to be an asshole to get by.

You know I don't have a house. I don't want a house. I see no reason to have to pay three hundred thousand dollars or more for the rest of your fucking life for four walls and a roof. I got a sleeping bag, a tent and a dog and I'm probably warmer and happier in that then you are in your comfy house with your tv.

There are two dogs killing each other at the moment in the dog park.

Brian

"No one's better then the god damn dog."

I'm never good with computers, never good with words, never good with pictures. Just kinda do what I do and I do how I do it.

I need food and water. I need nothing but what I can carry and what has been given by the gift of the earth. The earth gave us everything we need. Either you're too lazy to take it or you're just gonna die. There's no more law. There's no more naturalistic law in this country. What happened to hunting and gathering? What happened to being a human being? What happened to being an animal? We were animals but we think we're better. No one's better then the god damn dog.

This race. I wanna finish last because I want to see everything along the way. I'm a person who's willing to finish last. Fuck the race. There's no big hurry. People just running for an early grave. If you're gonna die you might as well enjoy life.

Brice

"Fuck the police, I got it tattooed on my arm, ha ha."

Last week I got arrested for sitting at the chess tables not playing chess. Now it's a public park and there's twenty only chess tables open. If someone needs to play chess at my table I would have gladly moved. The officer had no right. That's no charge. It's shit. And there's twenty other Yuppies sitting there eating their picnic lunches and they let them all go. They arrest me and two of my friends. It's segregation. To fucking hell with the Yuppies. I grew up here. I'm gonna die here. And hopefully I won't die soon. But I feel like it.

I don't give a fuck about the police. Fuck the police, I got it tattooed on my arm, ha ha, I go where I wanna go. But I think they really disrespected me in my own neighborhood. I was getting arrested daily when Lt. Corcoran was working, I have thirty or more assaulting police officers, two assaulting federal officers, four other assaults, most of my shit is just assault or discon, discon, discon, discon, discon, it is what it is. The EMT's know me, the whole hospital staff knows me, everybody loves me, but I shouldn't be so fucked up, and I wish I could be a better person, it is what it is, I'm me.

Jewels

"I just like find bones along the tracks."

I sew a lot. I sew bones on my clothes. I just like find bones along the tracks. I like made this whole skirt out of scratch. Find them and hold on to them till I can think of something to do with them. Think the big ones are from deers, like most of the vertebrae and the small ones are from cats. Maybe a possum. I know that one right here is an armadillo.

I've gone through a lot of pairs of stockings. I've had these maybe three months now. I usually go through like maybe five pair a year.

Dolly

"I have no desire to do anything ever."

I hit the road when i was seventeen, after a book I read called Evasion. It really inspired me to go on the road and see what's out there. I was hooked on the free life, living on the road. Meeting new people. Exploring new places. After that its been kinda non stop of west coast to east coast, east coast to west coast.

What a lot of us are out here doing. Just living the free life. Dumpster diving. Getting around for free.  You don't need to work because there's so much excess that people have, they don't need that, they try to dispose of or do dispose of, that you can take and make your own. I have no desire to do anything ever. I'm completely content doing nothing and living off the excess of other people.

T-Bird

"Does it really fucking matter?"

Fucking hanging out. Day in New York. I came up here to meet with Road Dog. It's my fault that we're not together now, cause I was supposed to go meet him awhile ago. When I see him, I see him and then we're together again. Then we hang out in New York till we don't fucking feel like it anymore. Plans are plans. Does it really fucking matter? We'll go somewhere.



One day you will not find me. I'm leaving the god damn city. I'm doing my own thing.

Peachy

"I'd just rather sleep under the stars."

I gave it a shot. I did what everyone told me would make me happy. Got an apartment. Got a job. I wasn't happy, so I started traveling. I haven't stopped since. I've been doing it for like six years now. I love it. It's what makes me happy. I've tried to settle down. Can't do it. I'd just rather sleep under the stars.

One of my favorite places I've ever been to is Nicaragua. It was really eye opening. I mean I'm an anarchist. I fucking hate capitalism but as much as I hate this country, after going to a third world country it actually made me appreciate a lot of shit about America that I didn't before. Well you know people live in poverty here in the states but you can still go to McDonalds and get a dollar double cheeseburger everyday. You can still get food stamps. You can still dumpster dive.

Kayla

"My leash was around my wrist but my dog wasn't attached to my god damn leash."

