Landmarks

LANDMARKS

     It may or may not have occurred to the Jacksonville Beach, Florida police department, but in many ways, their techniques were very similar to those of the homeless people they were so diligent in hunting down. Case in point, the use of landmarks.

     It certainly wouldn't have occurred to Davis, if he had not the misfortune of witnessing an incident at first hand.

     Davis had been shown the rudimentary ropes of homelessness by a Native American shaman friend who led him through a large tract of woods and pointed out to him the various landmarks. The landmarks, which could be virtually anything, were deliberately placed in various, but significant locations, by the homeless people as subtle signs, to themselves and others, of obscure and barely discernable paths down which their camps were hidden.

     To the untrained eye, the landmarks were merely pieces of debris, or unusual aspects of landscape.

     Later, as Davis became more experienced in his new lifestyle, supporting himself as an aluminum can recycler, he learned to recognize the landmarks himself, and generally, unless he knew the camp dwellers beyond, he chose to ignore them, rather than intrude on the privacy of strangers.

     However, on the one night when he was accosted by the highly revered and emulated Jacksonville Beach Police Department, he knew that he was done for because he was awake when he saw their flashlights, and could see that they were wearing blue uniforms. There were two of them, and they went a little ways past him and soon came back, and although Davis had no doubt in his mystical mind that there were other camps further in, the police were evidently content to settle on just him.

     Davis also knew that the first offense was only a warning, so felt no necessity to panic or run, and was expecting them when they returned.

     As one of them "ran" his I.D., checking for outstanding warrants, the other, behind the glare of the powerful flashlights, asked how long he had been staying there.

     "Only a couple of nights," Davis replied, which was almost true, but not consecutively.

     "It took you only 'a couple of nights' to make that much of a mess?" the officer, a young guy with spiky, punked-out hair that was longer than Davis', asked.

     Davis was insulted. There was no mess whatsoever, only a few bags of clothes covered by a sheet of plastic. In fact, Davis had made it a point that there would never be any mess, like those garbage dumps that were near many of the other camps.

     When he was led out from his sleeping bag, in the marshy terrain abutting A1A, to where two police cars sat, one a S.U.V., with their red and blue lights flashing, Davis couldn't help but notice that one of the officers took great pains to mark the location of where they had found him with a large piece of metal, which looked, in the dark, to be part of an automobile's exhaust system.

     The second, spiky-haired officer, who drove the white Jacksonville Police sport utility vehicle, besides telling Davis to "keep your hands where I can see them," also told him that "this is just a warning. If we catch you sleeping here again, you're going to jail."

     "I understand," Davis responded, tonelessly.

     "Now get your stuff and move out."

     Without another word, Davis threaded his way back to his sleeping gear and clothes, and waited until the police cars would have left.

     Like all the other homeless people who had been discovered by the Jacksonville Beach police, he merely packed up and moved someplace else. 'What do they expect us to do?' Davis wondered. 'Buy a condominium?'

     A couple of days later, as Davis was collecting aluminum cans, he literally stumbled across the camp of another Native American, a woman this time. Although employed as a 'bus person' at the prestigious Costa Grande Inn and Club, she was still homeless, and she asked Davis if he was willing, for five dollars, to help her pick up litter on her day off. For her, Sydney, it was for environment, but Davis knew that it was also for the irony of, as she put it, two homeless people picking up the trash thrown out of car windows by commuters more fortunate than themselves.. Davis agreed, as the five dollars represented a significant boon to his current financial state, and since she was working, he was resolved to not feel guilty about accepting her money.

     Beyond coincidence, on Sydney's day off, a Monday, she wanted to pick up litter along A1A, near, in fact, where Davis had recently been rousted by the police. A1A was a casual sort of four lane highway that ran along Florida's eastern seaboard for pretty much the entire length of the state, and it was popular locally by commuters driving to and from the beaches and Jacksonville; Sydney wanted to work someplace where the litter was most visible, an eyesore to everyone, and although he knew of places that were much worse, it was her five dollars, so he didn't argue.

     Sydney supplied the plastic bags, and they separated, Davis being careful to always keep his back to the traffic so his face couldn't be seen. Sydney, however, delighted in the attention, and when they were once again within earshot of each other, exulted again at the irony of two homeless people voluntarily picking up the trash being thrown out by nonhomeless motorists.

     When she and Davis later rendezvoused, however, Davis saw that, besides her plastic bag, Sydney was also carrying the piece of automobile exhaust that the police officers' had left as a landmark to his previous sleeping location.

     "Hey, ah, Sydney," Davis began, "maybe I shouldn't say anything, but the police left that exhaust pipe so they could look for again."

     "Oh, wow," she murmured, and dropped the pipe where she stood.

     "To hell with them. They were jerks, anyway. Besides, I'm glad I moved. Being so close to the swamp, the mosquitoes were killing me."

     So, leaving the exhaust pipe where it lay, Davis and Sydney continued picking up litter, humbling moving north along A1A.

*                                   *                                       *

     Some days later, Sydney happened upon Davis as he was coming out of the vicinity of his latest camp.

     "Did you see the newspaper?" she gushed.

     "Not recently," Davis admitted. "Why? Are we in it?" joking about their picking up litter that Monday.

     "In a manner of speaking, maybe we are."

     Sydney brandished the front page of a local beaches newspaper, which read:

POLICE OFFICER MISSING

Foul Play Suspected

     Evidently, according to the paper, a Jacksonville Beach police S.U.V. was found abandoned along A1A, adjacent to a marsh notorious as a haven for the homeless, but with no sign of the officer. There had been a search, but it yielded no evidence, and after several fruitless hours, the search was finally called off.

     "Oh, wow," Davis murmured, dropping the paper.

THE END