Evasion.pdf

t was a romantic life, maybe to be looked back upon as the glory days of youth. If it was poverty it

was poverty only on paper. Poverty is a mathematical equation, an expression of how much one

can buy. What about how much we can steal? DoesnÓt that count for anything?!

And poverty in pocket means richness of experience. We had spent uneventful periods of our lives

paying rent and long practiced the dull habit of paying for things. But those years of school, work, and

middle-class lethargy are a blur. Being Ðborn againÑ for us wasnÓt finding ÐGod,Ñ but shedding

convenience. Then life began, and since then we remember each dumpster, abandoned house, and

foot-chase by retail security. At night, after running around, plotting and scheming, our checklist items

all crossed out, we paused to thinkÏWhat to do tomorrow?Ñ and the answer was always ÐAs we

pleaseÑ.

Unemployment when oneÓs role in life shifts from passive observer to active participant. When Ðevery

day is April FoolsÓ and every night Halloween.Ñ When we stopped shopping inside stores and began

shopping in back. When we stopped going to the mall to buy things and started going to collect

derelict baby strollers for the 75c refund. When we looked at the big, crazy urban chaos and suburban

sprawl, and it all began to look suspiciously close to a big playground.

Late night mob action advances on the thrift store donation bin, long bike rides through the industrial

ghetto, shopping cart races, and competitions to see just how many times we could make the ÐPolice

BlotterÑ column of the local paper. We left behind the other kids, their pathÏworking, drinking, and

being grown-upÏand rejected all that made them grumpy, uncreative, and lifeless. We dumpstered,

squatted, and shoplifted our lives back. Everything fell into place when we decided our lives were to

be lived. Life serves the risk taker.

Some of us read all day, others chanted and held signs, some were full-time defendants. Every day,

and every plan and plot were a reaffirmation that our lives were our own. Notebooks of conspiracies,

crimes, schemes, and maps to abandoned buildings. . . When everything was possible, but there

wasnÓt enough time for everything. And even though we never completed The Complete Manual for

Urban Survival, made the front page, aired the dumpster diving public access show, stole every ÐNo

SkateboardingÑ sign, or patched things up with the bread delivery guy from whose truck we stole fresh

bagels every morning, well then we were content knowing it was possible.

They said not working would never work. I mean, you have to eat right? We ate . . . we ate what they

threw away, whatever we could fit in a basket and walk out with. Ironic that as perceived ÐstrugglingÑ

and ÐstarvingÑ kids, we maybe gave away more than we ate. What does a vegan do with fifty

packages of Chips Ahoy anyway? And why did Walgreens throw them all away? We began to think

maybe they were on our side. Until the manager flew out the back door, shaking his fist, demanding to

know why we were in the dumpster. We explained our positions as Ðfree-lance excess reduction

engineers engaging in the reallocation of surplus.Ñ He told us to get a job. We reflected on past dives

in that very dumpsterÏthe functioning CD player, nutritional supplements, photo department discards

with scandalous pictures of former high school classmates. . . A job? ÐWell if you didnÓt make

unemployment so easy...

Our philosophies evolvedÏfrom general dislike of work, to the feeling of exploitation, then seeing the

American way of life for what it is and turning our backs to it.

Our skillz evolvedÏfrom starving, to subsisting on table scraps at the food court, to humbly scraping

by on discarded American excess, to an extensive dumpster diving/shoplifting course. And when we

felt like the craftiest kids in suburbia, a new all-you-can-eat salad bar would open and we would laugh

at suburbiaÓs endlessly accommodating nature. ÐWhatÓs next? Dumpstering money at the bank?Ñ

Somehow, at that time, in that place, it seemed possible. But the easily liquidated video games from

Blockbuster were just as good, and we found plenty of those...

ÐYouÓre not free. . .Ð they would say on their way to work, ÐyouÓre homeless and youÓre poor.Ñ Money

means freedom? It was an interesting theory. One we ponder on long plane rides overseas and

cross-country car trips. Homeless? If rent legitimizes a residence, we were homelessÏbecause in our

house, we didnÓt pay any.

They said, ÐYou canÓt live this way forever.Ñ Some of us agreed, and secretly planned to leave youth

behind one day. Others thoughtÏÑWeÓre good now, in ten years weÓll be pros, in twenty weÓll conquer

the world!Ñ Some hoped not. They wished people wouldnÓt throw so much awayÏfood, books, whole

buildings. That one day the means of production would be returned to the people so we wouldnÓt need

their food, or their old houses. They made the mess, may as well dance in it. Some of us shrugged

and said, ÐWhy not?Ñ Others found the implication odd that they could live their way foreverÏworking

and drinking and watching TVÏand why they would want to.

Could it last forever? We wondered, and while we played and plotted against the Man, none of us

wanted to acknowledge the impending obsolescence of our lifestyle, signs they wouldnÓt let us get

away with our fun forever. The loose door on our favorite apartment building hot tubÏfixed. Video and

police night surveillance of the thrift store. Dumpsters being replaced by trash compactors. Our

favorite supermarket removing their microwave, and along with it our simple pleasures that fueled the

fightÏoatmeal, tea, and the only method we knew of to freshen a stale bagel. Then the same

supermarket stopped leaving out the keys to the motorized handicapped shopping carts and we had

to begin walking home...

Some of us went off to school, or went gangsta. Others crossed the line into a bourgeois void. Some

of us are still here, taking the holy war national and even global. Back in the old hood one can still find

scars in the landscape from a time when some of us lived dangerously. Signs of ancient battles when

we armed ourselves with ambition, passion, stale bagels, and fought backÏthe salt water residue

around the dollar slots of every Coke machine in town, blotted out graffiti, and the crowbar marks in

the door of the poor old lady whose decayed home turned out not to be abandoned...

Something happened when we quit our jobs, quit paying rent, quit paying for anything. And I think

back to the early daysÏwhen, like clouds parting to reveal the sun, we discovered what we were told

had been lies, that it could be done, and that it would mean the time of our lives.

Those first moments. . . A new house, a new life. . . Artists, vandals, philosophers. . . Up on our

favorite rooftop, with a view of the city, passing dumpstered granola and thinkingÏ ÐMaybe weÓre on

to something. . .Ð

additional copies of this book can be obtained for $6ppd from:

CrimethInc. HQ

2695 Rangewood Dr.

Atlanta GA 30345

USA

or get current information at:

www.crimethinc.com

anti- 2001

Printed on recycled paper in Canada.

Excluding all corporations, the text from this book may be reproduced without permission in any form

and quantity by any means necessary.

All events transpiring within these pages are purely fictionalÏso, no, you canÓt use this as evidence,

grounds for prosecution, entries in the Guinness Book of World Records or to develop crushes. All

scams, crimes, the taking of food without paying, the cool part where our antagonist sleeps in a ditch,

and the book in its entirety are offered for informational purposes only.

The author will not he held accountable for the use or misuse of the information contained withinÏno

matter how righteous or liberating.

All names appear as they are to expose the guilty. If you are a lawyer or somehow involved in law

enforcement you can now stop reading this. For the rest of us: imagine a world where we donÓt have

to say all this disclaimer nonsenseÏ what do you think this section would say then?

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