Yesterday fucking morning I woke up. Me and my boyfriend woke up. We were sleeping on 5th. Where was it 5th and A? My leash was around my wrist but my dog wasn't attached to my god damn leash. And fucking found out she was fucking gone. And then my boyfriend's supposed to get me a bag of heroin and then I went to sleep because I was all pissed off about my dog. Then I wake up and he's like, "Baby I lost a bag of heroin." And I'm like, "God damn it.You lost. Ok you lost it mother fucker, yeah you lost it." He's wasted. So I go back to sleep. I wake up and "Jahni your boyfriends getting arrested."

Jahni

"I also want to get horn implants."

I like to drink, I like to smoke weed.

My next tattoo is going to be the whites of my eyes. The whites of your eyes are a different color. I also want to get horn implants. The kind of horns that go underneath your skin. I know a couple of people that have horn implants. I want to change the whole appearance of how I look. Just to stan . d out more. But i also want to do suspension. Hang by hooks. Just so I can say I've done it. I always want to try something at least once.

A freak show job. People just stare at me and pay me money. Hey I'm an odd one.

Warlock

"Everybody's fucking robots, everywhere I go there's fucking robots."

I've just been traveling, around traveling around. I just want to see all fifty states and all  the capitals so I can get the fuck out of this country and never come back. Fucking hate it here. Everybody's fucking robots, everywhere I go there's fucking robots. I swear to God. Have you been to Times Square lately? I scream at people. One one zero zero one one zero zero, cause they're fucking robots. I hate them. I cannot wait to get out of this fucking country. I just travel around, get drunk, get wasted and have a good fucking time. I do what the fuck I want. Go where the fuck I want. Living the life, living the dream. 


About a month ago. I've gone three and a half months without a shower before. Doesn't bother me. Why would you have to buy body odor? You make it. I get really mad at people who yell at me on the bus. You know you fucking smell like a chemical you bought in the store. I smell like what? What God wanted me to smell like. If your God wanted me to smell like flowers under my armpits, fucking flower smell would come out of my armpits. No, this is the smell that comes out. The only reason you can smell it is you're so busy trying to cover it up. I don't smell these kids. Sometimes I smell them and like damn you must smell really bad if I can smell you.

Cameron

"I'm really dirty. I'm a dirty kid."

My original nickname is Raggedy Ann and my friend kept telling me I was not Raggedy, I was rancid so I became Rancid Ann cause I'm pretty gross. I don't know. Ask this kid. I don't observe myself enough. I know I just pick my boogers and wipe them wherever. I pick them and wipe them on anything. I'm really dirty. I'm a dirty kid. I have no idea really, they just think, "You're really haggard, you're rancid". That's how I got my name Rancid.

Rancid and Riot

"I'm just forever restless and have a sense of longing for something more."

Born and raised in Louisiana. I had a pretty like normal life growing up except my mom was always on the road. My mom's a gambler. I left home when I was eighteen. Started traveling around. Ended up in North Carolina. I'm just forever restless and have a sense of longing for something more. I don't know what that is. I've never shot dope. Done any of that bullshit. I don't have a desire to. I just want to live my life and have a beautiful life.

Eulalia

"We're all poor, white trash squatters, scum fucks, losers, throwaway kids."

My father was an attempted cop killer, he was doing twenty years to life for shooting a police officer three times. He was serving five years in CCI corrections and my mother met him visiting my uncle who was an incarcerated Hell's Angels. As my mom would tell you, she fucking fell in love with a felon. Got a petition with three thousand signatures on it and got my dad released in five years served, five years probation. He got out impregnated my mom. I was born two months premature and I was dying.

I got into punk rock music and squatting when I was thirteen years old. By fifteen I had been in jail, was kicked out of high school and I had a son on the way. In two thousand one, January third, my son Seth Alan Parker was born. At that moment I knew that I would never stick a needle in my arm or ride a train or ever do anything that would ever threaten me being there for him. I've traveled all over America, just not on trains. I've stayed in the dirtiest squat houses. I've cried over dead friends. I've cried over live friends. When I was eighteen years old we started a crew, it's called the Dirty South Crew. We're all family. We're all poor, white trash squatters, scum fucks, losers, throwaway kids. Some of my friends died from overdoses. Some of them killed themselves. Some of my friends are still alive and wish they were dead. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left that's still normal. I look around me and just see all this disease and drugs and just hopelessness.
.
When I was seventeen years old I was at a punk show in my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. A straight edge hardcore guy named...approached me from behind and tapped me on my shoulder and said my name. When I turned around he grabbed my by my shirt, stepped on my feet and he smashed my face in. I had three thousand dollars of reconstructive surgery putting my nose back together. Putting my eye socket back together. Half of my face is metal. I have screws and brackets in my face. When I woke up I didn't have a nose. I didn't have an eye. My eyeball was loosely hanging out of my socket. Everyone kinda likes to joke that I'm the man with the metal face. Six years later after I got my face busted in that same guy he got stabbed nine times by a Nazi and his car was set on fire.

