How Clouds Are Made

Two Silicon Valley natives struggle to stay human.

 

“Once you’ve lived it, you kind of develop a sixth sense about it,” explains Jim. He is six foot, maybe taller, balding, and is less concerned with specific dates or minute details. “There’s people like this all around you, but you don’t even know it.” He speaks at an easy pace, and doesn’t seem to realize he believes his own words until they’re hanging in the air.

“There are certain things,” adds Ellen, “but it’s usually the dirty shoes that give them away.” She emits a high-pitched, surprisingly young-girlish cackle, only cackle isn’t the right word. That’s for witches.

We’re sitting outside of a small sandwich café in a chilling breeze. Over the course of a few sliders, two cups of decaf with cream, and a hot cider, Jim and Ellen, in their matching forest-green jackets, candidly recount difficult circumstances and minor triumphs.

What you have to do, they go on to explain, is never pop your head up. If someone sees your head suddenly pop up, you’re dead. What has to happen is, you wake up at dawn before anyone else. And just in case someone does happen to see you getting up, make it look like you were bending over to the passenger’s side to pick something up—and you should actually grab something, just in case—and not make it look like you had been sleeping. And before you even get up, never have your windows rolled down all the way, because when cops do their rounds at night flashing their lights, it looks suspicious. Ellen also says how keeping a jar with a lid is useful in case you have to—you know—in the middle of the night.

And most importantly, Ellen says, with her head cocked liked Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange, make sure you never become institutionalized. Jim nods his head.

These are the things you learn after years of being homeless.