Breaking Night

by Liz Murray

  My giggles drew looks from everyone. Hey, I know what crazy looks like, and how disconcerting it can be when someone is acting off. So I tried to explain why I was laughing, to put them at ease, but it only made things worse. It drew more confused faces.

  “It’s just that, you have a whole basket, full of . . . pastries,” I snorted. “Well, ahem, no, you know . . . I just mean, there’s a whole basket and the pitcher of juice is huge, ya know?!” I waited through a painfully awkward silence. “I mean, do you have breakfast like this every day?” I asked. “I mean . . . it’s great, I’m just saying.” Mercifully, my giggling finally let up then. “Never mind, I just really like these pastries,” I told them. “They’re great.”

  Ken’s mother spoke first, rescuing me.

  “It is great, isn’t it?” she responded, as though what I said had made any sense. “The bakery makes everything right there on the premises, so it’s fresh. That’s why it’s so yummy.”

  I bit into a blueberry muffin and straightened up in my seat. Steven, Jeremy, and Kat began discussing plans to hit a jazz club in the Village later that night. The apprehensive vibe that filled the room was not lost on me, nor was the fact that they did not invite me to come along with them.

  Soon everyone finished their breakfasts and began to shuffle around, pack up their bags. The doorbell rang; Anna’s mom had come to pick her up. From my seat, alone at the kitchen table, I watched the two mothers greet each other at the front door; Anna and Ken joined them, forming a circle of conversation and laughter. Momentarily, I ached for Ma. A flash of tears welled up in me and subsided. Watching the four of them, hearing the others downstairs packing, and Ken’s sister in her room, something occurred to me.

  Nothing here was mine to keep.

  Everything I enjoyed here was temporary, a visit. My NYPIRG coworkers would soon be back at their respective colleges, and we would lose touch. The warm feel of this home and these interesting people were not mine. This group was no more my own than was the family’s house itself. Nor did I have an actual connection with Ken. He, like the entire situation, was not mine to keep; none of it was. Their lives enjoyed a social symmetry that held the possibility of connection, and with it, membership in a club I comprehended only enough to understand that I was a poor fit. Soon, I’d be back in the Bronx sleeping wherever, and this—they—would all be past tense.

  I looked down at the basket full of muffins and bagels. I looked up at the circle of them standing, sharing one another, Ken’s smiling face, his warmth and casual wonderfulness. Covertly, I zipped open my book bag—full of dingy clothes and the wad of rubber-banded hundred-dollar bills I’d saved up over the summer—and I began stuffing muffins, bagels, bananas, and oranges into my bag. I threw in a whole loaf of bread, too. Why not? These things would be mine to keep.

  I would have emptied the juice into my bag, if I could have.

  Chapter 12

  Possibility

  THE TWO YEARS I SPENT AT HUMANITIES PREP UNFOLDED LIKE AN urban-academic-survival-study marathon, and it took everything I had to get through it.

  I learned that there is a distinct difference between saying something and doing something, just as there is a distinct difference between setting a goal and actually living the reality of that goal. I wanted to catch up as quickly as possible, so I set a target: I would graduate with an A average, nothing less. And I would do it in two years, while homeless. This sounded like a great plan to help me get on with my life. It was very inspiring to read about in my journal, too. But then I actually had to go do it, and that was a whole different story altogether.

  It started out fine, with that first hopeful week in school, when I went around gathering as many classes as possible, stacking work on top of work and responsibilities on top of more responsibilities. I didn’t exactly announce to the teachers at Prep what I was doing; it’s more that I went around on my own collecting classes à la carte, adding them onto my plate wherever I could find them. There were the standard five courses; I took those. Then there was an extra early-morning math class for those needing to catch up on their math credits, so I took that, too. Also, according to flyers tacked up in the office, nearby Washington Irving High School provided night classes twice a week. I took those. Then there was the Seward Park High School on the Lower East Side that offered a Saturday history course for another credit. I took that. I also found out that I could approach teachers individually for off-hours independent studies, which I did. I had a lot of catching up to do. So my goal at Prep became to complete one year of high school per semester, which is exactly what I set out to do, starting that September.

