Last summer, WeCan employed a consultant to analyze its business structure. After intensive and very expensive research, the recommendation was that WeCan should pay their clients only four cents a can. “And of course we cannot do that. Our clients are people that have already been screwed most of their lives.”
Guy Polhemus has a dark, concerned look on his face as he poses behind his desk for a photo. On his desktop rests a small pyramid built from empty cans, behind him on his wall is a huge map of the world. “Yes, a journey around the world in a sailing boat, that is what I need,” he says. “Eight years of work, and still hassle and bullshit. I only deal with bureaucrats, lawyers and brewers. I hardly have time to stay in touch with the homeless. A shame, because we have wonderful personalities amongst our clients.”
Polhemus knows most canning people personally. I convey to him the kind regards of Wild Bob, and his face brightens up with a smile. “Yeah, Buffalo Bob, that’s what I used to call him. What a guy…” Polhemus confirms that Bob worked for a year as a decent and reliable worker before suddenly losing it and running away with a lot of cash. “That’s typical Bob,” says Polhemus forgivingly about the unfortunate events. “One year he works perfectly, then something goes wrong and suddenly he’s flipping out.” Bob was first employed as a security guard. He lived on WeCan’s premises in a little van between the bags of empty cans. “Nobody dared to come close when Bob was in his van,” Polhemus laughs. “He had long hair and a huge beard. Just like a werewolf. Kids ran away screaming when Bob walked down the street.” Several times Bob and Bernard invited Polhemus into the tunnel for coffee and to see the murals done by Chris Pape. “They have it way too good down there. They will never leave voluntarily,” Polhemus remarks.
Polhemus came to New York in the late ′70s to try out his luck as a copywriter. During a drunken night with colleagues, Polhemus made a bet about the Super Bowl. He lost, and as agreed had to work as a volunteer in the soup kitchen of a church in Lower Manhattan. Polhemus was at the entrance, handing out meal tickets and manning the coat check. “The homeless carried huge bags with cans I had to watch,” Polhemus tells me. “It was a zoo. After dinner there were always fights over who had which bag. The pastor got crazy and told me that he could not can’t handle it any longer in his church and that we had to find a solution.”
The homeless explained to Polhemus how difficult it was to redeem cans at the supermarket, notwithstanding their legal obligation to accept 240 cans per person per day. Polhemus could not believe that the supermarkets would tread on the few rights the homeless still had left. When Polhemus accompanied a few homeless people and saw with his own eyes the arrogant way supermarkets behaved, the idea for WeCan was born.
“It immediately became a total hit among the homeless,” Polhemus smiles. “Word was on the street and within two days our place was packed.” Since its opening at the end of 1987, WeCan has paid out twelve million dollars to can people, and created fifty full and part-time jobs. “We give people part of their pride and dignity back. We never pay cash, but a check they have to cash around the corner. That makes them feel like they got a paycheck. And we are no baby sitters. If our clients want to get high or drunk, it’s their problem. If they want help for their addiction, if they looking for continuing education or possibilities for alternative housing, then we can help them and refer them to the organizations we cooperate with. Unfortunately we cannot offer any services ourselves. Most of our money is spent on lawsuits.”
32. LORD OF THE TUNNEL AGAIN
After his bad start, Bernard has now seriously started two-for-oneing. We hardly see each other, because he works the night through. Five times a week, he helps Pier John. They start at midnight and work till six. In the morning the huge numbers of empties are put into a rented station wagon: crates in the back, bags tied on the top. Then they drive to WeCan, where they work another few hours to redeem the cans. At 9 AM, the working day is finished and Bernard has earned forty dollars.
Not a huge amount, but the two get along very well and Bernard sees his job with an experienced two-for-oner as a form of internship. Saturday and Sunday evenings, he works on his own on the sidewalk in front of Sloan’s. “The manager was impressed how organized and clean I worked compared with Tony,” Bernard says proudly. Slowly Bernard starts to save money. It helps that he’s slowed down on the crack. There are even days he doesn’t touch the stem.
