c. 2026 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(4-26)
Fartham Sprig had never been inside of a mobile home until his sister passed away in the summer of 1994. That loss to his family was tragic enough on its own, but precipitated a chain-reaction of financial failures that resulted in being homeless and eventually, in a shelter run by the City of Cleveland. He had rented a garage on his beloved sibling’s property for years, and written off that cost as a business expense. The legal maneuver allowed him to survive after a contested divorce, and an enforced surrender of his residence in Cuyahooga County. Along with half his retirement plan, and most assets that were put aside for later years. A measure of comfort returned as he and his brother both adopted a similar strategy for coping with marital woes. The younger member of their bloodline took an apartment in the basement. With grandkids in other buildings, also on the urban property. Together, their meager contributions amounted to a considerable sum.
A maintenance man in their lakeside neighborhood, who worked as an independent contractor, counseled them to stay grounded with this truism always intact.
“There’s guaranteed safety in numbers like they say! Never forget it! Believe me, I never will!”
But when matron Rhubie passed, after a brief and unexpected battle with cancer, their woven tapestry came apart. Bills went unpaid. Needed repairs were neglected. Disputes that would normally have been settled through a gentle form of cooperative arbitration, grew more intense. Members of the brood began to abandon their family compound. And finally, the Sprig name lost all its value. They were forced to sell off chunks of property until everything was gone.
That is when the self-employed artist and performer first encountered Evergreen Estates.
He had been participating in a poetry slam, at a coffeehouse on a distant town square. Something that still resonated as a counterculture oddity for local inhabitants who were more accustomed to band concerts by students, bake sales, and church events. With a forceful, pleading vibe, he held a wireless microphone in one hand, and a ruled sheet of notebook paper in the other. Then read words that he himself had penned in the wee hours of a weekend binge with cigarettes and Irish whiskey, before arriving.
“Home-less-ness
That is my claim to success
I peer deeply into the void
A listless, lazy pursuit I can’t seem to avoid
And tap my foot to a silent count
A metronome swing that measures each tick in minute amounts
Hear me now, hear me now
Let me say whatever the rulebooks allow
But in a code of defiance
A board-game of chance
Striking the wall with pennies, tossed
And a silver-dollar, stamped and embossed
With the crown of a jesting fool
He who made up the Golden Rule
For a song sung while the sunrise crests
And bird beaks break up the nest
They fly free
Just like me...”
A staccato rhythm of minimalist hand claps was his reward. He had been last in a line of more than two-dozen participants. Many seemed glad that the night was over.
Afterward, he had ended up on the sidewalk, with his leather jacket zipped up tightly, against the cold. He planned on sleeping under a bridge, by their municipal town center. But a friendly, feminine voice spoke softly from the shadows. He could barely see anything in the dark. Least of all, whoever had approached him while still veiled in anonymity. But he heard an offer that would change his life for years to come.
“You really don’t have a place to live? That’s indefensible in a rich country like America. Damn this place! But I’ve got a solution... maybe. My grandma went to a nursing home last week. She’s in her 90s, not really a surprise. But her trailer is sitting empty. Maybe you’d like to play the role of a squatter for the night? I bet they would let you take over the lot rent. It’s not much to look at, but better than being out here on the concrete!”
Fartham had an empty wallet. Not even enough money for another pack of shorty, Camel smokes. So, while the offer sounded somewhat suspicious, he did not have anything to lose by gambling. He gestured with gratitude, and felt a set of keys being pressed into his right hand.
“I got no car, sorry. Maybe you can hitch-hike out to the park? I’d guess you are a resourceful kind of dude. Good luck when you get there, if you get there...”
His first couple of weeks were spent with no electricity or running water. It took a string of one-man shows with an acoustic guitar, and his notebook of lyrics, to raise enough funds for utility services. But then, he began to adapt to this new environment.
The isolated community was populated by many who were also socially inept, and shunned by regular folk. Though he was at first viewed with a measure of suspicion, in time, his presence became less worrisome. The continuum of woe absorbed him as an individual. He melded with the ground-level stream-of-consciousness.
This low-buck exile, vexing as it was, suited him intellectually.
He learned quickly about living in a singlewide longbox, despite being naïve and inexperienced. How pipes froze up in the winter, for example. How vinyl skirting could be displaced by gusts of wind and piles of snow. How noisy it was to live on a street where unmuffled vehicles and ratty motorcycles were plentiful. How hot it was in the summer with no air conditioning. How disinterested elected officials and judges were about protecting the rights of people such as himself.
For months, he thumbed rides to and from the trailer oasis, to stay active with his creative pursuits. But eventually, was able to afford a high-mileage, Honda Civic. A buzzing beater that barely passed emission tests. But gave him a sense of being liberated.
Eventually, his rustic existence was reflected in poems written for his public performances. Instead of hiding the identity of his downtrodden neighborhood, he proclaimed it for everyone to hear. With jeers and cheers resulting, alternately.
“I’m a pig in a poke
In a house-trailer, bespoke
Built by a company concern in another state
In an age when school kids still wrote lessons
With sticks of chalk on a slate
That’s my home on the range
I hope you won’t think it’s strange
That I’m a bum for hire
A flickering flame of fire
A leftover lunchpail
A bargain hunter’s delight, at a yard sale
An ashtray made of glass
A rubber tire repurposed into a liquor flask
That’s the fate I know
Going down, going slow
While a bald eagle screeches
‘Look out below!’
Hey, ho, let’s go!”
He had dodged a bullet, and learned to survive.
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