I'm on the way to the hospital right now. I did a back flip off the stage during a Mischief Brew set. I'm pretty sure I have a pretty bad concussion. Maybe a fractured finger. I'm feeling kinda fucked up right now.

I don't see these racists, these capitals, these sexist, these homophobes, these class action you know yuppies tearing us apart. I really hope all these kids stop sticking needles in their arms and start putting ideas in their fucking heads cause they're losing their souls and it's breaking my heart.

Steven

"My mom's a Czechoslovakian whore."

I'm a product of the American foster care system. My mom's a Czechoslovakian whore and my dad was a sand nigger. His name was Ahmad something or other. I grew up in the foster care system till I was three. So I woke up one day and I was fucking fifteen years old, ran away from the fucking group home. Decided it was in my best interests to become a crack head on the streets. And spent the last two years losing my mind in Oklahoma City.

I started traveling after I got clean off of meth and was discovered by some hippies on the street.They asked me what I was doing on the street. I said, "I was trying to score another bag of meth." They said, "hey, you want to go somewhere with us?" I said, "where are you going?" And they said, "does it really matter?" And I said, "no I guess no it doesn't really matter." At that point I was eighteen years old and I went on my first trip to Knoxville. Stayed with all these crazy bio diesel hippies. They make bio diesel out of corn. That's when I figured out you could travel. That homelessness didn't mean you had to stay in one place and rot away or be a drug addict. That you were actually allowed to move around and do something interesting and explore the world. You know you didn't have to be stationary and miserable. So I took up to hang out with hippies and fucking drunks and train riders and made my way around America. Met a few interesting people. A few not so interesting people. Got in a couple of fights. Got my ass kicked a couple of times. Break my glasses about every six months due to one of those events. It's really hard actually being blind on the road. I'm legally blind.

I also appreciate not getting hit on every twenty seconds of the day by crazy old men who think they can get into my pants because I'm dirty looking. My plans are to one day not be miserable and to quit doing drugs and not killing so many brain cells.

Ketchup

"The entire life, the universe and everything is the answer of forty two."

I'm forty two. Forty two. The answer to life , the universe is forty two. I am the answer to life, the universe and everything. Forty two. There's nothing I can give you other then forty two. It's not the question it's the answer man. That's like forty two. The question is such a contradictory like ever loving statement that if the answer were to be there with the question they would contradict each other and um wipe each other out of existence. The entire life, the universe and everything is the answer of forty two. Yeah no like five million years of human evolution equals forty two. Yeah like forty two. I'm not a human being. I'm a man with an answer.

Daniel

"I have the daddy syndrome. He has the mommy syndrome."

I am a traveler. Did it for six years. This is a poem and mainly the reason why I started traveling. It's about my junkie dad who I've never met actually.
This is how the poem goes.

One two three, you learn to say fuck it. A b c d, the lesson is on how to be shit. I'm gonna bleed out on account I'm a child. And abandon the fucker with luck and the intention of to wild. Selfish pig I'll slit your throat. The first time we meet I'll laugh at the reflection at the pool underneath at my feet. A small giggle and a mass of satisfaction, I'll cut off your lips, don't fucking speak I'll feed you word captions. Father dear it was a wonderful time. Twenty three years have I ever crossed your mind? And how sweet a thought of a family, where shit like that doesn't happen to shit just like me. And the story will end with an ever happy conclusion or either the fact that I suffer from delusion. You're a fucking piece of shit human being so go back to the needle and forget the real world you're fleeing. I'm glad you ignored me. I hope you die. I'm tired of living this life without breaking these ties. Your addictions are your first love, so I guess I'll understand. You'll always be the worst fucking excuse of a living man.

Love you pops.

Why did I write that? Because after twenty three years of him being a redneck piece of shit and never paying attention to me or my brother, who just happen to be of an hispanic descent that he accidentally knocked up. My mom's hispanic. He's a racist redneck. He had a mistake. He sent up three of them he didn't want to deal with. That's why I wrote that.

