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Speaker 1: Jessa heads up. This episode discusses death in a tragic fire.

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Speaker 1: Take care of yourselves, and if you're a new listener,

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Speaker 1: this is our ninth episode, make sure you start with

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Speaker 1: episode one. It had been more than a year since

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Speaker 1: I first started exploring the rails, but finally Ruby was

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Speaker 1: about to come home. Ruby called and told me she

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Speaker 1: was approaching San Francisco in the Jesus Metro, that car

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Speaker 1: that she and her boyfriend were given by a devout

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Speaker 1: Christian on their way through Washington. Along the way, they'd

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Speaker 1: picked up a few passengers and another dog. The image

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Speaker 1: of this vehicle crossing the Golden gate Bridge made me

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Speaker 1: grin every time it popped into my mind. But there

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Speaker 1: was no longer a home for Ruby to return to

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Speaker 1: now that I had downsized for my apartment in Oakland

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Speaker 1: was living in the barn, and I knew she wouldn't

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Speaker 1: call me first, but at some point she would. When

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Speaker 1: she did, Ruby said she already had a place to stay,

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Speaker 1: a house near the railroad tracks in Oakland, the Woe Mansion.

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Speaker 1: Her Rimmis were several women who had also gotten off

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Speaker 1: the rails, at least for a while. A few days later,

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Speaker 1: we went out to breakfast. She looked great, happy, healthy,

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Speaker 1: and full of energy to begin her new life. It

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Speaker 1: was almost unbelievable to be sitting with her at a

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Speaker 1: cafe near jack London Square, hearing about her plans and

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Speaker 1: how she needed to get a job, but she wanted

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Speaker 1: no help. She could do it all herself. But after

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Speaker 1: she'd been home two months, Ruby still hadn't answered a

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Speaker 1: single question about her life on the rails. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know anything more than what I'd been able to piece

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Speaker 1: together during our sporadic phone calls when she was away. Instead,

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Speaker 1: Ruby just patiently told me that I'd never understand, and

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Speaker 1: she didn't want to explain. But every day I wondered

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Speaker 1: if this was the morning I'd wake up to find

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Speaker 1: that she'd left again. Honestly, I didn't see much reason

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Speaker 1: she would stay. She had a soul destroying job that

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Speaker 1: offered meager wages. Ruby was working as a peachypuff Girl,

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Speaker 1: a freelance cigarette girl required to dress in a sexy

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Speaker 1: Halloween costume as she took a tray of cigarettes, candy,

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Speaker 1: and condoms around the nightclubs of San Francisco, being insulted

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Speaker 1: in proposition by tech bros. Until the last call if

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Speaker 1: this was the working world. I didn't see anything holding

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Speaker 1: her to this side of the tracks. And then late

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Speaker 1: in December we got the news. It was an unusually

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Speaker 1: cold night in New Orlands. Squatters were blamed for a

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Speaker 1: warehouse far that killed eight people. A couldaver dog searches

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Speaker 1: the remains of an abandoned warehouse. They didn't know how

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Speaker 1: many people were actually in the build, and were so

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Speaker 1: badly burned that officials couldn't immediately determine the sexes or

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Speaker 1: ages of the victims. We'd be called to tell me

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Speaker 1: about the fire. She knew where the warehouse was and

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Speaker 1: had met people staying there when she lived for a

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Speaker 1: while in New Orleans. I could hear from her voice

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Speaker 1: that Ruby was shaken. Eight of her peers had died,

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Speaker 1: and when we got off the phone, I shut my

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Speaker 1: eyes to absorb the news. When Ruby was out on

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Speaker 1: the rail, I was most afraid she'd die in a

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Speaker 1: squat fire. I'd had that nightmare too many times to count,

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Speaker 1: and I thought about the parents of the eight who died.

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Speaker 1: What were they going through? Instantly I wanted to go

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Speaker 1: to New Orleans. Well, the news stopped short of any

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Speaker 1: real specifics I knew better than to dismiss the ape

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Speaker 1: who died as merely homeless. I knew how they died,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't know how they had lived, what forces

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Speaker 1: had pushed them on to the rails, and what had

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Speaker 1: they left behind. If I could understand that, maybe I'd

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Speaker 1: be able to answer the questions Ruby hadn't about life

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Speaker 1: on the rails. But I'd never be allowed into this

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Speaker 1: world unless I had someone to vouch for me, and

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Speaker 1: the perfect person for that was Ruby. She'd stayed in

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Speaker 1: New Orleans twice when she was on the rails. I

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Speaker 1: called her back, explained that I wanted to report the

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Speaker 1: story of the squat fire, and offered to pay her

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Speaker 1: to be my research assistant. She surprised me with an

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic yes. The stories of the squatters needed to be told,

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Speaker 1: and this was a chance to be with her grieving community.

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Speaker 1: So two weeks after the fire, we boarded our flight

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Speaker 1: to New Orleans. I didn't want to hope for too much,

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Speaker 1: but then I knew how the rails break your heart,

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Speaker 1: and they've done it for many in New Orleans. I'm

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Speaker 1: Denil Morton, and this is City of the Rails. It's

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Speaker 1: cold combat down a new Orleans cont down a New Orleans.

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Speaker 1: You gotta keep close cont go on home. We got

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Speaker 1: said to go off home, cop said to go off home.

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Speaker 1: Down palaces, doesn't right on to them, falling a fallen

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Speaker 1: trails and if forgotten the song, did you guys have

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Speaker 1: a memorial service here? It's kind of been an ongoing thing.

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Speaker 1: People who stopped by and drop off things. I'm walking

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Speaker 1: with Ruby and her friend Izzie, deeper and deeper into

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Speaker 1: New Orleans ravaged Eighth Ward, one of the hardest hit

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Speaker 1: by Hurricane Katrina. We set up a skate park over

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Speaker 1: there five years after Katrina. The streets are still redded

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood is a ghost town. We make our

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Speaker 1: way down North Pierre Street, pass boarded up houses next

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Speaker 1: to a few occupied ones with tidy fenced in front yards.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, everyone is graving really hard and in their

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Speaker 1: own ways. You know. He lives across the street from

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Speaker 1: where the warehouse used to be, and he wants to

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Speaker 1: show us the memorial to the eight who died there.

