I stomped my feet and hugged myself against the cold wind. Although the Denver late afternoon rush-hour traffic on Colfax was just beginning, it was already dark. And cold. I was wearing a heavy padded jacket. It was dirty, but warm. My jeans and tennis shoes couldn't keep out the cold wind or dampness though. I shivered as I watched the service station across and down the street a bit. The two workers were busy, having a little surge of business just prior to closing.

Because it was dark, I felt safe walking up and down the residential block as I waited for the station to close. No one would notice me, no one would call the police and report a suspicious person lurking. That I looked suspicious, I well knew. Wisps of Lady Clarol blond hair blew about my face from under the red wool knitted cap I had pulled down over my ears. A neatly rolled brown bedroll was tied to the top of my black back pack. Between the weight of the pack and the strength of the wind, I was forced to lean forward as I walked, hooking my mittened thumbs through the straps of the heavy pack, easing the strain on my back.

I wore no watch, but my inner clock worked well. The hours printed on the front door of the station had read 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. Another half-hour, I figured, before they would begin to close down. Crossing the narrow street, at a point where the four-foot high snow bank was broken at a driveway, I ducked down, squatting low, enjoying the protection from the wind. When the shivers started in earnest, I stood up and began walking again, going as fast as I could to get my blood stirring.

I had gone to the station earlier that afternoon, hiding my bedroll and pack behind the garbage dumpster so the man wouldn't know I was a street person. I had unzipped my jacket, letting him assume I had gotten out of one of the cars at the pumps. He absent-mindedly handed me the key to the rest room as he rang up a sale.

My eyes searched for the most important thing the instant I opened the door and flicked on the light switch. Yes! There it was: a small electric wall heater. Not all rest rooms had heaters. Locking the door behind me, I had knelt by the heater and flicked the button to the on position. I was rewarded at once when the coils turned red and began throwing off heat. Tearing off my mittens, I held my hands to the heat, kneeling as close as I dared. My inner clock was working. Fifteen minutes tops, then I'd have to leave. Easing my stiff feet from the wet tennis shoes, I leaned against the side wall and locked my hands around my ankles, holding my stockinged feet close to the heater.

My eyes searched the rest of the bathroom. No windows, just a fan over the john. Good. I sniffed the air, thankful there was no bad odor. There was a jumble of cleaning supplies under the sink. I reluctantly left the heater to test the water faucets. After a long time of letting the water run, while avoiding looking at my reflection in the stainless steel mirror, I decided there was no hot water. Oh well. At least the sink held water, the plug was tight. My face looked too wrinkled for my age, gaunt. My skin was dry. I did not look into my eyes. It had been a long time since I had been able to do that.

After using one of the stalls, I huddled back down in front of the heater, staying there well past the fifteen-minute limit I had set for myself, my head nodding forward as I slipped in and out of consciousness.

An abrupt knocking on the door startled me into action. I quickly jammed my feet back into the shoes, as I heard a child's whining voice saying, "Mommy, I really DO have to go. Honest!" A stout woman glared at me when I opened the door. "Well, you've certainly been in here long enough," she said, brushing rudely past.

Closing my jacket around me as I hurried to the dumpster, I was careful to zip the pocket which contained the precious key to the rest room. Sunlight reflecting off the snow jabbed at my eyes. I grabbed my pack and ran down the street, worried the man might call out to me if he noticed me leaving, might demand the return of the key. When I was a block away, I knelt down and opened the flap of my pack, pulling out a small notebook with a stub of a pencil stuck in the coiled spring across the top of it. With my teeth, I pulled the mitten off my right hand and wrote down the name of the gas station and the street it was on, just off the main drag of Colfax. I would be many places that day, on many streets, and my memory, or lack of memory, might not let me find my way back to this lovely 'hotel room' to which I had a key.