It affected my life where I basically had the no daddy syndrome and I had to go through a lot of abusive relationships just looking for a father figure and I just realized the only father figure I had in my life was my brother. He was the only one that was ever there for me.

Yeah now I married. Very happily married to the love of my life. I'm basically his mother figure cause he is the complete opposite. I have the daddy syndrome. He has the mommy syndrome. His mom left him when he was two years old. My dad left me when I was one. So it's kinda of, we work out that way.

I am completely content with my life right now. What makes me happy you know, I don't have a place to live. I don't have a place to sleep. I don't have any money in my pocket but every day I will wake up and I'm sublimely happy because I have good friends, good people and you know I go through a dumpster and I'm fed.

Jerrica

"And the cops ended up giving us a hundred and fifty bucks."

Just turned eighteen and I was working at Panera Bread. Hated my life. Drink beer work, drink beer work. Some train kids came into my town. Got me drunk. And they were like, "you wanna ride the trains?" And I was like, "fuck yeah." I told all my friends. I woke up underneath the bridge the next morning. And fuck I gotta go now. I got to leave my hometown. We sat on train for twelve hours. And we ended up getting caught by a bull cause my friends dog barked. And went to jail. All seven of us. 




And there was a nice nurse that called us boxcar children, like hooked us up, got us out. Brought the prosecutor into the jail to come talk to us. The prosecutor stood up for us in jail. Got the dogs out for free. They gave us like three brown paper bags full of toilet paper, food. And another one of water. And the cops ended up giving us a hundred and fifty bucks. Got rid of my scabies. I ended up better off leaving then I did going in. It's the only time I've been in trouble since I started traveling. It turned out the train wasn't going anywhere for three days. It wasn't going the right way anyways.

Spit

"I did the best that I could to kill that fucker."

I've been busted drinking a bunch of times in every state except none of that Puerto Rico shit yet. I was beating the shit out of some mother fucker. They're trying to tell me it's manslaughter. I was getting kicked in Portland, Oregon. I didn't appreciate that. I don't kick nobody. I put that nigger on the table. I did the best that I could to kill that fucker. Turned out to be a child molester. I found that out on Christmas. I was fucked up. I'm a good guy now. All I do is drink.

I got this. I did ninety three days in prison in Oregon State Penitentiary. They seen me, I got into a big, there was a muscle car show. I go out there and I'm fucking, "yeah I got this new tattoo." I went to jail for that shit, dead beat, bum fighting whino. Anyway the mother fuckers seen me, "oh you little mother fucker, come here or we'll start shooting the guns. We ain't playing handball. You ain't nothing special." They gave me ninety three days in the hole where the sun don't ever shine. In the pines, in the pines where the sun don't ever shine.

Justin

"I always wind up sleeping in places where there is a lot of perverts looking at me in the middle of the night."

I like to shoot heroin. Sometimes. I'm supposed to be on a methadone program. Doing good. Wink wink. Guess I'm doing good. Kindaish. And I'm stuck here in New York. Wish I wasn't in New York. I was gonna leave New York.

I dunno, I like drinking Four Loco. And I always wind up sleeping in places where there is a lot of perverts looking at me in the middle of the night and I gotta chase them down and beat them up. I dunno. That's pretty much the story of my life. And I'm always surrounded by a bunch of, I don't want to say idiots, but people I sometimes worry about their intelligence.

I kinda travel around the country. I kinda blew up the west coast and so now I'm on the east coast. And now I blowing up the east coast where I'll probably never be able to come back here again. So maybe I'll just hang out in the middle somewhere. I haven't quite figured out what the hell I'm gonna do.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow brings I don't know. I don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Creep

"They were one big fat fucking family."

