Fin's Story

by Faith Friese Whitehead

time.

  One day, I was sitting on a park bench near a duck pond. It's kind of a blur because I was high, but I remember those ducks. I had no money. My hair was long and I'd grown a beard. I wore filthy clothes. Even though summer had turned to autumn and winter was close behind, I was immersed in the gentle wave of a drug-induced fog, so I wasn't worried.

  I was minding my own business when this guy joined me on the bench. I was taken aback by his size. Lord, he was big, the tallest man I'd ever seen. He introduced himself as Anzo, which I thought was kind of an unusual name. He told me he'd been in prison, and I told him I used to be a professor.

  Despite our different backgrounds, we became friends. And from that day forward, I saw him almost every day.

  “I know you do drugs,” he said. “It's your business, not mine, but drugs will kill you. What are you stupid or something?”

  That particular day, I needed a fix. I needed it bad and I asked him for help. He said, “Can't help you get drugs, but if you want I'll take you to a hospital.”

  I left in a huff. But Anzo kept coming back. He kept visiting, urging me to quit using. He told me I had to get my act together. He was right, of course, but I had no idea how to start.

  Anzo knew I slept on a park bench.

  Snow came early that year. And the first time it snowed, Anzo showed up. “Where you gonna sleep tonight?” he asked.

  I told him I had no idea.

  “You can't sleep out here,” he said. “You'll die. It's too cold.”

  I just shrugged.

  He said, “Come on, let's go.”

  I asked him where were we going, and he said, “Home.”

  I told him I thought he was homeless like me.

  And he said, “I might not have a house, but I have a home.” That made no sense, but later I'd use those same exact words myself.

  He asked if I wanted to live next door to him.

  “I don't have money for an apartment,” I said.

  He told me it didn't cost anything.

  “If it's free,” I said, “I'll live next door.”

  I wondered how he got a free place, but before I could ask he warned, “No drugs. I don't allow drugs where I live.”

  That pissed me off and I almost didn't go, but I was cold, so cold my feet were numb.

  I said, “Fine, no drugs.”

  Anzo led me to a manhole cover and moved it aside. He dropped through the hole, and I followed him underground. He was right; it was warmer down there, still cold, but not as cold as being on the street.

  While I followed him, he said, “I live in an old railroad tunnel. In a cubby.”

  I asked him what a cubby was, and he explained that it was a place where tunnel workers once stored equipment. Later, I would think of a cubby as a kind of office cubicle or an efficiency apartment without running water or electricity.

  Anzo explained his cubby had once been filled with junk, but he'd cleaned out the garbage and now it was his home. “These cubbies are here for the taking,” he said. “They're all over the place.”

  Anzo offered me the cubby next to his. It was filthy, but I took it. Anzo helped me clean it up, and I became his neighbor. I lived there several years.

  There were four other cubbies, a total of six. It was like a small town, and Anzo was the mayor. You couldn't live near us unless Anzo gave his approval. No drugs were allowed. Ever.

  That first night Anzo told me there were thousands of people living under the city. I didn't believe him, but later I did.

  Back then, there were a lot of places to hide in the darkness. I doubt that's changed. Some people lived in cubbies like ours. Some had makeshift tents or packing-crate homes. Some slept in holes that had been hollowed out naturally. Some slept in caves that could only be reached by climbing metal rungs embedded in walls. Some made homes in cold damp rooms crammed with rusty old equipment.

  I learned there were hundreds of ways to get into the tunnels.

  Manhole covers have always been the easiest way to go under, but if the cops see you it can mean trouble. If you want to enter via a manhole, it's best to find one on a side street. There are a few manholes in Central Park, too.

  When I was living in the tunnels, I knew all kinds of ways to disappear under the streets.

  In the eastern part of Central Park, there's a men's room. Back then, its furthest stall had a large piece of sheet metal attached to the wall. If you pried it back, you'd find a jagged hole, an entrance to the underground.

  Across the street from a butcher shop on Second Street was a resale shop. Now, it's closed, but back then its owners were supportive of the homeless. In back of their shop was a broom closet, and if you moved the pails and brooms you'd find a trap door. And that trap door led to the tunnels.