Now, hidden by the darkness, I crossed the street again, between holes in the snow bank, as I approached the service station. I didn't want to get too close. From across the street, I watched carefully. Only one man was left, and yes, he was counting the money from the cash register, stuffing it carelessly into a soiled bank bag. He zipped it shut and dropped it into a drawer, locking it quickly with a little key from a huge key ring holding dozens of keys. He made some notes in a battered book which he then threw back under the counter.

Joy! He would be gone within minutes, I thought. I bounced up and down lightly in my excitement, grimacing with pain it caused in my feet. I watched him make the rounds inside the building, checking the big pull-down doors, making sure the air compressor was turned off. He went into a back room and the pump lights went out, and the large lights illuminating the lot went out. The inside lights remained lit, which was important. He turned them off at the wall switch when he came back into the main room, except for one small lamp near the register, clearing showing any interested person who might pass in the night that the cash drawer was obviously empty.

Happily, I shook my head and hugged myself tighter. The electricity would be on in the rest room. It was an important question answered. A car pulled up to the pumps and the driver looked in hopefully at the man. Oh no! A delay? But the worker shook his head brusquely and the car pulled slowly back into the traffic on Colfax.

The man was through the door, putting the key into the lock, when he suddenly removed the key and went back into the building. As he opened the door, the ringing of a phone could be heard across the street where I was standing, halfway concealed behind a large, bare-limbed tree. Damnit! Damnit! I watched intently as the man picked up the receiver from the payphone on the wall. When his face relaxed into a crooked grin, I whirled impatiently and walked away. I paced twelve steps in each direction, always searching his face when headed towards the gas station. He was not a bad looking man. I judged him to be in his early forties, same as me. He turned then, so I could no longer see his face through the large plate glass window of the station. Discouraged, I slid the pack off, hanging it from a broken stub on the tree, and began pacing again. I was very tired, very agitated.

I pictured the small rest room. I went through, in my mind, for the tenth time, just exactly what I was going to do and in what order and how. I saw the red glow from the little wall heater, could almost feel the warmth on my face. Almost. I was walking more slowly now, head bent forward, eyes studying where each foot was going to go. I forced myself to keep my eyes down until I reached the tree, then I would look up, into the station, and there the man would be, still leaning against the wall, still talking on that damn telephone. Fuck!

In the moonlight, my eyes traced the phone line from the street pole to where it hooked onto the back of the building and was stapled down the wall before it disappeared inside. I thought about the jack-knife on my key ring, clipped through a belt loop of my blue jeans, dangling down from underneath my short jacket. One quick cut and his conversation would be ended. He wouldn't know what had happened, certainly wouldn't look around the building, would just assume the wind had blown a line down somewhere. He would just leave. Shaking my head, I walked away. No. I would do no harm.

It was a cold, blustery twenty minutes later, by my inner clock, when I raised my eyes at the tree and saw him at the door of the station. He left quickly, giving the handle a shake to make sure the door was locked. Then he ran to a late-modeled, powder blue pick-up parked along side the building. He started the engine and while it warmed he scrapped snow and ice from the windshield. Back inside the truck, he continued to sit. I saw the flare of a lighter as he lit a cigarette. Light from the street lamp showed him leaning forward, adjusting the radio.

Tension had been building in me for the past hour. I was using a lot of effort to keep from throwing my head back and screaming. I wanted to scream, as loudly as I could, for as long as I could. Pacing again, my back was turned when I finally heard the truck slide into gear. I turned and watched as the man eased his truck out of the lot into the slushy street, tensing until he swung around the corner and disappeared. I hesitated not a second then. Grabbing my pack, I rushed across the street and down the short distance to the back of the station, falling once in my haste, scrambling to my feet and hurrying on.

By the time I reached the door to the rest room, the key was out of my pocket and in my shaking hand. The knob turned smoothly and I was in the room, the door shut and locked behind me. I flicked on the light switch, then leaned over and switched on the heater. Dropping the pack to the floor, I pulled off my mittens and let them fall to the floor as well. Hurrying to the sink, I pulled several handfuls of paper towels from the wall holder. These I quickly stuffed along the crack under the door, where they served the dual purpose of keeping the light and heat inside and the cold draft outside.