I was on a Greyhound bus. I was going from Boise, Idaho to Portland, Oregon. I seen the fattest chick ever. So fucking disgusting dude. Anyway the whole family was fat. This lady was Mexican or something like that. She had like six Mexican kids. Two were boys and four were girls and they were all fat. They were one big fat fucking family. Mexican family. This lady was so fucking fat. I don't know if you've ever seen this but when they have an extremely large fat person on the Greyhound they have to take off part of the side of the bus. And then there's this hydraulic shit that comes out, you know what I mean. Like a platform. Dude they had to have like the fire department there. You know like EMS, an ambulance there and shit to supervise this shit. So we had to have a different lunch break. We had to eat the shit from the Greyhound station in case anything happened. Anyway so they hydraulic her ass fucking down and shit and dude she obviously cannot fit inside a regular size vehicle right so she had one of those big fat person Amigos and shit like that. Looked like a zero turn fucking lawn mower. Anyway they wheel her down. I was like, "no way. No fucking way." This big van pulled up with a trailer hitch at the back of it. And dude she didn't get in the van. She wheeled that zero turn shit to the back of the trailer hitch bro and they drove away. Oh God. It was the most fattest thing I've ever seen in my life. Fattest, disgusting, fucking shit. Wind blowing through her fat shit, Mexican mullet, you know what I mean. I bet she weighed close to a thousand pounds. She was like a big circus freak.

Chris

"They're in a cult man. They're crazy."

Kinda just got out of a situation with my parents, Jehovah's Witnesses. Like a lot of turmoil in the house. I came back here. I have a scholarship to an art school in the city. I figured it would be better to just get out till maybe the school could put me somewhere. I want to be a fine artist, a sculptor and a fine art photography.

They're in a cult man. They're crazy. Jehovah's Witnesses. Fucking horrible. Just judgmental. All about appearances, God's not about that you know. God's love, Jah's love. You have to love everyone unconditional. Unconditional love that's part of my life.

They try and tell me how I need to look. They tell me what I need to do. They tell me what I need to eat. They tell me how to sleep. They tell me everything man. Yeah they basically tell me how to live my life.

Marry a Jehovah's Witness. Be a Jehovah's Witness. Go to church twice a week. Go knock on doors and for the most part just know in your heart that means your salvation and everyone else on the face of this earth that's their salvation and if they don't accept it they're gonna die. I say fuck that.

God's not about tattoos and long hair or like scruffy beards or like ratty clothes, old shoes and shit like that. That's all like pretense to old school teachings. People need to be told like God flourishes in that, he loves it and that's a sin. You can't judge. People need to be set straight on that. They need to be told and taught that's like, you can't do that. You just can't. It's horrible.

I had a nervous breakdown a couple of weeks ago. The past thirty years kinda hit me in the head. I don't know if I can actually honestly answer. If I can imagine what it would feel like to die and still be alive that would be the closest thing I can explain it. It hurts so bad. It still hurts till this day. Everything. It sucks man.

Chris

"I still have all my teeth."

I'm drinking beer. I need something to get rid of this pain. It was one of those nights. That's all. I don't know how to describe it other then that. It's a regular fucking night. I ended up on the losing end. This happened last night. This morning I hadn't swollen up yet. But I got all the cuts last night.

These guys know me when I was inside bro. I was locked up. I didn't even know I was about to get setup for a fight. They fucking set me up. I was in the middle of it and I didn't even know what was going on. And they all disappeared and I have to be the one to settle the problem. So it turned into a good fight. Some fucking biker. I still have all my teeth. I'm gonna feel great tomorrow. Once it's healed. I don't have and cuts on me. Like I said I got all my teeth. Fuck it. Couldn't have been that big of a fight. More like a scuffle. It ain't my problem. I wish them the best. He thinks that I ripped him off. I had nothing to do with anything. They were setting us up for a fight. He doesn't understand that. That's why that giant black guy rolls up on me, "what the fuck." Because he knew what was going on. I'm not a fucking Nazi. Those guys take it to another level. There's a difference between being a friend saying , "yeah well when I was locked up I hung out with Nazi skinheads." But out here these guys they're just fucking you. This shit is no joke. Because he knows I did some fucked up things when I was locked up. But I'm not locked up. I'm outside right now. I don't plan on going back, I don't plan on killing anybody out here. Why? We don't get anything out of it.

Dave

"My dogs nuts just dropped."