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Speaker 1: Right after the fire, the city bulldozed the wreck of

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Speaker 1: the warehouse, and Azzie told me he watched as day

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Speaker 1: by day groups of people came to the site to

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Speaker 1: pay their respects. We walked toward the handmade cross erected

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Speaker 1: in the empty field of ashes with flowers, candles, pieces

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Speaker 1: of jewelry and a bull, burnt, remnants of clothing and books,

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Speaker 1: and a few stuffed animals. Among the bits and pieces

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Speaker 1: included in the memorial is he points out cans of

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Speaker 1: alcohol left as tribute to those who died. That's notable

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Speaker 1: in this hard drinking community, naturally. Actually, we're surprised there's

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Speaker 1: so many beers and four locos and things left here

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Speaker 1: on opened for weeks. You know, it was pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like they're all gone now, but

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Speaker 1: it's cool. It'll lasted so long, you know. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: is he Ruby and I stand around the cross holding

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Speaker 1: hands to observe a moment of silence for those who

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Speaker 1: were lost in the fire. The dead, age seventeen to

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Speaker 1: twenty nine, were from Wisconsin, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Nebraska,

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Speaker 1: and New Orleans around us. The terrible loss of the

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Speaker 1: Squat Fire still hung in the cold winter air, but

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Speaker 1: not everyone was sympathetic to the tragedy, which was the

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Speaker 1: biggest fire in the city in thirty years. Some called

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Speaker 1: to tighten the vagrancy and busking laws discourage these people

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Speaker 1: from staying in New Orleans. Here at the memorial, as

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Speaker 1: we bowed our heads to the deceased, I was grateful

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Speaker 1: that my daughter was at my side and I was

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Speaker 1: holding her hand, although this is a bit burned this stuff.

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Speaker 1: After the visit to the memorial, I dropped Ruby off

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Speaker 1: at a friend's apartment in the Ninth Ward and drove

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Speaker 1: across town to my friend's place in the Upscale Garden District.

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Speaker 1: My plan with Ruby was we'd meet every day in

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Speaker 1: the French Quarter and go visit her friends in the

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Speaker 1: Eighth and ninth Wards. But time down here feels different.

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Speaker 1: Days in New Orleans didn't really get started until two pm,

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Speaker 1: a bit off kilter for someone like me who gets

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Speaker 1: up before sunrise, right around the time Ruby and her

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Speaker 1: friends were going to bed. So when we met for

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Speaker 1: breakfast the first time in the French Quarter, Ruby suggested

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Speaker 1: we have breakfast tachos. Nacho is made from tater tots.

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Speaker 1: It's two o'clock, I'm eating breakfast and it's tachos. New

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Speaker 1: Orleans was already flipping me on my head while I

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Speaker 1: was down here. I wanted to learn more about how

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Speaker 1: the Traveling Kids fit into the city of New Orleans,

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Speaker 1: so I looked up Chris Rose, former columnists for the

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Speaker 1: New Orleans Times Pickieyune. For a time, Chris had been

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Speaker 1: the face of New Orleans. His columns on the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of Hurricane Katrina became a best seller called One Dead

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Speaker 1: in the Attic. But two years ago, Chris left New

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Speaker 1: Orleans after thirty five years. He was another person who

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Speaker 1: deliberately detached himself from the city when the conventional world

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Speaker 1: got to be too much for him. So when I

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Speaker 1: tracked Chris down, he was living on a campsite in

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Speaker 1: a national forest in Mississippi. He's arranged a life were

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Speaker 1: the only two bills he pays are his cell phone

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Speaker 1: and his car insurance, a life led with very little money,

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Speaker 1: not unlike the hoboes I was going to ask him about.

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Speaker 1: And although Chris chose to leave the city behind, he

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Speaker 1: understood why the Traveling Kids are drawn to New Orleans.

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Speaker 1: You can still hear the languid pace of life in

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Speaker 1: his voice. Because it's easy, it's very comfortable place to live. It's,

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Speaker 1: you know, the most Caribbean, it's the northernmost Caribbean city, right,

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Speaker 1: and it is. Its pace of life is one that's

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Speaker 1: very comfortable. You can be ambitious, but you don't have

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Speaker 1: to be You can chase money, but you don't have

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Speaker 1: to to live a comfortable and successful life. There vious

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Speaker 1: rotten rails. I could see it'd be very easy to

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Speaker 1: stay there because the weather accommodates it, and the community

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Speaker 1: is large. You know, they've got their own microeconomy going on.

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Speaker 1: Is very favorable to staying in a city open to

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Speaker 1: the offbeat, the eccentric, and the unconventional. High season for

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Speaker 1: the Dirty Kids starts in the fall and October, writers

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Speaker 1: start heading south to New Orleans from crumbling industrial cities

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Speaker 1: in the Rest Belt. It's a pretty comfortable place to

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Speaker 1: spend the winter, and many set up in New Orleans

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Speaker 1: until spring. Everyone knows the parties start Halloween night. New

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Speaker 1: Orleans in the wintertime is just like you know, it's

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Speaker 1: like almost like you're at the Festival of Dirty Kids.

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Speaker 1: There's literally like hundreds of kids and people who travel

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Speaker 1: that Scott Michad the basis for Profane Sass, the band

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Speaker 1: that plays our theme song, Wayfaring Stranger. As it happened,

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Speaker 1: Scott his girlfriend Becky and the whole band. We're in

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Speaker 1: New Orleans in the weeks before the Squat fire. Originally

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Speaker 1: they intended to stay only a few days, but New

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Speaker 1: Orleans has a way of getting you to forget your intentions.