Huddling down by the wall heater, I peeled off my shoes and wet socks, noticing how red my feet were as I held them to the heater. Reaching over to my pack, I dragged it to me, untying the bedroll with stiff fingers, letting it unroll along the wall. Pulling a pair of dirty socks from the pack, I put them on my feet. At least they were dry. Lowering my jeans as little as possible, I hovered awkwardly over the toilet, not lowering myself to the seat, finishing my business as quickly as possible.

Pulling the bedroll in front of the heater, I sat cross-legged in the middle of it, folding the ends up over my legs. My upper body rocked gently, almost imperceptibly at first. My head was bowed, eyes closed, but my mind was racing a mile a minute. I figured it was about seven o'clock. I had almost eleven hours before I would have to leave this sanctuary. Eleven hours! I gave a low cry of joy and raised my arms above my head in jubilation.

Hugging my body with my arms again, I resumed the gentle rocking. It grew more pronounced, but I didn't notice. Eventually the rocking slowed, my head nodded down again, eyes closed, and I became very still, neither asleep nor awake. After an hour, I roused myself, throwing the bedroll from my legs, unzipping my jacket, pulling the cap from my head, shaking my long blond hair loose, enjoying the weak warmth of the room.

Laughing quietly, I jumped up. Things to do! Taking a large blue cup from my pack, I filled it with water and sat it on the sink counter. From a side pocket of my pack, I pulled out a tiny electric water heater, clipping it to the inside of the cup before I plugged it in. The rest room was clean, as far as gas station rest rooms go, but I attacked the sink vigorously with paper towels, using the cleaners I had noticed earlier in the day stacked under the sink. Glancing into the wavy mirror, I saw an intent look on my thin face, my full mouth was twisted into a grimace of concentration. When the sink was clean and rinsed to my satisfaction, I pushed the plug in and filled it with cold water from the tap which should have released hot water.

The water in the cup was boiling away. Unplugging the small heater, I reached into the pack and pulled out a glass baby food jar, sprinkled some loose tea from the jar into the cup, leaving it to steep. I submerged the heater part way into the water in the sink and plugged it in again. Four packets of sugar, courtesy of any restaurant, were added to the tea.

While the water in the sink heated, dirty clothes were pulled from plastic sacks in the back pack. Two free sample sizes of detergent boxes were dumped out also. For several hours I stayed busy, sipping my way through cups of tea drenched with sugar, as I washed out socks, undies, and shirts. I heating clean water, dumping it when it got dirty, and heated more. The room had grown comfortably warm by then - I had thrown off my heavy jacket long ago. Now I stripped off the clothes I was wearing and washed them as well, standing nude in front of the sink. My body was very thin, my empty breasts sagged, my stomach was crisscrossed with old surgery scars. The clean clothes were then carefully rinsed in cold water and tied and draped and propped around the heater to dry.

When the laundry was finished, I paused in my hurried movements and sank cross-legged onto the bedroll, leaning against the corner wall, as I carefully studied the arrangement of wet clothes around the heater. Feeling the chill on my still naked body, I grabbed the jacket and slipped into it.

Then I dragged the pack over to my corner and dug in a side pocket until I found a crushed cigarette pack. The pack contained three butts, of various lengths, which I had retrieved that day from the sand in a tall ashtray standing next to a series of elevators in a downtown Denver office building. I chose the smallest one now, lighting it, leaning back again, feeling slightly, deliciously dizzy as the nicotine flowed into my blood. When I had gotten every drag from it I could, I tossed it into the toilet.

I sat for a long time, head dropped down, holding the jacket tightly around me, enjoying the buzz in my head. I felt relaxed, safe, comfortable. I tried unsuccessfully to empty my mind of all thoughts. I was an anxious woman, plagued with racing, broken-record thoughts which tormented me every waking hour.

