In 1993 there were so many homeless in Rotterdam that a local politician said well if we’re not going to build them housing we ought to at least give them boxes. And so the homeless box was created. Briefly it was distributed to the homeless citizens of Rotterdam, especially during inclement weather. Since then a shelter has been built for them. Only a dozen boxes remain, unused, in Holland. One found its way to New York and I was invited to live in it for a week. I chose to live at the corner of Madison and 73rd, under the watchful eye of Nest.
I bought a turquoise mat at Integral Yoga, a soft, spongy piece of foam to separate me from the chill of the sidewalk. Over this I would lay my royal blue sleeping bag.
My box is lit with a Coleman lamp. It burns a thousand hours, spays a sunny whiteness everywhere, and I’ve got a short book by Vivekanada and a mildewy collection of John O’Hara stories. I think I’m safe.
Have you ever slept on the streets of the city. I’m two steps down, the steps block my window so I can’t see out. It’s sound, the night, pure sound. My guard is across the street so I shove my arm beneath my head as if were home, and I am. I listen.
A rush of sounds, millions of them, cars-bird sounds, then a gigantic garbage cruncher from the restaurant next door and then a monstrous truck heading up Madison, raising the ante, yowling. Just unbelievable, as if it were competing with all the other noise. Then it stops. And everything’s utterly still. It’s two o’clock. A quick brushing sound that passes, a bike I guess but more wickery, creaking, and I want to sleep and I don’t look up.
Cardboard smells like dusty grass. It’s a membrane that keeps the rain and the snow away. It hides my identity. It’s practically language, costume. It’s so thin a home.
Midnight Run a voice yells, distantly. It can’t mean me, I’m struggling to sleep. Midnight Run. I come up through the seams of the box-I burst up on a smiling man and his round-faced son. We’re Midnight Run-do you need anything. We’ve got some food, coffee, socks, blankets-are you warm enough?
I want to tell him I’m not me, not it, not one of them-Is this your usual spot, he asks?
No…I’m new around here.
Next night, raining again. I nestle under the scaffolding around the building. It’s a good solid roof. The box is bent, my roof is pinched, the cardboard’s dented. The literature from the manufacturer says the box lasts a month depending on how you treat it. I brought some flowers tonight. Blue ones. I’m getting a cold. I’m in there with the clock and the book and the flowers and the different blues of the mat and the sleeping bag, and yet all I can think about is my heart. Inside a box you are supremely aware of the new layer of protection. One I haven’t mentioned is jeans. I’ve worn them day and night all week. They’re faded indigo, baggy, the right knee torn. They don’t stink, but have a damp human smell that feels like having a pet. I close my eyes, obsessed with my heart, opening and closing, it might stop beating. I’m lying on the sidewalk in a box. The downpour is tremendous and I know my box won’t survive this night. The red heart in my chest is squinting like a fist. I see green grass and I smell it, like a vision, and I think I’m dead but I realize it’s flowers, blue ones, that I smell.
I see my friends crossing the street. They’ve come to visit. It was raining hard. I put my little house on the sidewalk in front of 28 E 73rd and I placed the lantern inside and it glowed and my friends took pictures. I looked across the street at the guys in their boxes. All boarded up. I felt jealous. By now John and Kathleen are circling and critiquing the box. Who designed this? A student, a Dutch design student, Raymond Voogt. I could do better says Kathleen. Yeah it’s terrible said Jim, a designer. You would just make a little frame, something light, aluminum, and you would have a few hoops, you could just fold it over your arm. That’s a great idea, said John. I’ll make a drawing, said Kathleen. You should. Let’s go. Everyone’s standing shivering in the rain. We were here at the end cheered John, as I threw the box in the trunk of a cab. I was taking it home.
Excerpt from Eileen Myles The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art
238, 239-242.