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Speaker 1: It's like even walking through the French Quarter or Decatur Street,

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Speaker 1: twenty minute walk, but you'd run it into other people

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Speaker 1: you had met, and you'd sit there and you talk

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Speaker 1: and you'd share. Even just like walking from the squat

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Speaker 1: down to play music back could be like a seven

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Speaker 1: hour thing, and we are all just so like follow

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Speaker 1: the wind and follow the signs and follow the omen

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Speaker 1: let the universe aside where we're going the day. And

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Speaker 1: for Scott and his bandmates, it wasn't just the pace

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Speaker 1: or the conviviality, it was the music. There was just

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Speaker 1: so many great street performers down there, so you kind

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Speaker 1: of like join forces with other musicians for a little while,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes by the end of the night you have

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Speaker 1: fourteen people all playing these songs that we kind of

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Speaker 1: all know. Morgan Nuselton, who we met in the episode

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Speaker 1: about Women on the Rails, had another name for New

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Speaker 1: Orleans party city, like this dark, mysterious city, like we

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Speaker 1: are a part of that culture. People that are coming

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Speaker 1: to visit loved the ship out of us. They loved

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Speaker 1: like the old tiny folk, like playing their music for musicians.

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Speaker 1: New Orleans held a special appeal. They felt the love

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Speaker 1: from some of the city and its visitors. But it

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Speaker 1: was a different story with the police who tried to

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Speaker 1: push hoboes to the edge of town. Because when you

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Speaker 1: go to the French Quarter, you got about three days.

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Speaker 1: The cops basically say like, we're going to continue to

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Speaker 1: give you tickets, but if you go to the ninth

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Speaker 1: four or the eighth ward we walk, that's with you.

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Speaker 1: So it pushes us over there so that we can

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Speaker 1: get the hell out of the nice part in town.

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Speaker 1: So New Orleans could be easy living with hard looks

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Speaker 1: from some of the locals. While Profane and SaaS was

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Speaker 1: in town, Scott and Becky experienced the aggression of people

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Speaker 1: who didn't embrace the dirty kids. I remember specifically this

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Speaker 1: moment the Profane Sasas was playing on the street and

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Speaker 1: I was taking care of the dogs, and this man

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Speaker 1: in his late forties, you know, kind of business dress,

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Speaker 1: walked by and so like full of anger and hate,

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Speaker 1: leans down over us and throws down like ten or

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Speaker 1: twenty dollars, and it's like in our face and says

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Speaker 1: this is for the dogs so they can eat, not

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Speaker 1: for you, and walks off. So even in New Orleans

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Speaker 1: it was hobo's versus society, and resentment from the locals

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Speaker 1: meant that if you wanted to stay in town and

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Speaker 1: housed up, you had to find the right neighborhood. So

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Speaker 1: Ruby and I left the French Quarter and headed back

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Speaker 1: to the eighth and ninth wards. Here, on the edge

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Speaker 1: of the city, forty three thousand homes stood abandoned since

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Speaker 1: the hurricane, a quarter of New Orleans housing stock, which

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Speaker 1: made the neighborhood a perfect destination for squatters. We betook

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Speaker 1: me to a squat on the far edge of the

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Speaker 1: eighth Ward, where her friends Aaron and Momo lived. After

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Speaker 1: a few days of squat shopping, breaking into ten or

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Speaker 1: fifteen empty houses, they found the right wine and they

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Speaker 1: were living in. We didn't do anything to do it

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Speaker 1: except we sweat, and then I started finding furniture. Aaron

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Speaker 1: and Momo didn't need much to survive. Mamo pointed to

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Speaker 1: three dollars sitting on the crate next to her bed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: three dollars and chains that I've had for a week

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Speaker 1: and a half. With just three bucks, anyone could furnish

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Speaker 1: a life here and just as quickly abandon it. But

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Speaker 1: in this squat, Aaron and Momo had settled in for

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Speaker 1: a while, even decorating it on the cheap in a

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Speaker 1: way that I loved. They'd gone to second hand stories

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00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:10,680
Speaker 1: and bought pairs of sparkly stiletto heels and balanced a

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Speaker 1: shoe over each doorway in the house. This was a

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00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:16,600
Speaker 1: remarkable turnaround for Momo to find a home in New Orleans.

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Speaker 1: Last time she was here with her boyfriend. They swear

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Speaker 1: they'd never return. How Come it was so hard last

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00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,920
Speaker 1: time because we were doing two main drugs all the time,

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Speaker 1: and his dog got hit by a car and almost died,

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Speaker 1: and I went to jail. Just a lot of stuff

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00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:39,480
Speaker 1: is cursed. We're never going back. But I've been telling

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00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,440
Speaker 1: them about everything I've been doing here, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let New Orleans win. You know. We

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Speaker 1: sat on the floor of Aaron and Momo's squat, me

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00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:49,680
Speaker 1: on a mattress and Ruby in a tilted dining room chair.

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Speaker 1: I was surprised how comfortable we were in this odd

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Speaker 1: situation with me peppering them with so many questions, how

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00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: did they survive when they got housed up, how did

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00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:01,960
Speaker 1: they structure their days? And what kept them here? I

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00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:04,360
Speaker 1: was asking them everything I'd wanted to know about Ruby,

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00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:08,120
Speaker 1: and Ruby never interrupted, only spoke up when she wanted

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Speaker 1: to draw a boundary around what I could ask her. Friends.

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00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:14,000
Speaker 1: Questions about specific yards and how to hop a train

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Speaker 1: were off limits. We talked until the sun went down

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00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:22,080
Speaker 1: at five, but my New Orleans education was only beginning.

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00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:25,920
Speaker 1: Later that night, we all met up again to go

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Speaker 1: to a birthday party at the Saint Rock Tavern. The

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00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:34,320
Speaker 1: party was for Ugly John, who appeared to have been

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Speaker 1: on the party bus since the day before. He was

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00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:39,760
Speaker 1: swaying around drunk off his ass with about thirty dollars

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00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:42,520
Speaker 1: and one dollar bills pinned to his shirt front and back,

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00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:46,000
Speaker 1: a New Orleans birthday tradition. Was a little bummed on

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00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,480
Speaker 1: his birthday, though, because he just broke in the bar's

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00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:52,040
Speaker 1: toilet and couldn't remember how all he knew was most

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00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:54,040
Speaker 1: of his birthday money would now go to paying off

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Speaker 1: the bar owner. I was right in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the rolling party, ordering pictures of beer, which was making

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00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,840
Speaker 1: table pretty popular. In return, I was constantly being offered

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00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:08,480
Speaker 1: free drinks, free drugs, and free homemade tattoos. Close to midnight,

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00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:11,480
Speaker 1: the girls wanted to teach me how to twerk. Why,

285
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:14,760
Speaker 1: because we all headed to a club that was hosting

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00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:25,080
Speaker 1: Booty Night. Tworking was practically a part of the cover charge.