  I was inspired by a question that kept repeating itself in my mind: Could I really change my life? I’d spent so many days, weeks, months, and years thinking about doing things with my life, and now I wanted to know, if I committed to a goal and woke up every single day working hard at it, could I change my life?

  Those first few weeks it seemed especially possible, back when teachers were still lecturing on their course introductions and handing us assignments that wouldn’t be due for a while. I gleefully took notes, arrived on time, or even early, for class and I accepted my work happily, collecting assignment handouts in optimistic little piles that grew thick in my backpack. This was fine at first. But soon, deadlines were looming and reports and presentations were actually due. That was when my optimistic attitude of the first few weeks was replaced by a sense of dread and a deep feeling of uncertainty, a rubber-meets-the-road reality check of what it would take to actually figure this out. Indeed, thinking about my goal or even stating it was so much different from actually living it.

  Figuring out high school while homeless meant handling details that never would have occurred to me until I was actually living in the situation. For one, who knew schoolbooks were so heavy? By itself, that’s already something. But when I carried the heavy things around while also navigating several different living situations with no predictability whatsoever of where I could stay on a given night, while also trying to follow an assignment schedule that dictated exactly which books I would need and when, I kept slipping up.

  If I didn’t time things correctly, I’d end up crashing at Bobby’s or Fief’s or Jamie’s with the wrong book for a particular assignment on a given night. The consequence of a miscalculation like this could mean having the wrong material with me to study for a deadline, which could mean the difference between an A and a B or, in the case of test preparation, a grade drop even more severe than that. Between my numerous classes, numerous places to stay, and numerous assignments, there were just too many variables for me to keep track of to get it right 100 percent of the time. So to solve the problem, I began carrying almost all my books with me, along with my clothing, my journal, Ma’s NA coin and her picture, my toothbrush and toiletries; I stuffed everything all in one huge bag. But it was very heavy, and it made moving around the city difficult, with the straps pressed into my shoulders, pinching at my skin. My back hurt every single day.

  Then there was the sleep factor. Sometimes my friends’ parents would let me stay over outright; sometimes not. On the occasions when I had to sneak into a friend’s place, I would need to wait until their parents went to bed, which meant doing homework or napping in the hallway until the late-night hours when the coast was clear. I’d enter their apartments ever so quietly and sleep on someone’s futon, or behind the futon on the floor hidden from sight under blankets, just in case. A couple of times I napped in a friend’s large closet. Then, in most cases I would need to be out again in the morning before their parents woke up. For this, I carried a small vibrating alarm clock in my pocket, so that I could be alerted silently when it was time to get up. When it went off, wherever I was, I quietly sat up, slipped my feet into my black boots, tiptoed over to slide my book bag—with great effort—onto my back, and I went out the door again. Sometimes I’d spend the remaining couple of hours between five and six thirty or seven a.m. in a hallway, up on the top land
ing of a stairwell, napping. Sometimes I’d head straight to school while the sun was just coming up and the air was still nighttime cold and the gates to stores were still lowered, not yet open for business.

  Then there was actually getting my assignments done. That was a whole other thing, too. It turned out I needed a certain amount of sleep in order to be clear-minded enough to turn in a well-written paper, a paper worthy of an A. Without enough sleep, it was like trying to think straight with a fog in my brain, and that wouldn’t get me the A’s I needed. But I could not always get enough sleep when keeping the schedules of my friends. Getting the sleep I needed was sometimes easier if I simply climbed the staircase in a building and slept at the top landing, alone. At least there I had some privacy and, so long as I picked a reasonably clean and safe building, probably no one would bother me. I could work by the hallway light, sleep on the marble floor, use my sweater as a blanket and my remaining clothing as a pillow. When I really needed some rest, the hallway landings worked best.