In Baltimore, we pull up right, we're parked and we've slept almost all night. Then we're like gonna get off right because we see workers and shit, so we dive into the bushes and shit. My dogs nuts just dropped, so he's all about barking when people are walking around and stuff. So I close his mouth and went, "stop it, shhh, thank you for letting me know." So finally we decide it's cool, it's clear so we decide to get back on. Rob throws his shit on and we look down the way and there's a freaking worker. And he's like, "Oh shit." So he totally saw us. So we run back into the bushes. Next thing we know we see this fucking copter coming around. This helicopter and we're like, "oh shit." Wonder what they're looking for. It's like diving right. We run for a bush across the ground, another set of rails to another bush. We look up and we see like you know some cops tromping down. We hear all the footsteps on the rocks and shit. Next thing you know, he's all talking about how cool, how fun it is when the bull is chasing you because it's a high, you get to run. It's not really that fun. It isn't! You know the adrenaline rush is great. But it's not really that fun. We hid, but my dog's barking. So he jumps in the bushes. My dog's barking so they already know where I am so there's no point in even trying to hide. You know like ha. They calm down. They get our id's. Rob's sitting over there in the bushes, just like five feet away, just behind the cops. And I can hear him snap a twig. You know it's like oh my god, really the cops don't hear this. They don't know where he is. I'm holding my dog back. We didn't get tickets or anything. From there we ended up hopping another train all the way here, oh wait all the way over to Pittsburgh. Then we waited in Pittsburgh, but that's a whole other story.

Wednesday

"Damn girl. What happened to your face? You got fucked up."

I was sixteen. It was like October twenty third, twenty second. A couple of weeks after my birthday. My birthday's October thirteenth, eighty seven. Best birthday ever. In my opinion. So I'm on my way to night school. I just moved back from Wisconsin back to Portland, Oregon. Friends were throwing me a birthday party. On the way, took the Max in Portland, you know it's the upper ground subway, pretty much and took it all the way from Washington Park. Got off on Forty Second, Hollywood stop and wanted a cigarette because I'd been drinking and figured the cigarette smell would knock off the booze smell. 

I wasn't the brightest girl then. I asked this lady that I didn't realize at the time was out of her fucking mind on drugs and booze. She was thirty two years old and happened to be like at least one eighty, she was a big mama. I asked her for a cigarette and she freaked out on me so I said, "whatever, fuck you, I don't want your cigarette." And I was a kind of a cocky punk rocker then so I just walked away. Next thing I know I was being pulled by my backpack, dragged to the ground and she straddled me. She being a lot bigger then me, I was about one twenty back then, I was just sixteen. She banged my head on the cement. She just kept on banging and I pulled out my mini-mag light, flash light that I had on my belt loop and I was popping her on the face and then the next thing I remember she was her on my face. I didn't feel anything but I remember digging my nails into her scalp like this, pulling her off, just yelling, "Get off of me." And like no one helped me. I remember hearing her boyfriend laughing and laughing saying, "kill her, kill her. Kill the white girl. Kill this bitch." I tried to get on two buses and they just wouldn't let me on. I was gushing blood. I thought the lady just broke my nose. I was too scared to touch it because I was so bloody. And I just figured because of the alcohol I was just bleeding more. Finally I made this bus driver open the door. I wouldn't let him leave and I got on. And I was like, "call my dad or an ambulance. I'm fucked up." People were just looking at me in shock and I didn't understand why. Hip hop girls came up and said, "Damn girl. What happened to your face? You got fucked up." And I was, "like what are you talking about? Yeah I just got beat up. Whatever." And they're like, "no you're missing a nose." And I'm like, "no she just broke my nose." Next thing I remember I woke up in the hospital and they told me they had to give me a shot to calm me down. 

So I wake up in the hospital and I'm strapped and so I call the nurse and she comes in and unstraps me and tells me what happened. She's not quite sure how I'm missing my right nostril but I'm missing my right nostril all the way up where I can see the bone and they're telling me it's three o' clock in the morning, they don't know who I am because I don't have ID. They tell me the plastic surgeon is coming in to fix my nostril. At that time I hadn't seen my nose. So I didn't know what it looked like. Finally I get them to let me go to the bathroom and I see it. I about fainted. I dunno. I didn't really like how I looked back then but I liked the color of my eyes and my nose. I was fond of my nose. I was really heartbroken. I know it sounds really selfish and vain, but I was. I felt like a monster with no nostril. And like scratched up. The lady tried to fish hook me. And I had to get stitches inside my mouth. I had black eyes and I had to get three staples in the back of my head. She had swollen my brain so my equilibrium was off. The first surgery that night they took it from my hip right here, the fat and they put it on my nostril. They could fix my nose in six or seven surgeries. Well six. I was supposed to have a seventh one but I didn't want to do the cosmetic surgery so I only want to do reconstructive so that's why my nostril is thicker right here and it's really bumpy. For the first two years it was so white, so different. I had such a red line right here. Like the scare on my forehead was just ridiculous. Luckily I've always had bangs. 

