The Showerless Summer
By: Jen Rivard
Tags: Drug Addiction, Survival, Domestic Violence, Homelessness, Childhood Trauma

It was the summer of 1996. I was 16 years old and homeless, living with a friend in an abandoned house without running water or electricity.

Photo by Eleanor on Unsplash

I met Charlie earlier that year through a mutual friend, and we shared stories of neglect and drug abuse we witnessed from our parents. We bonded over hip-hop and marijuana smoke, planning how we’d make better lives for ourselves as we enjoyed the breeze while sipping lemonade on our dear friend Tasha’s front porch. I explained to him how I’d been thrown on the streets for defending my mother from her abusive boyfriend. My time was almost up at Tasha’s house, as her family was moving soon, and I couldn’t join them.

I didn’t have anywhere to go. Charlie mentioned that he might have a solution to my dilemma, but I might not be interested. I urged him to tell me more. It turned out he had access to a house that his father owned but had long neglected upkeep on. Roots had grown and twisted their way around the pipes under the house, making it impossible to have running water without making expensive repairs. The house had been used for smoking crack and was full of trash, smelled of piss, and was filthy. He suggested that we clean the place up and move in to avoid me sleeping on the streets.

“Let’s do it!” I replied.

Immediately, we got to work throwing out the trash, scrubbing and disinfecting surfaces, rearranging furniture, and setting up our living space. We avoided the kitchen area and bathroom unless it was necessary. There was an old cooler left behind that was used for a toilet. It was full, so I dragged it outside and dumped it. This was how we relieved ourselves from that day forward, and I always had the job of dumping it. Lucky me. We kept the door shut that led to that part of the house and focused on making the living room and bedroom livable.

I found an old broken broom and started sweeping up dirt, leaves, discarded cigarette butts, and ashes that covered the dingy olive green rug. I opened one of the filthy windows to let in some fresh air. I felt optimistic. This was going to be HOME.

We drove to where my mother was staying, the place I had been kicked out of, and loaded my twin-sized bed into Charlie’s light yellow wood-paneled station wagon. I collected a few of my personal belongings that I thought would brighten up the place. I was determined to make the best of this situation.

My mother looked at me with eyes full of shame and regret, grabbed and hugged me tightly as she whispered, “I’m so sorry,” right before I left. My heart ached as I longed for the days when drug addiction didn’t cloud her decision-making process. I just wanted my mama back.

“I’ll be okay, Mama. You worry about getting away from HIM.”

My eyes shifted towards the house, where her abusive crackhead boyfriend waited for her, no doubt ready to embark on yet another scheme to get high. My nose started tingling as a lump rose in my throat while I fought back the tears. For the past couple of months, I thought I would wake up from this nightmare on any given day. I didn’t. This was real. I was on my own.

While I only viewed Charlie as a friend, I wasn’t naive enough to think nothing was required of me for his generous hospitality. After all, he provided me with shelter and transportation to work every day. Luckily, we were both working at a fast-food restaurant. We stayed up for hours, discussing how we would save up our money and fix the house up, especially the plumbing. He was there for me during one of the most painful times in my life. Being intimate with him was the least I could do to show appreciation in my 16-year old mind.

One of the hardest parts of this living arrangement was the daily struggle to maintain personal hygiene and cleanliness. The lack of running water caused us to get very creative. We kept baby wipes and a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the bedroom to wipe down with in-between wash-ups. We figured out quickly which public bathrooms around town were single-use with doors that locked. I brought my shampoo and body wash and scrubbed from head-to-toe, not caring one bit that I left the entire floor of the bathroom flooded each time. I used my foot to squeegee as much of the water as I could down the floor drain once I dried off, dressed, and put my shoes back on.

There were times we were so desperate for a nice, hot shower that we would scrounge up the ten bucks it cost to shower in a truck stop. Charlie would sneak me in when he was finished because you weren’t allowed to share a shower, and we didn’t want to pay for two. The water pressured sucked, it wasn’t the cleanest facility, and the experience was not as satisfying as one might expect. I worried so much about getting caught that I didn’t enjoy the opportunities as much as I hoped for. There was also a time limit that meant we had to rush to get in and out quickly.

The house began to really heat up as the summer dragged on. We could only open one window, so there wasn’t much relief from the heat. We showed up early for work and stayed late to bask in the A/C. I grew tired of alcohol and sink baths. Charlie started to limit how often he drove me to a wash-up session. He had been offered another place to live where I was not invited. I sensed resentment. We tried to make repairs on the house, but we kept running into more problems. Things weren’t going as well as we planned. I felt my own resentment build as I became increasingly disgusted with his constant appetite for sex. I was never attracted to him physically, after all. He was more like my best friend. We began to argue.