  With all of these details figured out, I could mostly manage, especially with the help of my NYPIRG savings, the hot meals and pantry packs from The Door, and especially with such a supportive group of friends. But there were other moments much more difficult to deal with, moments when I came dangerously close to saying, “Forget it.” There was one recurring situation that particularly threatened to break me.

  It happened on days when my alarm clock went off at 6:20 a.m. and I’d wake up in Fief’s apartment, or some other place where parents were absent, rules were not enforced, and there was no limit to how long I could sleep. I’d wake to the sight of more than ten people sleeping on random tattered cushions and mattresses across the floor; the sun was barely up, graffiti along the apartment walls, beer bottles everywhere. Everyone had partied all night and gone to sleep not too long ago. Most nights I had done my homework in the stairwell—using my transcripts to get me focused—and separating myself to avoid the awful smell of cigarette smoke and the noisy distraction of everyone’s partying. When things died down at night, I’d slip back into my friends’ apartments and get some sleep in whatever little spot I could find. A few hours later, my little alarm clock would go off and I’d wake up and lie there, perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling. In this moment, I was so tempted to just pull the blanket over my head and go back to sleep. That temptation, in that moment, is exactly when I almost lost my resolve and gave up.

  Warm blanket, or walk through the door?

  These were the moments when I was most tested, when comfort was an option. Not when I was sleeping in the hallway, not when I had to exit my friends’ apartments forcibly at odd hours, and not even when I had to ride the subway all night long and sleep there. Instead, lying around in my friends’ apartments when I had the option to sleep was the most difficult of all these situations for me. This was because, without being forced outdoors, I somehow had to find a reason to choose school, a reason from inside myself.

  In this way I didn’t have to choose to go to high school just once, I had to choose it over and over again, every single time I was tempted not to go. During these mornings that were full of rare and precious quiet, soft pillows and warmth, I was tempted more than any other time to just pull the blanket back over me. It took everything I had to choose to walk through the door to go to school instead. In these moments, I was my biggest obstacle. Warm blanket or walk through the door?

  Making these choices, as it turned out, wasn’t about willpower. I always admired people who “willed” themselves to do something, because I have never felt I was one of them. If sheer will were enough by itself, it would have been enough a long time ago, back on University Avenue, I figured. It wasn’t, not for me anyway. Instead, I needed something to motivate me. I needed a few things that I could think about in my moments of weakness that would cause me to throw off the blanket and walk through the front door. More than will, I needed something to inspire me.

  One thing that helped was a picture I kept in mind, this image that I used over and over whenever I was faced with these daily choices. I pictured a runner running on a racetrack. The image was set in the summertime and the racetrack was a reddish orange, divided in white racing stripes to flag the runners’ columns. Only, the runner in my mental image did not run alongside others; she ran solo, with no one watching her. And she did not run a free and clear track, she ran one that required her to jump numerous hurdles, which made her break into a heavy sweat under the sun. I used this image every time I thought of things that frustrated me: the heavy books, my crazy sleep schedule, the question of where I would sleep and what I would eat. To overcome these issues I pictured my runner bolting down the track, jumping hurdles toward the finish line.

  Hunger, hurdle. Finding sleep, hurdle, schoolwork, hurdle. If I closed my eyes I could see the runner’s back, the movement of her sinewy muscles, glistening with sweat, bounding over the hurdles, one by one. On mornings when I did not want to get out of bed, I saw another hurdle to leap over. This way, obstacles became a natural part of the course, an indication that I was right where I needed to be, running the track, which was entirely different from letting obstacles make me believe I was off it. On a racing track, why wouldn’t there be hurdles? With this picture in mind—using the hurdles to leap forward toward my diploma—I shrugged the blanket off, went through the door, and got myself to school.

