Squatters

SQUATTERS







She really is stunning naked.

She has no idea I’m watching her from the bedroom closet, of course. Most days the stench of liquor on my breath might have given me away, that or my natural “cologne”. Luckily I used the shower myself before she got home from work. I even brushed my teeth (along with some other body parts) with her tooth-brush. It’s the little routines you miss when you live on the street. The daily chores you don’t even think about become luxuries.

She’s about nineteen, tall and fit. Her dark brown hair is plastered to her head. She blow dries it, and it flutters in the artificial wind. Absurdly, I think of those inflatable tube men they use to advertise apartments and used-car lots. She has small but perky breasts. They bounce slightly as she dances and hums some song I can’t place. Probably one of those goddamn pop songs by some kid younger than her. She’s toweling off and getting dressed, slowly, methodically. There’s no sensuality to it, per se, but it strikes me as a striptease in reverse. I’ve already seen everything, but she covers up to make me want her naked again.

My interest in her is not sexual. I could easily have her if I wanted – there’s no one home but us, and I come and go as I please. I’d be back on the highway off-ramp before anyone found her violated body. There are advantages to being invisible to people like her. I just want to watch. It’s the intrusion that gets me off. I feel powerful, like a vengeful spirit haunting a home. I enter, I watch them go about their daily lives. They’re blissfully ignorant of the intruder in the house.

I watch them sleep.

I watch them eat.

For now I hide.

But each time I get a little closer.

Soon I’ll be close enough to touch, instead of watch.

Close enough to kill.





She goes downstairs to watch TV. I hear music and laughter, and her voice on the phone. She has a nice voice. You can hear the smile in it.

I wonder if that smile would flee if she saw me.

No, she seems the altruistic type. The kind who’ll run a 5k for some disease she’ll never get, who donates time at a soup kitchen feeding my brothers and sisters. She’d most likely offer me a damn sandwich if she found me lurking in her house.

Not that I’d accept it.

They think they can clear their conscience by making a paltry offering, something they have in abundance. They’re being good Christians, they tell themselves, by giving a dollar here, an hour there, a bite to eat to someone less fortunate. What they forget is, their God appreciates sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving up something precious to you so another can have it. Sacrifice isn’t some change in a cup; it’s cutting off your ring finger to make a stranger richer and yourself poorer.

That’s why I don’t beg on street corners for change anymore. I don’t hang out at the local shelter with the others, and I don’t solicit strangers in parking lots for a handout. Because it’s the gesture that means everything. What you give has to lessen you somehow, or it’s just shit.

All my proselytizing aside, I am simply a thief. I only steal what I need. Clothes for my back, food enough to fill my stomach. I spread out what I take across a dozen or so homes. You’d be amazed how much can go missing from even middle-class people before they even start to notice. I sleep in closets, in basements, in bathtubs, sometimes I luck out and there’s a guestroom. Sleeping in a soft warm bed is nearly orgasmic after so long nesting in abandoned buildings like a rat.

But I never take money. I could. I could rob these bastards blind and disappear without a trace. But what would be gained? They’d simply make more, and I can’t go back to being one of THEM. Even with the means, I’d never be accepted into the fold again. Everyone knows where I came from, where I belong.

No, what I take is far more valuable, and irreplaceable.

I take peace of mind, security.

I take their safety.

They just don’t know it yet.





I linger in this house, long after the girl goes out to meets her friends.

This house is special. I know every creak of its floors, every squeak in its doors. I know the layout by heart. I can wander the rooms in pitch darkness without making a sound, and I have.

Then again, I did live here only two years ago. Before my job got downsized and my wife left with the kids. That was only the beginning, though. One doesn’t go from getting fired to living outside in a day. It’s a long, slippery slope down, with stops along the way at depression, alcoholism, and sometimes mental illness.

Anyway, my story doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. This isn’t about me.

It’s about us.

All my brothers and sisters.

I may be mentally ill. A psychiatrist might say I have delusions of grandeur.

And by my own admission I was a pretty devout alcoholic. Alcohol is a God as surely as whatever deity you choose to worship. But now I’m an atheist. No God is going to lift us up from the gutters. We must save ourselves.

I’m sure as fuck not depressed, either. In fact, I can’t wipe the grin off my face.

There’s something called the collective unconsciousness. Jung, I think, came up with it. Basically, it’s a theory that says we as humans share certain thoughts and ideas on a subconscious level. They’re just kind of floating out there in the ether, but sometimes we pick up on them like in a psychic way. It would explain things like déjà vu and mass hysteria, that kind of thing.

I never used to believe in psychobabble like that.

I do now.

I can see my brothers and sisters. Not all of them, but a lot. I see them in their old homes and apartments. Like me, they’re hiding, biding their time. It’s almost like they’re waiting for an order.

I tested the link between us yesterday. I sent out a greeting, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a reply.

The tension in the air is palpable. I have no idea how long this phenomenon will last. I don’t know how it’s possible. I know we have to act soon. There are so many of us, and so many mentally damaged, this psychic wire connecting us feels frayed and in danger of snapping.

Still, I have to be sure. I send out a message to everyone, all my family .

Everywhere.

Only when we are fully united do I give the order. Not sure how I became commander of our rag-tag army, but no one seems to have a problem with it. So I give our marching orders.

The one-percenters are about to meet the other ninety-nine.

It’s time to go home.