The Blog

Fritz and Robert in the Bat Cave

We fin­ished at the recy­cling about 12:30PM. It was an unusu­al­ly hot day and Fritz seemed a bit agi­tat­ed by the heat or his obvi­ous desire for anoth­er beer. He turned to me and said, “ well are you done or do you want to see more of what life on the streets is like? Robert and I are going to the Bat Cave. It’s where I camp.   It can be rough going but I’ll take you there.” He looked at me with a seri­ous stare and I felt a twinge of appre­hen­sion come over me. It was if he was dar­ing me to go with them or test­ing my com­mit­ment to telling the whole sto­ry of life on the streets. I had only known Fritz for about a month and Robert even less but some­thing inside me said it would be safe to go.

Fritz Nav­i­gates the Rough Terrain

I parked my car by a load­ing dock behind a large gro­cery store, grabbed my cam­era and fol­lowed my two guides down a steep, over­grown embank­ment, which led to a small creek bed. We fol­lowed the path along the creek about 50 yards and came to a high­way under­pass. The area was lit­tered with trash, old rust­ed out bed­springs and a shop­ping cart. I asked Fritz if this was where he slept and just motioned me up and point­ed to the high­way under­pass in the dis­tance.  The path was cov­ered with large pro­trud­ing roots and boul­ders and had a steep grade toward the creek. It was dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate dur­ing the day and I couldn’t imag­ine man­ag­ing my way at night.   The cars pass­ing over­head were loud and I thought no one could hear you down here.   We came out from the under­pass, climbed anoth­er steep embank­ment and came out on a high­way off ramp. Star­ing at oncom­ing traf­fic, we edged our way along the shoul­der only to cross the guardrail and down anoth­er steep slope. Under that high­way under­pass was the “Bat Cave.”

Fritz and Robert Make Their Way Along The Off Ramp

Robert and Fritz set­tled in at the high­est point between two bridge abut­ments, opened their beers and start­ed to rum­mage through their bags from the morn­ing recy­cling trip. I asked Fritz how long he lived here and why?   He told me that this was his camp for the last 8 years or so. “This place is off the beat­en path and it gives me cov­er when it rains and most impor­tant it gives me some pro­tec­tion.” He went on to explain that the bridge abut­ments and con­crete foun­da­tion pro­vides pro­tec­tion on three sides so the only way some­one could approach him was from the front. “I’m at the high­est point and there is a steep slope down to the creek. I could eas­i­ly push some­one down the bank and get away if I need­ed to espe­cial­ly at night”

Bat Cave

Recy­cling Bounty

I spent about an hour or so with Fritz and Robert in the “Bat Cave” tak­ing pho­tos, ask­ing ques­tions and learn­ing about who they are and how they end­ed up on the street. But that will have to wait until next time.

If you have a ques­tion for Fritz or Robert please sub­mit it via the con­tact form or the com­ments section.