I was really sad. I became addicted to pills. And then they cut me off pills I didn't realize like wow I was so sick but it so happened my husband was a heroin addict and was a speedball addict. He told me he could help me feel better, so my drug addiction continued onto heroin and coke. For about a couple of more years till I found Methadone and got off of it finally last September. I was clean about five months. And I've been chipping every so often. This is definitely something that changed my life. Something I've grown to love. I love my nose now. I think it gives me character. Most people don't realize it. Complete strangers ask me about it. I get compliments and I get weird questions. It doesn't hurt anymore. I have most of my smell. In time everything heals.

It's not all about trains.

Ashley

"I didn't choose to be homeless and to live the way I live."

I was born and raised in Italy. I grew up in a very poor depressed area in the outskirts of Milano. We were me, my three brothers, my mother, my father. A lot of fights in the family. A lot of problems. Then went to art school over there. Start working in Milano as a graphic designer. Painting on the side and at the age of twenty eight decided to come to New York. I had what you could call a middle upper class lifestyle. I was married with a British woman for three years. We were living on fourth avenue between eleventh and twelfth in a luxury apartment. Both hard good, make good money. Everything was going well. Then we, I befriended with a guy that introduced me to heroin. I never done drugs before then. I never even smoked pot. And I started using heroin. And slowly it became an addiction. And slowly I started losing jobs. And then little by little I became homeless and here I am.

I think it was a coping mechanism. I was, even though I had money and a pretty comfortable life, I felt a void. Something was lacking. I didn't know what it was but I thought heroin was gonna fill the void. Was gonna like help me. Fill the emptiness. Obviously I was wrong. It's been a nightmare for me. It's like a demon. It took everything from me. It took everything. Material things but also destroyed my soul. But not my hope. I still have hopes in my life. That I'll be able to stop using and restart working and functioning and put everything behind my back. It really taught me a lot of things. I think I grew from the experience. It gave me a a chance to know myself more. But the price that I paid was defiantly too high for what I got in exchange. More insight. I got more experiences that on a conventional level they're awful like homeless, poverty. But for some reason I feel enriched. It's hard to put into words. It's more like an awareness about me and the world that before I didn't have because I had a very sheltered life and kind of a boring life. I was a nine to fiver. I used to get up. Go to work and go to restaurants and buy clothes. Be able to pay rent. But there was always this lack, this void I needed to fill and I didn't know how. For some reason heroin gave me the chance to be more introspective.

I believe for most of the people on crusty row it's a choice and for me it's not a choice. It's consequences of my addiction but I didn't choose to be homeless and to live the way I live. It just went out of control. I burned a lot of bridges. I feel very lonely. My friends that know me don't want to be around me anymore. Lost my family. My girlfriend. I have two babies. Wonderful babies. Nine months old. Twin brothers. I can't provide for them. I can't really be there for them right now. It's very painful.

I sleep on the streets. In front of a school. There is a gate that is opened. It's unlocked. I open the gate. I put my cardboard there and lay there. Wakeup at six in the morning. Try to find money for coffee. Either find money for heroin but recently I stay away from heroin and pretty much on medication foe Suboxone, that allows me to not get sick so sometimes I just try to eat whatever I can find. Either go to a church or eat from like organizations that come to the park and give food to the homeless people. Sometimes I don't even eat for two or three days. I walk a lot. I'm very restless. Go to see art shows. Sometimes I go to the bookstore. I try to keep myself busy. I read a lot. Think a lot. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm pretty much waiting for some kind of miracle to happen. I still think I can save myself. I don't consider myself completely self destructive. Even though some people think if you're a heroin addict you're automatically self destructive.

Geo

"I've had bulls come into the spots cause kids were fucking idiots."

A lot of people look at us like you know we're scumbags and shit but what brings respect is that people like you, you come and see us as humans. You take our picture but it's not just like taking our picture it's actually showing who we are and what we do. We're not horrible people all I do is make my little money. I get drunk, you know, I eat bad food. I don't bother anybody, I'm not a violent person. I just, I do what I do to survive. And this is the lifestyle that I've been around for a long time. This is all I know how to do and it makes me happy.

I'm really a loner pretty much. I have a few select friends and shit but like the general population I've got so jaded to them that it's just like I don't, I don't, I don't want that. I've done the apartment, I've done the housing situation, I've had a girl, I have a kid. You know thats just not for me. I've been doing this shit since I was a young young teenager and I found this lifestyle, I've found a whole new family out here and they've taken care of me. They've treated me with respect, you know they gave me the love that my family didn't. So, what I do is I travel you know. I consider that making the best of the situation that I'm in. You know, I'm actually out there doing something.