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00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:28,440
Speaker 1: When we got there, the club was packed in this

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00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:32,760
Speaker 1: pre pandemic ecstasy. The saxe player left the stage and

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00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,360
Speaker 1: walked among the crowd, eyes shut, with people touching his

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00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:38,040
Speaker 1: arms as he played. Everything I do is going to

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00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,480
Speaker 1: be funky from now on, And yes there was twerking,

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00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:44,920
Speaker 1: and I'm glad there were no cameras there to record

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00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:54,320
Speaker 1: this moment. It was around two when I pulled myself

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00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:56,840
Speaker 1: away from the club, even though my new friends begged

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00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:00,800
Speaker 1: me to stay. I drove across town through the fog

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00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:04,920
Speaker 1: to my friend's place. When I got there, I drunkenly

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00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:08,320
Speaker 1: fumbled with my keys and opened the apartment door. There

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00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:10,960
Speaker 1: in the doorway to an empty apartment, the intoxication of

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00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:15,200
Speaker 1: Booty Nights suddenly faded and everything from the day started

300
00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:18,800
Speaker 1: to hit me. I was thinking about standing by the

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00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,359
Speaker 1: memorial holding hands with Izzy and Ruby, about the parents

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00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:25,879
Speaker 1: who'd lost their kids, and the way Momo and Alana lived,

303
00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:28,840
Speaker 1: and about ugly John, and the fun I had with

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00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:32,080
Speaker 1: my daughter and her friends. With these highs and lows,

305
00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:34,560
Speaker 1: all in one day, I sat on the couch with

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00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:39,440
Speaker 1: a television on Catatonic. I was fully seeing the life

307
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,320
Speaker 1: of a traveling kid, not having someone describe it to me.

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00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,000
Speaker 1: What was I supposed to make of this town? It

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00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:50,560
Speaker 1: ended up being Chris Rose who characterized it best. Like Momo,

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Speaker 1: he'd struggled trying to leave the city. Well, that's the thing.

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00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 1: There's a lot of shadows in Nuance. There's this huge

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00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:02,439
Speaker 1: carnival of life there in the presence for everybody to

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00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,680
Speaker 1: see and to participate in. But all around them, all

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00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:09,399
Speaker 1: around the bright lights and carnival of the French quarner,

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00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 1: on all sides of it are the shadows, dark streets,

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00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:22,159
Speaker 1: empty buildings, open fields, blocks and blocks of areas that

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00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 1: are unpeopled and unpoliced. And the train yards, of course

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00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:33,159
Speaker 1: are right there. And it's easy to move in those shadows.

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Speaker 1: If you just float along the sidewalks not bugging anybody,

320
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,879
Speaker 1: nobody will notice you. There's a lot of invisible people

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00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:43,439
Speaker 1: in New Orleans Let's put it this way, if you

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00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:47,199
Speaker 1: were wanted by the law, where would you go to

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00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:49,080
Speaker 1: go off the grid? I mean it's been this way

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00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,240
Speaker 1: for not decades, but for centuries. In New Orleans, it's

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00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:56,520
Speaker 1: it's where people go to go off the grid. You know,

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00:18:56,560 --> 00:18:58,919
Speaker 1: there's always the joke that the guy passing on the

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00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:01,840
Speaker 1: streets a serial or who knows people just go there

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00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:08,640
Speaker 1: to disappear. They always have. Chris was describing a dark

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00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,280
Speaker 1: kind of New Orleans magic. The city had an air

330
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:14,120
Speaker 1: of mystery mixed in with the fog. When they could

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00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,080
Speaker 1: envelop you like a cloak. Was the perfect city for

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00:19:17,119 --> 00:19:21,600
Speaker 1: the traveling community. As I tried to sleep, my ears

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00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 1: still ringing with the saxophone music, I knew that tomorrow

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00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 1: I'd need to get down to business. I'd meet up

335
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:29,160
Speaker 1: with Ruby and start figuring out what happened that night

336
00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:32,440
Speaker 1: in the warehouse. Ruby would lead me to people who'd

337
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 1: seen the fire. I was starting to get my grounding

338
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,199
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. I could see how the warehouse, squat

339
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,160
Speaker 1: and its residence fit into the fabric of the city.

340
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:55,120
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand as much as I could about

341
00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:57,320
Speaker 1: the warehouse and the day's leading up to the fire,

342
00:19:57,600 --> 00:19:59,880
Speaker 1: and for what I gathered, the squat was a special play.

343
00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:02,960
Speaker 1: The people who helped me understand why were the members

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00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,760
Speaker 1: of Profane SaaS, the band who performs our theme song.

345
00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:08,760
Speaker 1: They were among the last people to stay in the warehouse.

346
00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:13,520
Speaker 1: For years. The band had traveled from show to show

347
00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:16,120
Speaker 1: by hopping trains, so a whole group of them rode

348
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:18,600
Speaker 1: down from Pittsburgh. When they arrived, they heard about the

349
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,800
Speaker 1: perfect place to stay, right by the railroad tracks and

350
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 1: within walking distance of the French border. People would sleep

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00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 1: in the field nearby just to be near it. What

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00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:33,040
Speaker 1: made this squat so special? For one thing, it was huge. Kiwi,

353
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: Profane Sasa's banjo player told me there was plenty of

354
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 1: room for the band and their friends. Yeah, it had

355
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:42,080
Speaker 1: these huge doors that we'd all hang out on. It

356
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 1: was like right by the train yard, and they're like, yeah,

357
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:50,400
Speaker 1: this is perfect. Probably thirty by fifty or sixty foot

358
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 1: wood warehouse. There was a big room in the middle,

359
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:55,359
Speaker 1: and it was clear this place was known to the

360
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 1: riding community. Becky told me you only needed to look

361
00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:00,640
Speaker 1: at the walls to see if your friends had passed through.

