Personal Narrative: East Village

Watching everyone through the glass window with the burgundy window frame in East Village, New York is a struggle I face every day. A small little town in the upper part of New York close to the city, where poverty is at it’s highest. I watch as family stuff their faces with the food in front of them, just like a turkey is stuffed on Thanksgiving day. They have no guilt in their faces what's so ever as they eat their steamy hot food. They have no regret or sorrow in their eyes when they see me looking through the clear window. Never taking into consideration the underprivileged people who don’t get the chance to eat a warm meal everyday like they do.

I wish I did not have to watch them eat their juicy tender chicken breast, or their hot creamy

chowder soup. I wish I did not have to watch them throw away the remaining food their healthy full stomachs could not hold in. Wasting food that they could have gave my kind, but you see the town I “live” in is full of many restaurants, bars and pubs that are in every other corner, so we have no choice, but to watch them throw away a half eaten steaks every Friday, full boiled eggs every Monday morning, cold subs every Wednesday and fresh vegetables every day!
The shelter I go to provide us with cold subs or warm chowder every day, that is if you beat the daily traffic of every day homeless boys and girl, women and men. Every day I have to get to the shelter by 5 p.m. or the doors will close and I would have to sleep in the cold New York streets in the public bathroom at the train station. Those public bathrooms I mourn to sleep in every day.
Those bathrooms are so unhygienic. So much I spend down there I could describe the bathroom with no problem. The door is a push open blue door with no door knobs. Inside the room there is only one black long window frame with no glass. Outside of the window is an orange brick wall with no escape. The grey cement floor made the room chilly, making the mood of the room as you walk in cold, scary and alarming. Three stalls to the right of the entrance door, with no doors to give privacy to the daily tourist and business people wanting to use the bathroom as they go on their daily journey. The stalls are far down to the ground, falling apart, but still usable. There is dirt all over the rim of the toilet and the smell of pure piss hitting you in the face like the cold winter breeze.
It seems like all the people that use them aim at the floor rather than the actual toilet.

There is toilet paper on the floor, but no toilet paper on either three stalls. The smell of the bathroom was so disgusting almost as disgusting as a rat decomposing for 3 months. There are gang marks on either side of the bathroom, and peoples names forever marked on the once blue walls, paint falling down. The two sinks are to the far left of the bathroom, white with labels marking “hot” on the left and “cold” on the right, but only the freezing cold water worked. As you look up, you notice only one light working making the room dim. There is a small flicker every 5 seconds from the light. There is only one mirror in between the two sinks. And as you look at the clear mirror broken in half, you can only see one side of your face, because it’s

broken.
I hate being there it reminds me of my failures in life. Since the traffic starts at 4:00 pm when the doors open, we have to make sure we are on the line to get in at 3:30. When I do beat the crowd, seldom do I though, I get a decent meal for the day and I get a place to sleep at. When I don’t get there on time, because of the daily adventures I may have went, I sleep under a bench or at the train station bathroom. I eat food from the trash, whatever I find, if I’m lucky.
I’m used to eating food from the floor or the trash. I’m 33 years old and I got used to eating food from anywhere I could find when I was 29 or 30, I can’t remember. I’ve learned the right places to go to by now, my favorite is Solis near the shelter in East Village, New York. I’m amazed at how much food they throw away daily and how much they give my kind.. ZERO!
I always wanted to be a chef like the ones in Solis, maybe one day I’ll be just like them.

It’s amazing how one day you’re eating from a white plate at a square table at a restaurant or your own comfortable home, and one little job messes all that up and you’re stuck eating food from the garbage in your hands. Those leftovers that still worked that you threw away yesterday without looking back, without thinking that one day you’ll be like the persons you ignore in the streets when they ask you for any spare change. Many people take for granted those everyday meals that you end up leaving half way and throw away, but someone outside your home is eating week old meatloaf found in a near by

dumpster.
I used to work for Naugatuck Bank in New York City, but they went in bankruptcy and I lost everything. I lost my job instantly, I lost my car, because I sold it to save my house, a month after I could not pay the rent, I lost my home and now I have nothing at all. The only thing I have to my name is a college degree in accounting. Everything happened all at once like a tsunami after an earthquake. A tsunami full of failures. I tried to get another job, but with a city full of life, there’s no hope for jobs in accounting. Everything happens for a reason though, one day I’ll find the reason to this tragedy.