New places, new people. I consider myself more of a person who experiences more than any of these yuppies that work nine to five that don't do anything with their lives except for work in that rat race. I take that rat race and I push it aside and say you know what? I'm free to do what I want to do. I'm not held by any boundaries. People tell me all the time, oh why don't you get a fucking job. Why don't you live in my shoes for a few days, you know? Its uh, it's a hit or miss situation with me but you know what? I have bad times and I'm gonna have bad times. I expect me to go through a field of shit to get where I'm at, you know. I have a lot of friends who died, a lot of friends who disappear. Like, it's all bullshit man. I have been traveling for a long time and this is the worst year I've ever travelled cause there's so many new people there's uh theres people that ruin it for a lot of people like me. I've been doing this for a long time so these new batches of kids who think they gotta be the hardest, baddest guy out here, you know they try to prove themselves in some weird sense and then they ruin it for people like us, they blow places up; like I go to hop a train in a yard and I go into like secret little jungle spots where I wait for the train and shit, and I've had bulls come into the spots cause kids were fucking idiots. And they ruin it, you know, they ruin places like that. I've been doing this for years, I come back this year on the road, I've got pulled off trains, you know I've gotten harassed a lot more, I cant make money really you know. It's uh, it's just uh, it's really destroying everything that I'm about man. It's such a downfall. I consider myself a dinosaur of this situation. I'm a dying breed. When I was younger, I had to fight for my spot in this food chain, cause without that, I'd just be walked all over. I'd be you know, it just wouldn't work man.

You know, I try to make the best of the situation. People have problems. Everyone has problems no matter who you are there's some sort of problem your'e going through. And just, I take those feelings, you know, i put them aside because my life is gonna be too short to deal with that. You know, I don't need that stress, I don't need any of that drama. A lot of times I travel by myself because, you know, I don't like people a lot. Cause people annoy me generally. I have a few good friends now, that have my back. Other than that, I'm just so tired of a lot of shit man. That's why I'm leaving town tomorrow. I'm outta here. And Dio's dead; that's a bad thing.

I just, I've been coming to this park for many many many years. And I've I just progressively see it downgrading and downgrading and downgrading. Like you know I travel the country and I go to my spots that I have and people have gone there and they just destroy it for me. They destroy it for people like me who actually need this, who uh you know are my good friends who've been doing this a long time. You know like I was in Chicago, there's a place, there's this yard, and they have this little jungle and I was just sitting there in the jungle and uh the train police, the railroad cops, they came into the jungle, which is supposed to be like our little secret spot you know. And I've been pulled of the trains like seven times in this past seven months. I'm getting really tired of it. It's my birthday you know, I'm gonna get fucking hammered drunk, have a good time, you know, and then tomorrow morning I'm going.

Damien

"My father was a heroin addict, my brother was a heroin addict, my sister was a heroin addict. I mean it runs in my family."

When I was five I was abandoned by my mother. My mother ended up leaving because my dad was very abusive and would beat the crap out of her. So she left for about a little over a year. She was gone. She hit the road. I don't know what happened to her, what she did during that period. I was obviously too young to recollect what was going on. I remember him beating her a lot.

My father was a heroin addict, my brother was a heroin addict, my sister was a heroin addict. I mean it runs in my family. It's like they're all into it. I thought it was the most disgusting drug ever. And I wasn't doing my pain pills, you know that I was prescribed. Cause I didn't want to catch a dependency to that. I was trying to keep my life straight. I can deal with the everyday that people face, the pains and heartache everybody goes through. I could deal with it at that time. And I don't understand why I can't cope with it now. And I do get clean. I'll get clean for a few weeks, a month, a month and a half and then something will happen and I just go right back into it. I pretty much get super depressed and the only thing that makes me forget about my depression and lead a normal life is drugs. Obviously it's a chemical imbalance but I don't know what it is. It makes me feel like i need it. I need it constantly to be happy. Cause it's the only time I have a smile on my face. I've been homeless for the, gosh, three months here and I had my friend go, "I just don't understand how you can cope with being homeless and how you can be so happy all the time. I would have gray hair and pulled out all my hair by now." Little did he know, you know the only reason I've been happy all the time is because I've been using heroin. Being homeless isn't so bad when you're high ninety nine percent of the time.

Steve