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    Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets
    Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets
    Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets
    Ebook106 pages2 hours

    Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets

    By John Luciew

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    About this ebook

    Meet America’s secret society of millennial migrants
    "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...” These young, modern drifters have rejected all the bedrock tenets of American society, shunning aspirations of getting a job and having a home. These millennial migrants would rather be free. Their underground movement has grown into somewhat of a secret society that hides in plain sight as they travel the country on the cheap.
    They are "Dirty Kids." It is a reference to both their disheveled appearance and the pungent body odor that most wear like a badge of honor.
    This true story reveals the often-filthy secrets behind their make-shift society, taking you inside this counter-culture movement that is always on the move.
    Despite their deep disillusionment, Dirty Kids talk of wanderlust and freedom, embracing the idealistic ethos of the open road, just like Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac before them.
    But their hard life on the streets takes its toll. Many Dirty Kids don’t expect to live to see their mid-30s. They risk becoming a generation, lost. But not before enjoying the ride, crisscrossing the highways, backstreets and railways of America, on their own terms, and often, on their own two feet.
    Taken together, their stories stand as a modern, millennial generation mash-up of hippie and hobo culture, an itinerants’ tale that is never anything less than engrossing.
    Their itinerary is pure chance. Their destination, unknown. But the ride is free. And so, these Dirty Kids believe, are they...
    *This e-book single contains 28,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Luciew
    Release dateJun 4, 2016
    ISBN9781311132130
    Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets
    Author

    John Luciew

    BREAKING NEWS!! All five of my full-length mystery/thrillers are coming soon in unabridged audio form. ZERO TOLERANCE and KILL THE STORY are already out for 2013 from Audible.com. SECRETS OF THE DEAD is up for full sound-recording treatment next, followed by FATAL DEAD LINES and my newest mystery, LAST CASE. I hope you will check them out. Some serious voice talent has been brought to bear to turn my best ripped-from-the-headlines page-turners into a can't-stop-listening, white-knuckle audio mystery experiences. Now, a little more about me and my books: Journalist John Luciew is the author of numerous ripped-from-the-headlines fictional thrillers that mix politics, corporate power and pulse-pounding suspense, including: KILL THE STORY, ZERO TOLERANCE, SECRETS OF THE DEAD, FATAL DEAD LINES, CORPORATE CUNNING, and now, LAST CASE. His non-fiction titles include the true-crime account, SUSPECT/VICTIM, and the real-life medical thriller, "CATASTROPHIC." FROM THE AUTHOR: If Hollywood was ever going to make a movie of one of my books, KILL THE STORY would be the one. It has everything -- a high concept, a deepening mystery rooted in actual events and more off-beat but convincingly real characters than you can count. This is journalism as I saw it -- both from the outside looking in and the inside out. It says nearly everything I have to say about the state of media today -- all without slowing the non-stop action one little bit. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it. Lenny Holcomb, my first literary character, spoke to me in much the same way the dead people of his obituaries speak to him. But after my first book, FATAL DEAD LINES, I found out Lenny and the dead people from his obits had more to say. Much more. SECRETS OF THE DEAD, a specially updated sequel, completes Lenny Holcomb's intriguing saga, finally presenting his incredible story in full. I hope you enjoy it, discovering the many narrative arcs that bridge both books and come to a full and satisfying resolution by the final page. ZERO TOLERANCE Is probably my most unique and unconventional book -- a thriller set in the cloaked, cloistered world of juvenile justice. Namely, a youth reform camp set in the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pa. It also stands as my most researched novel to date. As a journalist, I spent years covering the Pennsylvania juvenile justice system at a time when the penalties and punishments for young offenders were being ratcheted up. All that authenticity is here -- along with a highly original plot that will have you guessing until the very last page. LAST CASE, my newest thriller, is set in 1978, just as acclaimed horror director George A. Romero is gearing up to shoot his zombie cult classic "Dawn of the Dead" in the Monroeville Mall, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was a bit too young back in 1978 to offer my able body as one of Romero's delightfully desiccated corpses in "Dawn of the Dead." But I will never, ever forget watching the Monroeville Mall - a place where I shopped for school clothes and cruised for girls - turned into a splatter-filled shopping fest for the undead. I guess you could say it's haunted me all these years. --jcl, Feb./2013

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      Book preview

      Dirty Kids, Filthy Secrets - John Luciew

      DIRTY KIDS/

      FILTHY SECRETS

      A true story of America’s millennial migrants

      By

      John Luciew

      Cover design by James David Luciew

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      © Copyright 2016 by John Luciew

      Author’s Note:

      This e-book is based on my journalism first published by The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa. Special thanks to photographer Emily Kask who first introduced me to the hidden world of Dirty Kids and proved invaluable in finding our subjects.

      Part One: Arrival

      1

      Carlisle, Pa., didn’t figure into any of their plans as they traveled America, coast to coast. Yet as fate would have it, they end up there, nonetheless. And because the accommodations are so good and some of the local population is not only welcoming, but freely offering them money, it’s no wonder Chris and Kelly and their German shepherd, Shadow, end up staying for months.

      The local visitors’ bureau and the tourism association would be proud, except Chris and Kelly aren’t your typical tourists. They don’t inject much money into the local economy, although they do spend food stamps and live on other people’s donations. There are no hotel stays, either, except for very rare occasions when they meet up with like-minded others, pool their cash and throw down a party of epic proportions. That’s one thing these cash-strapped travelers always seem to find – money, along with alcohol and, on occasion, drugs.