  That was at least half of my motivation on those tough mornings, and the other half was thinking about my teachers. In my weaker moments of blanket versus door, I knew Perry was waiting for me at school, and so were the other teachers that, much to my surprise, I came to love during my time at Prep.

  Susan taught early-morning math classes. A heavyset woman who wore floral dresses and penny loafers to work every day, Susan loved literature. Sometimes we talked more about books than we did math. Susan always had a unique take on the love stories that were my favorite. She offered me insights I would have missed on my own; she always encouraged me to go deeper. Susan arrived extra early to be one of the first teachers turning on the lights, greeting our tiny seven-person class with high energy and a huge smile. “Great to see you today,” she sang every morning, and she seemed to really mean it. With Susan teaching my first class of the day, I never wanted to be late, and just thinking of her could get me going.

  Then there were Caleb, Doug, and Elijah, who were all in their twenties. Each of them had recently graduated from schools like Cornell and Princeton, school names familiar to me from conversations at NYPIRG. Collectively, they were dedicated to teaching, generous with their time, lighthearted, and friendly. Elijah had a way of challenging his students not with statements, but with questions. Being around Elijah made me become much more deliberate in my choice of words, something I’d never considered much before. And like Perry, Elijah made eye contact with me, searched my face when I spoke in class—he connected. He inspired me to want to connect, too.

  Doug was inclusive and humble. One day I asked a question in class, and when he fumbled in answering, he interrupted himself to say, “Liz, I don’t know, and I was trying to seem like I did. But really I don’t, sorry. If you’re interested in the answer, I can find out for you.” I was stunned. Never had teachers been so human with me. From Doug I learned the importance of authenticity.

  And I had never met anyone like Caleb. Perry once joked that the teachers at Prep put in so many hours, they must have thought they were investment bankers. I think he was talking about Caleb. Prep already had a culture different from mainstream schools, in that there wasn’t a mass exodus at three p.m. when the bell rang. People actually stayed around after school, lounging in our one large public area, which was called Prep Central. Or students stayed for tutoring or extracurricular activities with the Prep staff until well into the late afternoon. The teachers did this without additional pay, and even with the extra hours they put in, Caleb stayed later. Long after school let out, and even after everyone meeting for extracurricular activities went
home, you could still find Caleb by himself in one of the small, cramped staff offices, hunched over the phone, calling late and absent students, one by one.

  “Hi, this is Caleb Perkins. Sorry we missed you today. Do you mind sharing why you were late or absent? Can we help you get here on time from now on?” One by one, Caleb reached out to students, asked them questions, listened carefully to their answers, and offered them help. He kept track of their promises, and he held students accountable. “Say what you mean and mean what you say” seemed to be his motto. I’d never seen anything like it. From Caleb I learned what it meant when a teacher was both compassionate and held a student to a higher standard. I also learned, from Caleb, what it meant to be committed to something and to put in hours upon hours of work to attain it.

  I knew Caleb worked so hard because I often stayed late at Prep myself. In the space of a narrow corner office with high ceilings, one wall made up of painted-over cinder blocks and massive bookshelves, I hunched over a desk and taught myself how to use a computer to get my work done. These heavy square things with dim, flickering monitors and chunky keyboards were completely foreign to me. I realized that my task was twofold: I had to study while also learning how to study at the same time. It felt as if I were climbing a mountain with bricks in my pocket. I wrote an essay about The Catcher in the Rye while learning about essay writing, and while learning how to type, all at once. I did so by tapping a single button at a time, frustrating myself with countless mistakes, messing up and starting again and again and again. It was exhausting; I had never been one of those students who learned things quickly. Instead, I always had to read and reread a textbook to understand it, and it often took me two or three times as long as my classmates to complete my assignments. It got so late most evenings that Prep’s empty classrooms sat in the dark, their chairs motionless in the setting sun. The janitor would ask me to lift my feet while he mopped the tile floor around me, Caleb within earshot calling students in the next room, one by one, while I created endless pages of work, a single letter at a time.