Domino’s- Broadway Street, Buffalo

1am and they’re closing; me and Zero ask the two dudes if they’re getting rid of the unsold pizzas behind them. Normally like $15-$20, so we’re hoping for like $10, if not free. “For sure,” dude says, “25 sound good?” We come back an hour later, the dumpster has no food.

★

 

 

VFW- 1st Avenue, Pittsburgh

We catch out in Jersey and ride down to the Conway yard. It’s the middle of the night but we can hear Springsteen blasting inside. We go around back. There is an uneaten cheeseburger and some loose chicken strips. Burger sucks but  the chicken is good. A dishwasher comes outside to smoke and forgets the pack on a cinder block when he goes back inside. Lucky Strikes.

★★★★½

 

 

I miss my sister- Somewhere in Arizona

I met Zero when he was dumpster diving at my old job at Goodwill. He was looking for a backpack. I just got fired and rent was behind. Zero said he was heading west if I wanted to join. I’d never hopped trains before. It seemed crazy, and it is. I’ve been texting my sister, but she doesn’t reply. It’s not that I took Dad’s side when she left, but she didn’t offer to take me with her so what could I do? Not take his side and get the shit beat out of me too? I feel like an asshole for that now. We’re still on the east coast now, but from Florida we should start going west.

 

 

Waffle House- New Warrington Road, Pensacola

We meet a couple of crusties, a boy and a girl, who say the dumpster is full of flies, so we have to pay up if we wanna eat. We dig deep and order like normies. We get a little of everything and share, family style. All amazing. Zero asks the crusties if they wanna join us. “Not really,” the dude says. “But what else are we doing?”

★★★★ food but ★★ dumpster.

 

 

Taco John’s- Burlington Avenue, Fairfield

The four of us hop out at Ottumwa and get picked up by some hippies one of the crusties knows. We get dropped off about an hour away and wander around until we find the Taco John’s. Outside is a small park with an old steam engine locomotive, which is cool. The dumpster is filled with everything needed to make tacos, but it’s covered in bleach. A dick move I’ve only seen in the Midwest. The dude crustie catches Zero fucking the chick in the locomotive. Even though I bet there’s a joke in there about a caboose or something, this is a bad vibe.

½ ★

 

 

I just want to go home-

Zero got fucked up and now we’re slowed down. I’m really tired. This shit is getting old. Why am I even doing this? My sister won’t talk to me and I don’t want to talk to my parents. We hop onto a junk train roughly moving west, but Zero doesn’t know where it’s heading. I light up a Lucky and shut my eyes. There’s no plan here. I have nowhere to leave from and nowhere to go.

No stars.