362
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 1: Murals tags everyone would leave their mark, and so it

363
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,840
Speaker 1: was almost like just this history of who was here,

364
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 1: A lot of good messages. He got what are you doing?

365
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:18,439
Speaker 1: Profane's has set me a video they took of the

366
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:29,680
Speaker 1: whole setup Ye family right now and it slung over

367
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,879
Speaker 1: a roof. Being was a twenty foot swing that swept

368
00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:35,200
Speaker 1: slowly across the main room through the open warehouse doores.

369
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:37,919
Speaker 1: You could see the trains in the yard. It was

370
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,360
Speaker 1: super fun to swing on that, and while you were swinging,

371
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 1: the big open doors were there so people would be

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00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 1: gathering and talking. Yeah, it was really nice here in

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00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 1: the edge of ten. They partied into the night, playing music,

374
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:56,200
Speaker 1: swinging and dancing. It was a squatter's paradise without any

375
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 1: fear of getting busted. It was definitely one of tho

376
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where people don't call police, you know, so like

377
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,399
Speaker 1: we didn't even worry about that. Having seventy or eighty

378
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:08,159
Speaker 1: people out there at the warehouse, you know, we didn't worry.

379
00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: Everyone has such vivid memories of the warehouse. But it

380
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,719
Speaker 1: wasn't an easy place to stay warm. The band had

381
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: traveled south in search of warm weather, but ki We

382
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,240
Speaker 1: said it was surprisingly cold when they got there, with

383
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 1: the moisture of like how what New Orleans was. The

384
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 1: nights are super cold, so we all had sleeping bags

385
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 1: and stuff, and we'd probably, you know, we all cuddled

386
00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: together and we had dogs and kept us warm. This

387
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 1: weather made New Orleans a lot less welcoming than past winters.

388
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: For Becky, who was on the rails for the first time,

389
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 1: the cold was unlike anything she'd felt before. Even though

390
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:49,919
Speaker 1: New Orleans pulled so many of us because it definitely

391
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 1: was not as cold as the northern cities. Still, when

392
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: you are constantly outside, it's hard for your whole body

393
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: to maintain heat. It just feels colder. The draft, the

394
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:05,360
Speaker 1: trains going by. There's no insulation in the room, there's

395
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: no insulation in the floor. You felt it in your bones.

396
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,479
Speaker 1: This weather made New Orleans a lot less welcoming than

397
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: past winters. For Becky, who was on the rails for

398
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 1: the first time, the cold was unlike anything she'd felt before.

399
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 1: It's different when you are living on the street and

400
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: the only time you get into a heated space is

401
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 1: when you have enough money to buy a cup of

402
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: coffee and go into a coffee shop. You know, because

403
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: you cannot take regular showers because you're not cleaning your

404
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 1: clothes regularly. Society doesn't want you in public spaces. So

405
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: in the open field next to the warehouse, the band

406
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: built huge bonfires every night and felt a deep chill

407
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 1: when they had to return to the warehouse to sleep,

408
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 1: and just the feeling of the fire and then away

409
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 1: from the fire like that distinct temperature difference is a

410
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: real but the cold didn't get profanees asked down. The

411
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: band spent over month there hanging out, meeting people, playing music,

412
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: and of course they couldn't leave Party City without one

413
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: final celebration. So the night before the band was leaving

414
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 1: to go to a gig in Texas, they had a

415
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: big send off. Right before we'd left. We had this

416
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,719
Speaker 1: huge party because we had been there for you know,

417
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: some months or weeks, and so we had this big

418
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: party where like sixty or seventy people came. We had

419
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: a big old bonfire in the sand. You know. It

420
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: was a huge party with lots of travelers gathered around

421
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: the bonfire, and almost everyone carried an instrument. So the

422
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:37,479
Speaker 1: whole thing with the traveling community is acoustic instruments, because

423
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: you can travel with an acoustic instrument, you can bust

424
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: with an acoustic instrument, so they'll be usually like, you know,

425
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, maybe an acoustic bass, banjo, washed board, fiddle, jugs,

426
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: a lot of musical saws, a lot of accordions, spoons, spoon, trump, harmonica.

427
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: So probably half of the traveling kids carried instruments kind

428
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: of what you do. And it was part of the

429
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: community so much, and so at the end of the night,

430
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: everybody will do like a big jam session, maybe five

431
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: people or fifteen people or twenty people. So everyone was

432
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 1: playing music, dancing around the bonfire. But as the night

433
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: went on, temperatures started to drop. Scott told me he

434
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: and their lead singer Thomas, notice some people in the

435
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: warehouse trying to find a way to bring the fire inside.

436
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: I remember somebody's like, yeah, we should bring it in there,

437
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: and yeah, I remember both me and Thomas where it's

438
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: just like, do not do that. That is a wooden floor,

439
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: it'll burn down. And I remember hearing Thomas and Scott

440
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: try and advice in the sand pit, this is the

441
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 1: safe place for it to be, you know, and trying

442
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: to provide that guidance to the other community members and

443
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: friends that that was the safer place to have it,

444
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: so no fire came inside while Profane's Ass was staying

445
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 1: at the warehouse, but they left the day after the party.

446
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: The band said goodbye to the people they'd gotten close

447
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: to in the squat, especially Nikki and Sammy. Nikki had

448
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: come south with them from Pittsburgh and fallen in love

449
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: with Sammy, who brought them to the warehouse. Profane's ask

450
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: promised they'd be back before winter was done, but they

451
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: never saw them again. And when Scott first heard about

452
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: the tragedy, he thought back to that conversation about the bonfire.

453
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: I remember very vividly thinking about that a lot. That's

454
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: where my mind would always take me, like, oh, how

455
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: to happen? Like I didn't have a doubt that that's

456
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: what happened. A week after Profane's Ass left, the Knights

457
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: were still freezing in New Orleans, so people continued trying

458
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: to figure out how to bring the fire inside. That

459
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: was the key decision and one I wanted to know

460
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: more about. Most of those who died in the warehouse

461
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: were experienced travelers. Two in particular, Katie Simmoner and her

462
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: boyfriend Jeff Gertz, had a lot of outdoor skills, so

463
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: how was this decision made with all the time I'd

464
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: spent trying to convince travelers to speak with me. In

465
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: New Orleans, things were different With Ruby at my side.