Bernard is in a good mood while he tells me about his plans one morning over a bowl of hot oatmeal. He gives his money to his father in Harlem who is saving it for him and has promised a big bonus when his son has saved up his first thousand. Bernard is thinking about buying a small van he can use to drive all Pier John’s empties to WeCan, because the station wagon costs twenty dollars a trip. Sometimes Pier John has so many cans they have to make two trips. Bernard calculates that if he gets a van for fifteen hundred, he can make the money back in two months.
In another development, the movie people from Hollywood have contacted him and sent a first draft of the script. Bernard is now trying to get an advance, so he can furnish his apartment. When everything is over, he plans a long trip through Europe.
Behind us we hear rustling. In the dark space near the toilet facilities we see big white underpants floating in mid-air. They slowly rise and then disappear.
Slowly someone emerges from the black hole. It is Burk, who joins us at the fire while tying up his pants. Bernard offers him a bowl of oatmeal. Burk is leaning forward, the bowl on his lap, and uttering unintelligible sounds. Bernard has to turn the radio down to understand something.
“Downtown I met Batman. And Buddha coughed in my face.”
Bernard and I exchange puzzled looks.
“The bowl is hot,” he suddenly says. Irritated, Bernard gives him an old newspaper that he can put under his oatmeal. Burk is quiet for a while, rocking a bit on his chair, and then asks Bernard if he gets his welfare next week. Slowly he spoons up his oatmeal, and when the bowl is half empty, he trudges away without saying anything.
“Unbelievable,” Bernard sighs. “The guys walks fifteen blocks down to take a shit, in front of my kitchen of all places. He can’t even say thank you for breakfast.” Bernard tells me that Burk spent a long period in a clinic where they tried out all kind of drugs on him, turning him into a retarded child. Heavy crack use caused the additional mental damage. “But the motherfucker is not completely crazy. Knows exactly when I get my welfare check. And then he is knocking on my door for a hit. But what the fuck do I care. I have more important things on my mind.” He kicks away a cat and pours the coffee.
“Watch this, Turn,” he says, and goes into his place, to emerge a bit later with a big envelope. “The notorious movie script. They sent it yesterday from LA.”
Lord Of The Tunnel is the obvious title for the film. It is a heavily dramatized version of Bernard’s tunnel life. In the opening scene we see Bernard in a white, sterile room with a big spotlight focused on him. He is being subjected to a psychological evaluation. This scene slowly fades out and turns into flashbacks of Bernard’s life. We see him as a handsome young man posing on trendy fashion shows and photo shoots. We see Bernard the family man, who lives together with a beautiful black Broadway actress, raising a cute little baby.
Next scene. Bernard snorts coke and gets bad friends. The beautiful wife kicks him out of the house. Fast forward. Bernard is waiting for her at the artist exit at a Broadway theater. She ignores him with a haughty attitude and jumps in a cab. Bernard is heartbroken. A judge rules he is no longer allowed to see his child. The poor Bernard wanders the lonely, rainy streets of Manhattan. A gang of thugs beat him up and rob him of his last possessions. He wakes up in a puddle of blood under a bridge. As a beaten man, he wants to crawl into a hole in the ground, and he enters a huge, subterranean space. He gets lost in a labyrinth of tunnels and finally, completely exhausted, he bumps into Chris Pape. Illuminated by torches, Pape is spray painting graffiti on the tunnel walls. Pape fixes up the injured Bernard. Once healed and strong, Bernard decides to call the tunnel his new home. Pretty soon new people come to live in the tunnel and an eclectic, dynamic community comes into being. In dark caves, we see poets recite their poems in front of an audience of shabbily dressed homeless people. Intellectuals discuss the meaning of life with junkies and dropouts, blind violin players make music, and in every empty space, artists make huge reproductions of Dali, Goya, and el Greco. Nurses run a clinic where simple afflictions are treated with love and care; a crew of chefs prepares culinary masterpieces over an open fire.