The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory by Stacy Wakefield

Author:Stacy Wakefield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2015-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

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Veronica and I took her boss’s van to Laure’s sister’s place the next Sunday. The bundles and backpacks filled up the back of the van; it looked like a lot, and we drove down to 5th Street Squat feeling triumphant.

Earplugs was out front waiting and he joined us at the rear of the vehicle. He whistled when Veronica opened the back doors. “This is some badass shit you pulled,” he said.

A bunch of Rot-Squatters showed up together.

Abby jumped on me, her long skinny arms tight around me. “Holy shit! Look at all this!”

“You are such a hero!” Raven’s eyes were wide and she clutched her heart. “You totally rock, Sid!”

Everyone started pulling stuff out onto the sidewalk. Eli and Lydia introduced themselves to me. I felt like Santa Claus, digging their bag out of the van. They’d just had the worst week of their lives but I felt secretly elated. All these people knew who I was, Veronica looked at me with respect, they called me a hero and it felt true.

“I’ve been recovering all week,” I told everyone. “I bruised my tailbone falling when we snuck in there, and then my arms were so worn out from throwing stuff, I could barely lift them over my head to put a shirt on!” They all laughed.

A kid I didn’t know with stringy hair and a cap said, “Stumps told me you got some of my tools?” It was the carpenter with the neat room. I dug under the van seat for the Makita box.

“We put a couple chisels in there,” I showed him.

Lee had come out of 5th Street, imposing and tall with a knit hat pulled over his dreads. “Let’s get it all inside,” he directed the guys with him.

“Actually, we can bring some of it to C-Squat,” Raven said. “Like Meg’s stuff and Gibby’s and—”

“Let’s just get it inside,” Lee cut her off. “Sort it out there. Unless you girls like crying out here on the street better.”

“Hello,” Abby scowled at him, “this is, like, the first happy thing since the eviction!”

“There’s no happy thing,” Lee replied with disgust. He turned to the stringy-haired kid holding the Makita drill. “You happy, Davey? You feel like celebrating with the rest of your tools in a fuckin’ landfill in Staten Island?”

Lee grabbed some more stuff off the sidewalk and went in the house and the guys followed him. The kid with the drill looked deflated and I remembered his tidy workbench and I didn’t feel so great anymore. When we were done, I got back in the van with Veronica. We drove up Avenue B and passed where Rot-Squat had been. It hit me in the gut now: the empty space. Everything, the building and the lives inside it. Carted away by dump truck. Now there was a chain-link fence around a little square of rubble. It looked so small, you couldn’t believe a whole building had stood there. Someone had put a votive candle and flowers in front of the fence and then it had snowed and now it was just a dingy wet lump.

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