Finally I dug into the pack again, into the very bottom, and pulled out a clean, neatly folded pair of blue jeans, along with undies and a heavy sweat shirt. Now it was my turn. Clean water was heating in the sink. Using the liquid soap which dripped from the globe container on the wall over the sink, I started with my hair and scrubbed from there to the bottom of my feet. I had been in those clothes, unbathed, for sixteen solid days. Rinsing quickly in cold water, a rush of exhilaration ran through me. Shivering with cold, I dried off with the paper towels, then quickly dressed in the clean clothes. With a sigh of contentment I pulled onto my feet a pair of big old wool socks, gray, with red trim around the top. Hunter's socks I called them. They were thick and warm - and best of all - they were clean. I nudged my still wet shoes a bit closer to the heater.

On hands and knees, I towel dried the floor area around the sink and heater, not wanting to accidentally step into a puddle and wet the socks. I was really comfortable now, high off the warmth and feeling of cleanliness, and most especially, the isolated privacy.

Another forage into the pack produced a box filled with six cake donuts, chocolate frosted. They were a bit crushed here and there, the box dented, but it was the moment I had been waiting for all evening. Sitting cross-legged on my bedroll, I ate the donuts, one by one, sipping loudly from my tea cup. As I had left the soup kitchen place at dusk, the volunteer helper at the door had been passing out day-old bakery goods to everyone who left. She had handed me a package of apricot-covered breakfast rolls. Eyeing the chocolate covered donuts in the helper's other hand, I had asked - with unaccustomed boldness - "Could I have those donuts instead please?" The helper shrugged and made the exchange. A feeling of victory, of success, had flowed through me as I took the donuts and walked out of the building. That small triumph gave me a fleeting feeling of power. I had stopped in the shadow of the building and immediately hidden the donuts in my pack, before they were spotted by someone who might try to take them from me.

Rubbing my full stomach, I rose now and went to the sink to wash off my face and hands following my feast. Then I hovered again over the toilet, peeing out the tea I had been drinking for the past three or four hours.

Another cigarette butt was smoked then, a longer one this time. It didn't give me the strong rush the first one had. Pulling out a tablet and pen from the front panel of the pack, I laid on my stomach on the bedroll and began writing a letter. "Dear Tammy, Things go well with me . . . . " When the letter was finished, I folded it carefully and put it inside the tablet so it wouldn't get wrinkled. Tomorrow I would take it to the little branch post office four miles distant. There was a little man who worked there behind the counter. He would see me standing in line, and would slip some coins from his pocket into his cash drawer. Then he would put a stamped envelope, clean and crisp, on the counter. I would nod my thanks to him, pick it up and take it to one of the side counters where I would address it and then slip in the letter I had written to my daughter.

Pushing the bedroll off to the side, away from the heater and the damp clothes, I looked around the little room. It was neat, and also clean. I had scrubbed practically the entire floor cleaning up the dripping water. I slipped inside the bedroll but didn't lay down. I smoked the last of the cigarette butts, sitting staring at the heater coils, my mind drifting, my thoughts slowing somewhat.

A composition book, with lined pages, was then pulled from the pack. I turned through page after page of my scribbled writing, until I came to fresh paper near the back. In the upper right hand corner, I wrote the date and day of week. Under that I wrote what I felt the approximate time was: 11:00 pm. This was my favorite thing of all, for I loved keeping my daily journal and never failed, no matter what the circumstances, to write something in it each day. I had a peculiar fear that I would lose track of when and where I was if I didn't record something, didn't place myself some place in space and time every day.

I wrote now of what I had been doing all day and evening. I wrote about where I was, describing the room, shuddering at the remembrance of how I had spent the night before. I wrote in smallest detail of my day, including my victory of getting the chocolate frosted donuts instead of having to settle for the apricot rolls.

