6 Southern fire

The fuel for our little campfire was altogether different from Canada.
It was hard, misshapen stuff. Hard to get, hard to light, once lit would last all night.

We didn't have an axe or saw, so to make the fire meant breaking up big pieces of dry and dead wood into smaller pieces and hauling them back to camp.

Samuel and his giant frame snapped these dried up logs like twigs. I tried to do the same, but I was struggling. A six inch diameter log was getting the better of me.

Samual took note.  'Andru,' he said. 'you have to believe it is going to break.'

The other great thing about that southern wood was how it smelled when it burned. It was like burning incense.

But there are lots of ways to be on the outside.

(*Might be cleverer to save this for another chapter)
But when it was time to leave the fire and interact with the people of Tuscon, the fire smell gave us away.
It was like an olfactory business card.
"andru McCracken, esquire, homeless, lifting your possessions and peeing in your streets is my business"
Wafting across the air currents, people knew who we were, what we stood for and what we were trying to do.
From 2 yards away you could smell we were homeless, even though we had good access to bathrooms at the nearby gas stations.
We were homeless bums, certainly alcoholics if not heroin addicts, probably capable of violence, who cared for nothing but a drink or getting high,  and our mission was to rip them off.
It's hard for me not to be slightly sympathetic to Tusconians. Tuscon is a magnet for homeless people because the climate is so mild.

There were throngs of us, always getting into trouble, slowing traffic, ripping people off, getting high. Always tugging at someone's heart strings for a quarter and always ready to let them down.
(*Careful with this)

Dress like you are homeless sometime. Get real dirty and smelly and then go out into public and just feel the loathing. It's incredible.It is amazing to be on the outside.