The first people I talked too in Philadelphia were a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses. They stop my mom and I on the street outside of Dave’s house. The guy was wearing a short sleeve shirt and a black tie the woman was wearing a white dress and a large white hat. She did all the talking,

“Excuse me, can I give you something to read?”

“Oh no thank you.” Mom answered, she probably knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.

“Are you sure? I mean it’s the times we’re living in, the times. Sometimes it seems like there are no answers and it can be overwhelming, but there are answers and they can help you in these times.” It wasn’t the best sales pitch I’ve ever heard, but it was honest.

“Well we pray.”

“Oh well praying is important. Thank you.”

I have no idea how Mom did it, but she got away with out the reading material and she didn’t have to resort to pretending to be the anti-Christ. It seemed to be a win for everyone. The Jehovah’s Witnesses weren’t offended and Mom and I didn’t have to feel bad about throwing out their reading at the next trash can we saw.

The religious pair were a contrast to the rest of the street. On side of the street were train tracks. On the other side was a row of dilapidated town houses. They were beyond terms like “fixer upper” and “handyman’s dream”. The nicest one was a handyman’s nightmare. Dave’s house wasn’t the nicest. The five concrete stairs that lead to his front door were crumbling into a very steep wheelchair ramp. The door had a hole in it where the last dead bolt had been reamed out. The new working deadbolt was just above the hole. It took Dave a few minutes to open the door. He wore a fairly subdued Hawaiian shirt with only the middle two buttons buttoned and a pair of baggy pants. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he had the mustache of a guy who refused to believe that he couldn’t grow facial hair. There were just enough hairs to make you think his lip was dirty or he missed a spot while shaving. At least he didn’t have the brillo pad goatee that usually comes with the mustache. Some how I knew he had a mustache when I talked to him on the phone. We went through the expected greeting, “Oh, you’re Pat, nice to meet you” then he showed me the interior of the house. It was more depressing than the outside. Dave had only lived there for three weeks, but the mess he made would have taken an irate child six months to match. Every piece of furniture had at least one piece of clothing on it (including the TV) and it had a very interesting smell. The only decoration was a poster of Sylvester Stalone as Rocky. I hoped that the second floor wasn’t as “lived in” as the first. I noticed on the way upstairs that the banister was lying on the ground. There were holes where the banister used to be attached. The wall had give up. The first room Dave showed me was about half the size of a walk in closet. The inflatable mattress (it’s the size of a double) I borrowed from my mom wouldn’t have fit in that room. Then Dave took me to the “nicer” room. I think by nicer he meant that more of the pee yellow paint was on the wall than in flakes on the floor. This room also had a window that Dave couldn’t open. It looked down on his back yard (a patch of concrete with a fence around it) and the two pit bulls he kept as pets. I didn’t really want to stay there but I didn’t think I had much choice. Every school in Philadelphia rented out its dorms to the thousands of protestors and activist groups for the convention and a hotel is expensive. Mom said that if it meant I wouldn’t get mauled by a pit bull then she’d pay the money for a hotel. So I’m set up in an economy class hotel. It has no frills or extras but the sheets are clean and I don’t think the maids are going to steal from me. Hotel living has it’s own set of annoyances but that’s nothing when I think about what it would be like to live in Dave’s house.