One day, our neighbor let us come inside so Charlie could use the phone. The cold blast of A/C felt like heaven. I sat down on the luxuriously thick, soft, wine-colored carpet and admired the beauty of the clean, well-kept home. Oh, how I missed the comforts of a regular place to live! After Charlie’s phone call, the neighbor asked about the plumbing and electrical issues we had. He knew a lot about the house and insisted it was unfit and unrepairable, and offered us a shower along with a hot breakfast.

I jumped up and practically ran next door to gather my clothes. Months had passed since I’d had a regular shower in a house without a time restriction. I could barely contain my excitement! The neighbor showed me to the bathroom and said I could use the soap, shampoo, and conditioner. I swear, he handed me the fluffiest towel and bath cloth that I’d ever touched.

I locked the bathroom door and undressed, my feet sinking into the soft bathroom rug. I turned on the shower and let the water get hot. I took a moment to look in the mirror. I told myself that I was strong and beautiful. I knew right then that nothing could ever defeat me. I pulled back the plastic shower curtain and admired how clean the shower was. There was Pantene shampoo and conditioner Caress body soap! This was too good to be true!

I stepped into the tub and felt the cold ceramic against my skin. The water pressure was sublime. I stood under the hot water and adjusted the temperature until it was perfect. I closed my eyes as the deliciously warm water cascaded over me. I tipped my head back slowly and relished every single drop. Steam filled the chilly bathroom. I picked up the Pantene and poured a huge blob of it into my hand. I lathered up my hair, scratched my scalp, and worked up a ridiculous amount of suds. I grabbed the Caress and the bath cloth I was given and got it as soapy as I could. I scrubbed every inch of me until my skin turned red. The scent of cleanliness was invigorating. This was living!

A loud knock at the bathroom door snapped me back to reality. I had lost track of time. The neighbor asked if I was ok, and let me know that breakfast was ready. I quickly dried off and got dressed, taking special care to lotion down thoroughly beforehand.

“I thought you fell in,” the neighbor chuckled as he pointed me towards the plate of scrambled eggs and corned beef hash as I exited the lovely bathroom. He poured me a glass of orange juice and set it in front of my plate.

“Thank you.”

At that moment, I was a child again. I felt loved and cared for. It was so comforting. I didn’t realize how hard life had been for me that summer up until that point. It all hit me at once. I was young and free and able to do anything in the world that I wanted to. But the only thing I really wanted was a hot shower and breakfast. And my mom.

Charlie and I went back to our run-down crackhouse, and it seemed like a prison after that.

When I wasn’t working, I would go walking and run into friends from school. I missed the interaction with my peers that ended when I moved in with Charlie. I guess I was longing for anything that reminded me of my not-so-long-ago life as a high school kid.

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I had dropped out soon after being put out of where my mom was living. My school was in a different zone, so I couldn’t catch the bus and found that survival was more important than my education at that time. I tried not to get depressed about this because I loved school. I wanted to be a writer. In fact, before I quit, my English teacher Mrs. Barnes had pulled me aside to tell me I had a future in writing. She asked me if I was going through something because my grade had dropped from an A to a D.

“Family stuff,” I shrugged.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah. It’ll be ok,” I reassured her as I grabbed my books to go.

Everything in me had wanted to tell her about the hell we were going through with my mom’s addiction and abusive relationship at the time. But I didn’t want my mom to get in trouble or my family to get split up. So I kept quiet.

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One day, I walked to a nearby park and saw a bunch of old friends from school. A girl I knew invited me to her house and offered to cut my hair after we talked for a while. Her bedroom was beautiful. She had so many cute outfits and pairs of shoes, stuffed animals, good-smelling lotions and perfumes, candles, and a pretty comforter set. Her room was so nicely decorated. I complimented her on it, and she brushed it off like it was nothing and started working on my hair. I felt a twinge of jealously.

When she was finished, I had an asymmetrical bob, and I was killing it!

I thanked her, we talked for a while, then I walked back to the park. No one recognized me at first. Once they realized who I was, they complimented my hair, and we hung out talking for hours. I didn't get back to the house until about 10:30 pm. Charlie was inside with the door locked. I knocked on the door, and he didn’t answer. He never opened the door.

“I drove by and saw you at the park, talking to your little friends. You can’t just come in here all late and expect me to let you in,” he yelled from the other side of the door. We argued back and forth for a few minutes.

That night, I slept on the concrete floor in the bathroom at the park. I realized that night the only person that had my back was ME. As I locked the bathroom door and searched for a cleanish spot to lie down amongst the cockroaches and crickets, I vowed to myself never to be in that position again.

I continued to work hard, and I rented a boarding-house room on my own at the end of the summer. Charlie came and begged me to come back.

“No. I’m never going to have another showerless summer for as long as I live,” I replied.