      Why not live it up? They’re on vacation, after all. A permanent one. And their only agenda is to greet every new day on its own terms and see where the day – and the next free ride or kindly cash handout – takes them.

      They are what’s known as ‘Dirty Kids.’ Although at 30, sporting a paunch and balding beneath his ball cap, Chris is no kid. He’s been doing this going on 15 years. Kelly is 24, but Dirty Kids aren’t defined by age, race, income strata or, even, mode of travel.

      Rather, it’s more of a mindset. A way of life. A secret society. One that travels the rails, thumbs cross-country rides with truckers, hikes the highways and dwells in the shadows of cities, large and small, subsisting mostly on the kindness of strangers.

      At the heart of the Dirty Kid movement is a wholesale rejection of traditional American society and what they see as its consumer-driven capitalism, along with all the stressed-out, money-focused, commerce-crazed, budget-crunched people the system seems to breed.

      Dirty Kids deal with all of this by doing precisely the opposite.

      Namely, they have no schedule. Usually no money, either, except for what strangers or, sometimes, their families, give them. They purchase little, aside from food, booze and their travel gear. And the vast majority are so hygiene-challenged that pungent body odor announces their presence from several feet away. Many favor grungy clothing to go along with their grungy grooming.

      For transportation, some thumb rides from truckers and hike when they can’t hitch. Some hop the rails, an increasingly dangerous mode of travel that has cost some Dirty Kids their limbs and even their lives. A few cobble together enough money to purchase a van and fuel it with gas, crisscrossing the country to attended counter-culture music festivals, rainbow gatherings, and back-country parties and meet-ups, while seeing every corner of the country, meeting as many of their kind as they can, and soaking up every last experience possible.

      In their eyes, the road and the country are free – and so are they.

      It goes by a lot of names, explains Chris, a.k.a. No Man, speaking from his woods-sheltered campsite just off Hanover Street near the Interstate 81 exchange outside of Carlisle.

      You’ll hear us called Dirty Kids, traveling kids. I prefer the term hitchhiker because that’s my main mode of operation. We also do a lot of just good, old fashion footwork, too.

      Whatever the name, this nomadic lifestyle has kept Chris on the highways and byways of America for 15 years and counting. There have been detours, of course. Stints when he’s off the road, either back home in Florida, or out west where he met Kelly three years ago now. Back then, she was a college student in Oregon looking to become a small business owner.

      In between, Chris has logged tens of thousands of miles all over the country. His favorite stops are New Orleans, California and Oregon, where he says it is particularly easy to sign up for food stamps as a migrant and then keep collecting the monthly $180 benefit via debit card, anywhere in the county. To remain on the rolls, one simply calls in from the road every six months, checking in with a caseworker. As long as the recipient doesn’t settle in another state, he or she can keep collecting.

      You can’t really starve to death in America, declares Chris, who is currently collecting food stamps from Florida. There’s food everywhere.

      This is the first secret of being a Dirty Kid: There is such a thing as a free lunch. A free breakfast and dinner, too. Without it, there would be no fuel for their free-range cross-country travels.

      But what drives them?

      2

      Freedom or Nothing Left to Lose?

      Janis Joplin once famously sang, Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

      For Dirty Kids, it’s a little of both.

      Many are driven to the road by deep disillusion with what mainstream America has to offer. Namely, going to school, getting a job, having someplace to live, paying bills, and working for decades. Others talk of a growing itch anytime they stay in one place too long. The itch only intensifies the more they attempt to adapt to conventional society.

      Some are running away from abusive homes or their own boredom with small-town America. Others are explorers, adventure-seekers and experience junkies from upper-middle-class upbringings. Their travels are fully funded by permissive parents.

      All qualify as Dirty Kids. This secret society has a big tent.

      Kelly, a.k.a. Squirrel, says she developed the itch back when she was doing all those things society and her upbringing told her to do. But upon meeting Chris and hearing his stories culled from more than a decade on the road, she began thinking that perhaps the conventional American Dream wasn’t for her. In time, she became obsessed with the idea of an alternative path, and she ended up falling for Chris, a one-time Grateful Dead follower with a pensive demeanor and penchant for tie-dyed T-shirts.

      I was going for small business, Kelly says of her college goals. I wasn’t sure at that time -- still wouldn’t be sure now -- what kind of small business.

      Back then, Chris, who accomplished his first complete cross-country hitch at age 22, was trying to be conventional, himself. He was married and in college. It was there that he and his wife and Kelly and her boyfriend became close.

      But Chris still waxed poetic about his years on the road, a certain yearning in his voice. And Kelly was being seduced in more ways than one. By the time Chris’s marriage imploded and Kelly’s mainstream American dreams were ringing hollow, escape beckoned.

      My feet would start itching, explains Chris, who first took to the road to follow his favorite bands and to escape small-town boredom.

      That was going on two years ago now. Chris and Kelly were headed to Maine when fate and a kindly trucker brings them to Carlisle, pulling into the long line of truck stops in Middlesex Township.

      This is the route that brings many Dirty Kids to the midstate. Not choice or planning, but rather central Pennsylvania’s nexus of interstates and railways that act as a funnel. Dirty Kids travel in and out of the midstate, right along with all the rail and truck freight that traverses the area’s transportation hubs.

      Happenstance, Chris explains. We got offered a ride, and Carlisle is where that ride brought us. You never quite know where you’re gonna wake up, or what life’s gonna bring your way.

      For Dirty Kids, this is the very definition of freedom.

      And, if you don’t like the scenery, you just find some new scenery, Chris adds.

      As it turns out, the scenery was just fine in Carlisle. So was the hospitality – and the handouts.

      3

      A

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