466
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: Everyone was talking and she was introducing me to people

467
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 1: who knew more about the fire. One night we went

468
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: to a cook out of the squat in the eighth Ward,

469
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: where hoboes were jousting on tall bikes, like six to

470
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: ten feet tall, made of two bicycle frames welded together.

471
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: The knights of the Road squared off on the street

472
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: fifty feet apart, circling until someone guild go. Then they

473
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: took off toward each other full speed, broom handles blazing,

474
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: trying to knock the other guy off. It was brutal.

475
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: One guy needed first aid After the battle. The warriors

476
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 1: grabbed chicken legs from the grille and licked their hands

477
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: when they were done. But when dinner was served it

478
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: was a different story. As a visiting mom, I got

479
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: a lot of respect from the travelers. Some one produced

480
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:08,959
Speaker 1: a chair from one of the squats just for me,

481
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: and another brought the only plate and actual silverware. All

482
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: of these months I'd been trying to get these people

483
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: to talk to me, to understand their world, and here

484
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of it all, treated like

485
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: a queen. This evening was chaotic. Joy I was having

486
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: a great time in these unstructured days, one hundred and

487
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: eighty degrees from my regular life, and it was the

488
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: first time since Ruby left that I felt truly free.

489
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: As dusk settled in, the streets were dark without street lights.

490
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: The only light we had came from the porchlights of

491
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: nearby houses. Ruby came over to tell me she'd found

492
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: one of the survivors of the fire. This woman had

493
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: been living at the warehouse, but she happened to be

494
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: out the night of the fire, and she was willing

495
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: to talk to me. This woman didn't want to be named,

496
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: but she told me she'd lived at the warehouse for

497
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: a full month before the fire. The survivor remembered how

498
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: the squad he was prepared to bring the fire inside.

499
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: It was a giant steel barbecue pet that we upset up,

500
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: and we had nailed cargated middle siding underneath it and

501
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: a perimeter around it to make sure that he didn't

502
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: dry out the boards and then catch on fire. You know,

503
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: we took precautions, he said, clear Just how many train

504
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: hoppers were in the house that night or exactly when

505
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: and how the fire started, but it spread through the

506
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: main room fast. Her friend Byron, was passed out on

507
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: the main floor and woke up when he saw the

508
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: flames crawling up the walls. Meanwhile, the survivor was walking home,

509
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: turned the corner and saw the warehouse ablaze. The door

510
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: burst open and Byron ran out. He came to and

511
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: could barely even find his way out. He couldn't even

512
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: get in stall. Yeah, very said he heard a few

513
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: people in bang me and trying to get out somewhere,

514
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: non responsive. He was pretty hysterical at the time, So

515
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I like ran up and was

516
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: like he was in there, and he's in there, and

517
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: he was just like everyone you know, standing outside the fire.

518
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: They were powerless to help their friends screaming inside the warehouse.

519
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: As we stood on the steps of the building, the

520
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: survivor showed me her palm. She tried to open the

521
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: door to the warehouse to save her friends, but it

522
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: was so hot that it burned her hand. As the

523
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: survivor told this story, the barbecue was escalating. There was

524
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,479
Speaker 1: a wrestling match on the asphalt and I heard some

525
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: beer bottles shattering on the sidewalk. Then I heard the sirens.

526
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: Someone must have called the cops. Everyone was scattering. I

527
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: saw Ruby running toward me, waving her arms. We needed

528
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: to go. She grabbed my hand and we sprinted toward

529
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: the rental car. Ruby told me to take a left

530
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 1: and I floored it. We zig zagged through the eighth ward,

531
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: with Ruby calling out evasive action, laughing and cursing like

532
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: girlfriends on a spree. I dropped her off at a

533
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: friend's house with a hug, and started on my confused

534
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: way home. I was disoriented and ended up driving all

535
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: over the city, round and round, trying to make sense

536
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: of everything I was learning. The next day, Ruby was

537
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: flying back to Oakland. How would I navigate this world

538
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: without her? When she left a graduation, I thought she

539
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: split because she didn't love me or trust me, But

540
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: in New Orleans she showed me I was wrong about that.

541
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: It was clear she trusted me when she introduced me

542
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: to her friends, and while I was sorry to see

543
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: her go, I was sticking around for a few more days.

544
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: I wanted to find out more about those who died

545
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: and start tracking down their families. A few of whom

546
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: were in New Orleans. Plus, I was meeting with the

547
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: New Orleans Fire inspectors, the people who'd walked through the

548
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: smoking ruins of the warehouse. What could they tell me

549
00:31:46,360 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: about the origins of this tragedy. On a Sunday afternoon

550
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: in the French Quarter, I walked down Royal Street past

551
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: Jackson Square on my way to New Orleans Fire Department headquarters.

552
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: At last, I'd tracked down the man who was first

553
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: on the scene investigating the fire, and got him to

554
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: agree to an interview. The week before, i'd reported with Ruby,

555
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: But this interview I was doing solo. She was back

556
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: in Oakland, and I was already missing the comfort of

557
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: having her beside me. So the whole walk Ruby was

558
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: all I could think about. I imagined her on each

559
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: street corner and wished she'd pop out of the place.

560
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: We got tachos. Then I heard it was that Ruby's

561
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: song window sill. I changed course and followed my ears.

562
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: Could she still be here? That's not possible, but then

563
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: it's New Orleans. I turned the last corner and found

564
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: two young women, one singing and playing the ukulele, and

565
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: her friend on the saw. Not Ruby. I was proud.