  Near the biggest Sears store in New York City was a billboard. I think the billboard's gone now, but back then there was a small alley behind it and a deli backed up to it. The deli's door was always unlocked, and if you went inside and veered to the right, you'd find a ragged hole chopped thru the concrete floor. Climb into that hole, go left, and you'd be in the tunnels.

  There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ways to get into the tunnels. I can't believe that's changed, and I don't think it's possible to count them because of all the stairs and emergency tunnel exits.

  I learned that New York's vast underground is truly unexplored.

  I learned that those who lived in the underground's perpetual darkness form communities to protect themselves, kind of like Anzo’s half-dozen cubbies.

  But there are exceptions.

  Some tunnel dwellers go out of their way to hide. I suppose they're trying to avoid authorities, but they might simply want to be left alone.

  I learned that mole people communicate over long distances by tapping on pipes.

  I learned that although many people go into the tunnels for shelter, some are hiding from the law. Some are predatory. Believe me, it's important to understand the basic laws of survival when you venture into the tunnels.

  I learned that people look alike in the darkness of the tunnels. Blacks look white and whites look black. The dark does that. It erases the differences.

  I learned that many tunnel dwellers are alcoholics or drug addicts, and the teens who live in the tunnels feel safer underground than at home.

  I learned there are people who won’t leave the tunnels because living above ground is too complicated. Those folks don't have identification. They don't have access to a phone. They don't know how to get hold of their relatives.

  Some tunnel dwellers don't go above ground for weeks or months at a time. For some reason, that had an impact on me, so I always made an effort to go upside every day.

  I learned that the people who live in the lower levels sometimes rely on others to bring them food and water, or they eat “track rabbit” which is a fancy term for rat.

  I've been told that long-time tunnel dwellers have night vision and can't see in sunlight anymore. I don't know if I believe that, but I wouldn't be surprised.

  The people who live underground believe they're the elite of the New York homeless because they are self-sufficient.

  Personally, I think living underground represents a need to return to our mother's womb. But I'm not a shrink, so I could be wrong about that.

  After I was clean from drugs, I went to the library to learn everything I could about the tunnels. I figured that I might as well know everything I could about where I was living.

  I learned there are over seven-hundred miles of subway lines in New York’s five boroughs, and the tunnels burrow down at least eighteen stories. The truth is, no one knows how deep the tunnels go.

  I learned that excavations have found things like the original wall that gave Wall Street its name and underground latrines from Revolutionary days, and in more recent times, mysterious vaults hidden just below sidewalks.

  I learned that a merchant sailing ship from the eighteenth century was discovered under Front Street. Ap
parently, when Manhattan’s lower tip was extended, the ship became part of the landfill. Today, its bow is in a museum in Virginia, but its stern remains buried under Manhattan.

  I learned there is no single map of the tunnels and that much of the underworld has been forgotten: abandoned rail lines and waiting rooms, fancy private stations that were never made public, old train tracks, archways leading to stairs with no destination, and thousands of miles of abandoned or half-dug tunnels.

  After I researched the tunnels, I explored. I stuffed a backpack with food and water, and strapped it to my back. I carried a flashlight with backup batteries and knives for protection.

  I saw things that surprised me: an ancient train caboose, an old never-used bomb shelter, ancient sewers made from wooden pipes and tracks once used to transport coal, collapsed iron catwalks, old burial vaults. Also ruined chandeliers, blackened furnaces, and long forgotten connecting passages between subway stations and skyscraper basements. I saw ancient aqueducts and old machine rooms with abandoned machinery including a massive winch, rusted generators, and dysfunctional signaling and switching equipment.

  I even found a pile of cannonballs and a large anchor.

  And amidst natural caverns of incredible beauty and rocky ledges, I found skeletons. Mostly animal, but a few times I thought the bones might be human.

  I still own some old coins that I found.

  But even though I saw some amazing things, I usually only saw garbage: old mattresses saturated with mildew, empty oil drums covered with rust, ragged blankets, busted bicycles, gas lamps, soiled couch cushions, broken toys,