The Occupy movement is raging from city to city, and I am here occupying Ma Benton's House of Happiness day to day. It is a settlement house, inspired by Jane Addam's dream to live democracy in our homes, from when we rise until we sleep. Nine of us live in century-old rooms. In my mind, the rooms are named after their previous owner, the growing list of ancestors. Nick's has a leaking roof, Nate's (mine) has the library ghost, Jessica's has the yellow and brick walls, the room that Jessica took an axe hammer too and tore down the walls, only to find that the walls were leaking with horse hair insulation, and little did she know she was allergic and went straight to the hospital. We live here, we work here, and we try to make it by everyday in whatever way is meaningful or comfortable.
Yesterday I came home after the shelter (the youth had a Sexual Discovery Group, Cathy says, "I think they've already discovered it. . .," through the door they were yelling about size matters, using douches, and keeping it clean), and Matt was building towers from food pantry boxes and hanging action figures from their windows. We decided we need a theme for Halloween (though isn't Halloween theme enough?), so its Zombies in Toyland. I didn't think much of this until I spent one night setting up a scene with a hundred dollars worth of action figures, and one morning sifting through hundreds of stuffed animals at Unique Thrift's 50% sale. Kristina, laughed when I came back wide-eyed, falling over from the plastic shopping bags, "you've fallen into one of Matt's traps."
There are other traps to fall into. A few nights ago around 11:30 p.m. I was sitting in my room thinking about social work school futures. Craig comes banging on my door, BAM BAM BAM, "It's an emergency!!," he says hastily flushed and sweating, curls in each direction, red flush on cheeks, "we need everyone to the food pantry! There are rotting bananas! Rotting bananas! We need to throw them out before the rats come in." I put on Benna's 5 year old converses that I've grown attached to wearing, even with the hole on the bottom. As I leave House of Happiness (Benton House's original name, until it was found to be cross-listed with a brothel), Megan walks out, still in work clothes, hands on hip, "are they mad at me? I have to wake up at 5 am. . .and I'm dressed like this. . . and I can't be carrying out bananas!." I rush out with barely a word. Bags and bags and boxes of rotting bananas fill the food pantry. Flys are everywhere and it smells like I imagine a banana farm would on a stuffy day. For some reason we are rushed, but it makes it funnier, rushing to carry boxes too big for my arms to carry, stealthily pattering into the alleyway, to bypass rats and angry neighbors (Bob-- our neighbor-- a short man with long hair and old teeth and tattoo sleeves and a black t-shirt with a cigarette- hates the compost pile- says it's brought rats to his house). We imagine all the things we could make out of bananas as we salvage one box of about one hundred bananas and start peeling (our freezer now filled with a garbage bag of peeled bananas). I imagine our lives as a sitcom or reality show (my generation's favorite thought train). "Fuck you for not carrying out rotting bananas!" "I'll put them in your goddamn personal fridge!" Uninspired by the garbage bag of peeled bananas (still sitting in freezer), we take a bag of rotting avocados, occupy the kitchen for the rest of the night eating guacamole and smiling at a hard day's work.