566
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: Ruby had only traveled for a year and a half,

567
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: but in her two stints in New Orleans, she left

568
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: behind this song, a bit of beauty that endured, and

569
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: what was true when Ruby was a little girl was

570
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: still true here. Joey's left me wanting more. I wanted

571
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: to ask the musicians if they knew her, but I

572
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: couldn't keep the fire department waiting. Wow Bey. I arrived

573
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: at the central fire station to speak with Wayne Regis

574
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: and his boss to Vision Chief Albert Thomas, to learn

575
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: what they knew about what caused the fire. They showed

576
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: me to the back conference room, where Deputy Chief Regis

577
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: described investigating the scene, setting up lights around the steaming

578
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: hulk of the warehouse, and navigating his way atop the

579
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: dripping embers. The floor had already been burned through, there

580
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: was no roof, there, wonderwalls, and the only thing that

581
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: was really left standing was quote unquote the office area

582
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: where most of identified decease people were. Regis is a

583
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: careful man who quibbles over the meaning of words and

584
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,919
Speaker 1: doesn't agree easily with someone else's assumptions. So I read

585
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: the report and it said that the fire had started

586
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: from what was like a cooking pit or some kind

587
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: of a metal I didn't say that, the news said that. No.

588
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: I think that is possible and it is highly likely.

589
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: The thing was there were other people who had escaped

590
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: the warehouse who Regis wasn't able to interview, so he

591
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: never signed off on the cause of the fire. Something

592
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: that struck me while talking to these guys was the

593
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: very things that made the squad attractive to the travelers

594
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: agitated the firefighters. Everything about this lifestyle and care and

595
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 1: endangerous everything about to have buildings that blue utilities. No

596
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: one's living there. It's been abandoned since Katrina all before.

597
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: The inspectors couldn't be sure what caused the fire. There

598
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:14,240
Speaker 1: were so many other hazards in the warehouse. Maybe someone

599
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: forgot to put out the fire before bed. The embers

600
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: threw off sparks and the floorboards of the warehouse ignited,

601
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 1: starting the blaze. Or could it have been arson Someone

602
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 1: who didn't like the dirty kids hanging around New Orleans

603
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 1: could have set the fire. Two unknown people ran out

604
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: of the warehouse as the fire grew. But in some way,

605
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: the cause of the fire didn't matter. It was the

606
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: conditions in the warehouse, all the dangers that lurked in

607
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: the shadows beyond the swing, the mural on the wall,

608
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: and the bonfire. I asked Thomas and Regis if they

609
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,919
Speaker 1: could speak to the traveling community about this, what would

610
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: they say? There is inherent dangers involved with every aspect

611
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: of this lifestyle in a structure you have no legal

612
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: right to be there. Make them, you know, really aware

613
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: of that. I know they're all connected to someone, They're people.

614
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: I asked Regions if he had anything to add. His

615
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,479
Speaker 1: starchiness and exactitude faded as he searched for what to say.

616
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 1: Clearly our conversation had taken him back to that dark

617
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: morning in the warehouse. At first, he was unable to

618
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,760
Speaker 1: look at me as he answered, I mean, I necesarily

619
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: have anything to state, but I have questions as as

620
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: in other places that you come from so terrible, so

621
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,720
Speaker 1: diversion off of what you considered to be utopian life,

622
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,760
Speaker 1: that you would rather exist on the Friends of Society

623
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: squad and doing stuff like this as opposed to being

624
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: in a very company of the people who love you,

625
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: care about you, and I want to see you sute.

626
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: I understood why, Deputy Chief you just had those questions.

627
00:36:57,400 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: But I knew to the parents of the aid the

628
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: why of the fire didn't matter much anymore. As there

629
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: any tragedy, The news covers the story for a week,

630
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: and then everyone moves on, everyone except the families and

631
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 1: the friends who loved them. Piecing together the lives of

632
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: the writers kept me busy long after I was back

633
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: home in California. I spent a year tracking down the

634
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 1: families of those who died, as well as their friends.

635
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: Photographs too often of them on incredible train rides or

636
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: playing music in the streets. If you'd stuck to the headlines,

637
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: the deceased were faceless, but they were artists, the musicians,

638
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: and people who were loved. As I got to speak

639
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: with the families of those who died, I got to

640
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: know more about how other parents handled it all. So

641
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: I was glad to find Marty Harameo on Facebook. Marty's

642
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: daughter was Katie Siminar, aged twenty one, from Nebraska. When

643
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 1: Marty and I spoke, I could hear the brightness in

644
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: her love for Katie. Ah. We always had a very

645
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: close relationship, very close in fact, right before she took off,

646
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 1: she said, you know what, Mom, you are my best friend,

647
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: and I go, thanks, Katie, so are you. Katie was

648
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,280
Speaker 1: one of eight kids, but Marty told me her outgoing

649
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: personality always stood out. She was one of those people

650
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: that if you met her, you never forgot. She just

651
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: got right inside your heart. She was just so friendly

652
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: and bubbly and fun. I'd seen photos of Katie a

653
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,240
Speaker 1: button nosed beauty with a hint of mischief in her eyes,

654
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,479
Speaker 1: and like many of her fellow writers, Katie's journey onto

655
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: the rails started by surprise. In college, Katie had a

656
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: near death experience that changed her entire outlook on life.

657
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. I don't know. She wos,

658
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,399
Speaker 1: maybe had a seizure, maybe she hit her head, but

659
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: she has been known to have a seizure from time

660
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 1: to time. Did that caizure change her in any way?

661
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 1: I think on the inside, I don't think she was

662
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: very forthcoming in that to me. I think to her

663
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: friends she had mentioned, you know, I'm not long for

664
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: this world. I'm not going to live till I'm old.

665
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: After Katie dropped out of college, she went to work

666
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,760
Speaker 1: for an aunt in Alaska, but she didn't stay long.

667
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: Then Katie went to live with another aunt in Portland,

668
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: where she was first introduced to train hopping. At first,

669
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: Katie didn't tell her mom about riding trains, just like Ruby.

670
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: She missed her mom enough to call home, but she

671
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 1: didn't want to answer too many questions. Yeah, I'm like

672
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:39,840
Speaker 1: when she would call me, and I could hear the

673
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: trains in the background. I mean, obviously they where they

674
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: were staying at the warehouse or warehouses, they were right

675
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 1: next to the track, And I'm talking next to the track,

676
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, Katie, I can hear the trains

677
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: in the background. What are you on a train? No?

