Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/421959
56 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.14 Curtis has already moved most of his stuf to a diferent spot with Travis. His cheeks are red and pufy from being poked and prodded by tree limbs during the move. Te tent and the fve sleeping bags he had here are gone. He's back now for little things. He grabs some bags and his portable orange grill, which he'll use to make fres. Curtis thinks it will be better with just two people. Quieter. Less obvious. In his nine years of homelessness, Curtis has slept many places. For a while, he, Larry and a man named "Pineapple" slept on the downtown library's steps. Run of by LMPD, he says, they went to a nearby church and slept there until some idiot decided to piss in the church repeatedly, provoking complaints on Sunday morning. Politically disinterested, Curtis stayed in the Occupy Louisville camp in Founder's Square Park across from City Hall until the city broke up the protest. Ten came Campbell and fnally 211, which he says is partly a nod to the malt liquor Steel Reserve 211. It's also a police code for robbery. But Curtis only Steels. Tere are several theories as to how the police found camp 211. Speculative adjectives vary: 1. Superstitious. Te other day Younger Matt found a funeral fag on Campbell Street. He let it be. But it ended up on his damn table the next morning. Travis had picked it up. Ten the next day, the cops told them to move. Matt doesn't believe in bad luck, but: "A funeral fag?" he says. "Really?" 2. Electromagnetic. Te other night they had a big fre going and a helicopter passed over. "Tere were no search lights on or anything," Nate says. "But if they were using their infrared, it would show a red spot in the middle of all" — he circles around with his arms wide, revealing trees, trees, trees — "this." 3.Vengeful. It could be another camp that called the cops. Most likely, the 211ers fgure, it was the frst group that moved from Campbell Camp during the beginning of the end. Apparently they don't like their new spot. several months' rent. Enough to get him of the streets; well, out of the woods. He's applied at Amazon in Jefersonville. For now his blankets, tarps and tent are folded in a pile, ready. Brandy and Younger Matt are on the porch smoking self-rolled cigarettes. Larry sits down in his chair. Luckily, his didn't get burned. "We've got to fgure out where the fuck we're going to go," Brandy says. For a while she stayed at Wayside Christian Mission, a shelter with many programs and facilities, including a hotel on Broadway where Brandy worked in housekeeping. She says she made $1.50 a day but eventually got kicked out because she and a friend came back Lime-a-Rita drunk after curfew. "Tey'll either give us a citation or lock us up," Larry says. "Tey didn't give us a time we had to go," Brandy says. "Tey didn't give us any time at all," Younger Matt says. "If they come back, they're likely to give us some time," Larry says. He doesn't know what he'll do. He claims to have been unjustly ripped of by landlords before and doesn't want to deal with them. Younger Matt has one of 41 single- occupancy rooms at the YMCA on West Chestnut Street, which ofers a transitional shelter for homeless men in the community. But he doesn't stay there because of the bed bugs that he says infest it. Tis is the most repeated reason across encampments for avoiding shelters. Bed bugs. Lice. Roaches. Tey say it's cleaner in the dirt, that many shelters are overcrowded and who knows what comes from where. (Shelters are required to undergo health inspections and a Codes and Regulations check yearly.) And there's never a promise of getting a bed at a shelter, anyway. Tey always run out of room. In September and October, the Coalition turned away 1,350 people because there weren't enough beds. "A lot of people will hang out in emergency- room waiting rooms," Harris says. Especially when it's cold. Some go to 24- hour restaurants. At 211, there's always a bed. Even if it's only the ground. Camp Spider hula hoop is in the dying bushes. It hasn't been touched since Camp Spider formed of River Road in September. On its side along Spider's trail is a plastic Radio Flyer wagon the crew used to transport stuf from Campbell Camp early one morning. One of the back wheels is broken from coming down the trailhead's steep hill too quickly. Te kitchen — a table that was already here propped against a tree — is a mess, with rain-and-leaf-flled pots, cans of soup, ketchup. Five people live here, and they've set up extra tents as storage units for donated clothes. Tis place looks kind of like a campsite, kind of like a home. Spider was named in honor of Spider, who lived here. Spider was in a hit-and- run while biking down Market Street a couple of months ago and is still in the hospital. Spider was left for dead by those snakes in the black Camaro. One camper, Greig, an African- American, says black people don't go camping. Says he'd never set up a tent before he moved to Campbell Camp. Was living good in Kansas with his wife in a one-bedroom apartment. Te occasional tornadoes were the only kind of nature he encountered. He's 52 years old, says his wife passed away during childbirth less than two years ago. Lost her and the twins. He moved here to be somewhere else. Got a job cutting meat at First Choice Market in the West End. Says he lost that to a bad case of shingles. It's been a year in a donated tent, including a couple months at Camp Spider. Now he's trying to fnd higher ground. "Remember that trail you said you could get to?" Greig asks another camper, Tony. "I fgured out where it goes." "Does it go to Mellwood?" Tony asks. He's sitting by the fre with Tammie, rolling a cigarette stufed with Skydancer tobacco. His camo cap is on backward over dark hair, graying. His pants are camo, too. He lived at Campbell Camp for fve years. He's a country boy, nuhmsayin? He can survive. "Over by there," Greig says. "Tere are spots over there too. I mean, good ones." "Lot better than here," Tony says. "Is it fat back out in there?" "Yeah. And the spot I saw has grass, brah! Not dirt. Not mud. Not chemicals. Grass!" "I ain't seen grass since we've been here," Tammie says. Her hair is in a loose "Camping ain't like it is in the brochure. I've seen 'em canoeing in the brochure. If I knew they were sending me here, I wouldn't have come. I'm gonna sue my travel agent," Travis says. A