I have been to many places in my line of work but none as awful as Tent City

I have been working as a mailman for 35 years and have seen many things during my time. I have been bitten and attacked by vicious dogs, hit in the balls by a girl on a trampoline, and even had a mean peacock ruin my pants. I have worked in many cities and have seen my fair share of slums. I have delivered mail to many ghettos and run down buildings but nothing could have prepared me for Tent City.<br><br>I had just transferred to a new city and was given a route I had never seen before. A young girl said she would show me the way things were done around here and we got started early in the morning. She had been a mailman for a year now and she knew this route inside and out. It was a Monday morning and it was quite chilly. I looked around and noticed how nice the houses were. The road was paved well and the grass was cut. Everyone’s house was nice and it reminded me of a typical small town where everyone knows each other and got along. We walked at a good pace and I was a little sore. This was the first time I had walked in such cold weather with so much weight in my mail bag in a long time. We walked for about a mile before we came to a small park. There were a few kids playing on the swings and a couple teenagers sitting in the grass listening to music. I thought nothing of it until we turned a corner and everything changed.<br><br>Holy shit. It was like a fucking war zone. I had walked through shitty ghettos before but this was on an entirely different level. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It reeked of death, mold, smoke, and urine. There was trash all along the streets and I could smell a cat nearby. It was a short street of about eight houses that were upside down. They were all turned upside down. Like someone literally picked them up and flipped them so the roof that had been on the ground, was now in the air and the ground that was facing up towards the sky was now buried into the ground. They were all boarded up and broken down. They looked as if they had been abandoned for years and all of the houses on the street were like this.<br><br>I asked the girl, “What in the fuck is this?”<br><br>She kind of chuckled and said, “This was a street used for training. They would use this street to train construction workers and builders and stuff. They have abandoned it for years now.”<br><br>I was confused and asked “Why the hell would they turn the houses upside down?”<br><br>She replied, “I’m not entirely sure why the houses were turned upside down but the houses they were practicing on had become damaged and I think they just used some heavy machinery and turned them upside down as some sort of strange ritual. This street wasn’t legal to build on anymore and the houses were ruined so I doubt they had much of a choice but to turn them upside down.”<br><br>I had never seen this before, not even in my training. The street was short and we were out of it in a minute. After that, it just got worse. All of the houses were broken down and sooner or later we were out of the houses. We were in the sticks now. There were a few buildings here and there that looked like they were abandoned. There was a lot of plywood and broken glass. We walked down the road and I saw a tarp sitting right next to a big building. It was big, it looked like a small house tarp. A bunch of dirty looking men stood outside of it. They were all dirty, had mullets, and wore dirty leather jackets. They were smoking drugs and some of them were just passed out right on the ground.<br><br>I asked the girl again, “What in the fuck is this?”<br><br>She replied, “I really think you should have gotten a different route. You don’t seem like you can handle this route very well.”<br><br>I said, “No, I’m going to be fine. I’m just a little confused. Where are we?”<br><br>“I think you should call for assistance.” She said.<br><br>I refused and told her to continue on. We walked for about twenty minutes down a very long road. When I finally thought it was over, we turned another corner and holy shit. Welcome to Tent City. Hundreds of tents lined the streets. Some were small, some were big, some were in good condition, some were torn, ripped, broken down, and completely destroyed. There was trash all along the streets and every once in a while there would be a small shack of some sort. I guess they were old buildings. They were broken down but still had a bit of life in them. There were residents outside of many of the tents drinking, smoking, and doing a variety of drugs. Many were passed out on the ground. I saw a woman that was topless and completely drunk, staggering around. She had a bottle of whiskey in her hand and soon fell on the ground and started puking everywhere. A few people walked by her and laughed and some completely ignored her. I felt bad and I watched as she tried to wipe her own puke off of herself. I watched as a man and a woman did heroin in a small shack with broken windows right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it. I was in awe. I had never seen anything like this before. I was amazed. I was disgusted. I was sad. I was happy. I was so confused.<br><br>I asked the girl again, “Where are we?”<br><br>She said, “This is Tent City. We have a special permit to deliver mail here. You’ll become familiar with it the more you come here and you’ll figure out where everyone lives. It can be confusing because there are so many residents living here.”<br><br>I was in shock and I couldn’t reply. I just followed her in silence as we delivered the mail. Many of the residents yelled at us, some of them tried to fight us, some of them spat on us, and some of them even tried to steal mail from us. I was in awe. I had never seen anything like this before. I had never imagined a place like this existing. I didn’t know how to react. I was so shocked that I just kept watching everything that was happening. I was so intrigued that it was like I couldn’t look away from it. I was disgusted with the living conditions but I was so happy to see that these people had a place to live. A place to call home. Something to lean on when they felt like they had nothing else. I couldn’t believe the conditions they lived in, but I was happy to see they all looked out for each other. This was my new route and I couldn’t wait to learn more about it. I couldn’t wait to get familiar with the residents. I couldn’t wait to get to know them. I couldn’t wait to learn more about this place called Tent City.<br><br>&#x200B;