Evicted_ Poverty and Profit in the American City - Matthew Desmond Page 0,25

be short. But Sherrena was betting that Arleen could put in a few calls to family members or nonprofit agencies. Arleen took the deal because she had no other option.

Sherrena and Quentin were in the Suburban when Arleen called around the beginning of the next month. Sherrena hung up and looked at Quentin. “Arleen said her check didn’t come.”

This was a half-truth. Arleen had received a check, but not for $628. She had missed an appointment with her welfare caseworker, completely forgetting about it. A reminder notice was mailed to Atkinson, or was it Nineteenth Street? When Arleen didn’t show, the caseworker “sanctioned” Arleen by decreasing her benefit.8 Arleen could have given Sherrena her reduced check, but she thought it was better to be behind and have a few hundred dollars in her pocket than be behind and completely broke.

Quentin kept his eyes on the road. “Story of they life,” he said.

6.

RAT HOLE

Three generations of Hinkstons lived in the brownish-white house on Eighteenth and Wright, the one in front of Lamar’s. Doreen was the mother hen. Broad-shouldered and broad-bellied, she was a moonfaced woman with glasses and dark-brown freckles flecking her lighter cheeks. For as long as she could remember, she had been overweight and tended to move slowly through her days. Doreen had four children—Patrice, Natasha, C.J., and Ruby, ages twenty-four, nineteen, fourteen, and thirteen—and three grandchildren from Patrice: ten-year-old Mikey and his two younger sisters: Jada, four; and Kayla Mae, two. There was also a dog, Coco, a football-sized ankle-biter loyal only to Natasha.

After Patrice received Sherrena’s eviction papers and moved herself and her children from their upper unit to the downstairs apartment where Doreen lived with Natasha, C.J., and Ruby, all eight Hinkstons (and Coco) found themselves living together in a small, cramped space. Patrice, Natasha, and C.J. responded by spending as much time as they could out of the house, walking the block in good weather or passing evenings in the back apartment, playing spades with Lamar. But at night, everyone packed in. Patrice claimed the smaller of the two bedrooms. If she was going to pay half the rent, she argued, then she should get one bedroom to herself, even if it didn’t have a door. In the other bedroom, Doreen and Natasha shared the bed while Ruby curled up in a chair at night. Mikey bedded down with C.J. on a sheetless single mattress in the living room, next to the glass table and head-high piles of clean and dirty clothes that didn’t fit in the bedrooms. Patrice’s daughters slept in the dining room on a single mattress, its corners split open, exposing innards of springs and etiolated foam.

No one slept well. Natasha had a habit of kicking Doreen in her sleep, and Doreen had a habit of rolling over on Natasha or stealing Natasha’s pillow and hitting her with it when she tried to tug it back. The older children often missed the early-morning school bus. The little ones fell asleep at random times throughout the day. Doreen would come out of the kitchen to find their tiny heads resting on the table or some piece of clothing on the floor.

The worst night’s sleep always came on the eve of your birthday. If you fell asleep that night, you could be sure that Patrice would sneak into your room and smear mayonnaise or ketchup on your face. For the past six years, the Hinkstons hadn’t been able to celebrate Christmas—they didn’t have the money. But on your birthday, you woke up smiling with goo on your face and a cake on the table. The Hinkstons loved pranking one another. Once Natasha put pepper in Patrice’s underwear. Patrice retaliated by sneaking Ruby out of the house on a day Natasha was put in charge of watching her younger sister. When Natasha noticed Ruby was gone, she spent the next several hours patrolling the neighborhood, frantically searching.

The Hinkstons’ rear door was off its hinges. The walls were pockmarked with large holes. There was one bathroom. Its ceiling sagged from an upstairs leak, and a thin blackish film coated its floor. The kitchen windows were cracked. A few dining-room windows had disheveled miniblinds, broken and strung out in all directions. Patrice hung heavy blankets over the windows facing the street, darkening the house. A small television sat on a plywood dresser in the living room, next to a lamp with no shade.

After Patrice had moved downstairs, Sherrena discovered that she had been pirating electricity. The meter-repair