“Hey everyone, Harry here at the tent city seeing if I can find someone who’s hungry.” The voice was coming from behind the view, as the camera view itself bounced along to the pace of the speaker’s walking. “I stopped at City Lights Deli and picked up a bag full of sandwiches. They didn’t want to be in the video, but here’s a shout out anyway.”
The walking stopped in front of a pop-up tent surrounded by signs of urban decay: Grass peeking in tufts through cracked asphalt, shards of broken bottles, spray painted marking of road repair that likely never happened, a dead rat curled into a pile of brown leaves.
“Hello, anyone in there?” Harry called out.
An apparently masculine head peaked out of the opening: Long hair, but a month or so’s beard growth.
They squinted up at the camera. “What?”
“I’m just trying to find someone willing to trade a sandwich for a story.”
The person emerged from the tent and knelt upright on the dirty asphalt. “What kind of story? And what kind of sandwich?”
“The story of how you got here. And corned beef, stacked high on rye bread.” A hand, presumably Harry’s, appeared at the bottom of the frame. “Let’s start with your name.”
“You can call me Jennifer.”
“Is that your name?”
“What’s a name? You can call me Jennifer.”
“So, okay. Jennifer. How did you get here?”
Jennifer opened the sandwich’s clamshell and sniffed at it suspiciously. “I walked.”
“No, I mean… how did you wind up homeless?”
She opened the sandwich and inspected the meat, then poked the pickle spear out onto the ground with a cracked fingernail. “What’s your name?” she asked, still staring at the meat.
“I’m Harry.” The hand appeared again, this time to give a thumb’s up to the audience.
“Well, Harry, when I was fourteen years old, I was the golden child. I was in a gifted program at school.” She pulled a slice of beef off the sandwich and dropped it into her mouth, and started chewing. “I was full of promise. But I had a different name then, and a different future.”
“So what happened?”
“I told my father I was a daughter, not a son. And that was that.” She ate another slice of beef, then counted the slices that were remaining. “How much more story do I owe you?”
“That’s terrible, I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not. I’m just someone to monetize with corned beef sandwiches. How many views will I give you?”
Harry paused, then tried again: “So you were thrown out for being transgender?”
“Age fifteen. Autistic. Transgender. I lived in a teen shelter for a while, and then I got too old for that, too. Golden boy, garbage girl.” She continued to drop slices of meat into her mouth, chewing it slowly, staring challengingly at the camera. “Ten years since I was thrown out, and this is where I am now.”
“That really is terrible.” Harry did his best to sound sympathetic, but there was also a boredom rolling under his tone.
Jennifer flashed her eyebrows upward. “You probably want me to thank you for the sandwich, but that’s not going to happen.”
“Well, you’re welcome for it anyway.”
“Goodbye, Harry.”
And she disappeared back into the tent with the rest of her sandwich.