I wrote a long paragraph about a middle-aged man who had stopped me on Colfax and held out a twenty-dollar bill to me, saying all he wanted in return was for me to step into the alley with him, to get on my knees in front of him. I had thought of fumbling with the zipper of his slacks, of the hot sour odor which would rush out at me, at how his eager hands would press my head to his body. My stomach had turned over and I had continued walking, acting as though I had not heard him. He was astonished, as they all seemed to be, at my refusal of the money I so obviously needed. He followed me for a few steps, repeating his offer. I continued to ignore him, continued to walk, and he had quickly faltered and stopped.

I wrote of the three teen-age boys who had given my a ride from Littleton, a Denver suburb, in to Denver that morning. They were in a pick-up truck and I could tell they felt awkward when they stopped at the sight of my raised thumb. Yes, they were going into the city, yes they would be happy to give me a ride. But with the three of them in the cab, it was obvious I would have to ride in back and I could tell they felt embarrassed about that, uncomfortable. I preferred the back of the truck, actually, in spite of the cold, for I could make a quick get away should they deviate from the route into the city. It was safer. I clambered off when the truck stopped at a red light in the center of the city. Looking back, I gave a wave of my mittened hand to the boys, and looking out the back window at me, they waved back. I saw the looks of curiosity on their faces.

What was a woman my age doing in the streets of Denver, especially in mid-winter? How did I get here? Why was I here? I knew the questions well enough. Heard them nearly every day. I knew the answers too, at least now I knew them. I didn't at first.

When I finished with my writing, I replaced the book and pencil neatly in the front of the back pack. Then, reluctantly, I reached up and flicked off the ceiling light. I was struck then by the pattern of light thrown off by the little electric wall heater into the darkened room. My eyes, accustomed to either bright sun reflecting blindingly off white snow, or to dirty, gray sludge on the streets and sidewalks, drank in the beauty of the red light. I became absorbed by the mystery of slightly flickering shadows. My upper body began rocking slowly, rhythmically, as I stared at the red coils. My thoughts stilled as my body movements mesmerized me, lulling me towards sleep.

After a long time I laid down and snuggled into the bed roll. I didn't notice that it smelled bad, for it was my own odor. I fell asleep immediately, waking 90 minutes later. Never did I sleep more than 90 minutes at a time. Crawling out of the bag, I emptied my bladder again, then checked the clothes drying near the heater. My shoes would be dry by morning, but not the jeans and sweat shirts. I would carry them, tied to my back pack, until they dried, not knowing or caring how pathetic or foolish I looked with the clothes dangling from my pack.

Wishing I had another cigarette butt, but thankful for the remaining four or five hours I had left in the shelter, I crawled back into the bed roll. Laying on my back, my arms crossed under my head, I faced the worse part of my night, the worse part of every night. It would be an hour or more before I would fall back to sleep, and during that time, I would have to fight my thoughts. I concentrated on how comfortable I was, and safe. I was warm and dry, my stomach was full. I was a lucky woman I kept thinking, focusing on good stuff.

But the first onslaught of bad thoughts broke through my concentration and hit me almost like a physical blow. I curled up in pain, wrapping my arms around my head. The pain settled around my body like an old, familiar cloak: the tragic mistakes I had made, the incredibly stupid decisions, the erratic behavior. Shame flooded through me as anguished memories of suffering I had caused my children overwhelmed me with grief and guilt. The tortured sleeping pattern continued throughout the night.

Before dawn I rose for the final time and tightly rolled my sleeping bag. I drank a final cup of tea, using the last of the little sugar bags, as I packed my things and brushed my teeth again. I laid the key on the sink edge, then removed the towels from under the door, throwing them carefully into the waste basket. Zipping my jacket and pulling the cap over my uncombed hair, I took one long look around the room, then settled the heavy pack into place on my back. Sighing, I turned off the heater, then the light, and stepped out into the cold morning air, closing the door behind me.

It had been a good night. Yes, a good night, I thought, as I walked away. ~~~

Martha R. Thomas
Fall of 1993
Belen, Mexico