678
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: Stop asking questions like that. I don't have time to

679
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 1: answer those kind of questions. But Katie was on the

680
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 1: rails now, and there was nothing Marty could say to

681
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: convince her to come home. Just a year after leaving Portland,

682
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: in the fall of twenty ten, Katie made her way

683
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: to New Orleans. She had been planning to leave with

684
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,319
Speaker 1: her new boyfriend, Jeff Gertz and their dogs to Wisconsin,

685
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: but ended up staying in New Orleans for six weeks.

686
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: On a cold day in late December, Marty got a

687
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: call from her daughter, and what mood was she in

688
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: when she called, Oh, I'm just calling to say I

689
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: hope you guys are still enjoying your holiday. I'll call

690
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: back again to This was two days before the squat fire,

691
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 1: when Katie and Jeff were trapped inside. Marty initially heard

692
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: about a squat fire in New Orleans on Facebook. She

693
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: didn't know at the time exactly where Katie was staying,

694
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: but she had a sinking feeling in my heart. I

695
00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: thought I knowed she was there. I know, well how

696
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: I know, but I know she was there, she was

697
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: part of this. Well, then I get a call. One

698
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: of the hubbos who knew Katie called Marty with the

699
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: news and he said it was Katie that you know

700
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: Katie and others. And I go, well, how do you

701
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: know it was my Katie? And he goes, it was

702
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: your Katie. Oh, Marty, that must have hit you so hard. Well,

703
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: I think I went in shock. You know, She's like what.

704
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,439
Speaker 1: Soon after the fire, Marty was sent Katie's journal, which

705
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: was miraculously safe in a nearby abandoned building untouched by

706
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: the flames. I got a phone call from this lady

707
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: from New Orleans and she said she and her husband

708
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: owned abandoned building down there, and after the fire they

709
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: went down and she said, they came across these packs,

710
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: and she said, along with them was this journal laying there,

711
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: and she picked it up. She goes, I wonder if

712
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: this belonged any of those kids that were in that fire,

713
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: and she opened up the cover and it said if

714
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: I'm dead or really hurt, please call my mom, and

715
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: it had this phone number. I tried to place myself

716
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: in Marty's position, thinking how precious that journal would be,

717
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 1: one of the last things her daughter had touched. From it,

718
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: she got a sense of the way Katie saw her life.

719
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: Marty read me a passage from Katie's journal about a

720
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: squat she shared in Portland. We were on the fifth

721
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: floor of a very nice apartment complex, making it easy

722
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: to keep our filth and debauchery hidden from the society

723
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: and police. The fancy apartments across the way could see

724
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: straight in. I wonder what they thought of us. Maybe

725
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: some and beat us, some disgusted. I'm not sure. I

726
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: know that I felt a little sorry for them. Most

727
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: of them must have been so trapped in work and

728
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 1: paying bills. These are the types of people that take

729
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 1: twenty pills a day and ignore their children. I wanted

730
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 1: to tell them it didn't have to be that way,

731
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: but who was I to say what they should do.

732
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: Maybe they are happy that way. I loved Katie's kindness

733
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: and humility and her not wanting to judge. I know

734
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: Marty valued that too. She had a passage from Katie's

735
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,720
Speaker 1: journal made into a funeral card. This memory of beauty

736
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: and adventure was what Marty held on too. She liked

737
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: to think of Katie on a rainbow bus with other

738
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: young people just like her, off to see the country.

739
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 1: Like Marty said of Katie, a lot of life in

740
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: a short time. Like Ruby, Katie was only on the

741
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: rail else for a year and a half. By the

742
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: time we spoke, Marty had made her peace with Katy's adventure.

743
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: She knew her daughter wanted to live life to the

744
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: fullest for as long as she had left on this earth.

745
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: I spoke to seven of the eight families about the

746
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:17,280
Speaker 1: loss they felt when they found out about the fire.

747
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: What I learned about the deceased is more than I

748
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: can do justice to in this episode. But I wanted

749
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: to honor the lives of those who died. There was

750
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: Melissa Martinez seventeen, a resident of New Orleans who was

751
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: staying with her boyfriend Jonathan Guerrero twenty on the night

752
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: of the fire. Katie Simonar twenty one, and Jeff Gertz

753
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: twenty two had planned to leave New Orleans in the

754
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: new year. Justin Luttz twenty nine, had just arrived in Nola.

755
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: He had a fight with his girlfriend, who ordered him

756
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: out of the car in the French Quarter, and he

757
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: found his way to the warehouse to crash for the night.

758
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: Nicky pack aged twenty three from Pittsburgh and Sammy aged

759
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: twenty five from New Orleans had just fallen in love

760
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,320
Speaker 1: and had big plans for the warehouse. And there was

761
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: Anthony Zeletta twenty three, a Lakota sue from South Dakota.

762
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: His mother, Sheila's grief was so deep she couldn't talk

763
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: to me, but she wrote eloquently of her loss such

764
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: young talent whose lives were cut short, but they were

765
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 1: needed elsewhere. Sheila wrote, my sister believes that Tony began

766
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: his journey to save him from a more terrible way

767
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: of dying. Truth be told. I think Tony was always

768
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: close to the great mysterious and he knew it as

769
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: a child. And though Sheila never agreed to speak with me,

770
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: she emails from time to time to express how much

771
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: she still mourns his passing, also by thinking of it

772
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: as fate. Many of his pictures have him with this

773
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 1: mysterious wink, she wrote in one message, as if he

774
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 1: knew something that we didn't. Katie's dad, Scott Siminar, who

775
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: refused to speak with me about Katie, wrote to make

776
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: sure I knew that Katie was different from the others.

777
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 1: Katie was on an adventure to learn and experience life.

778
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: This was simply one of her adventures that went horribly

779
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: wrong and she died. She was not a train hopper,

780
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: as you state. She was not a homeless person. She

781
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 1: was not a lost soul. She had a family who

782
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: loved her, and she loved her family. It wasn't just

783
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: Katie's dad. Every other parent I spoke with said that

784
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,280
Speaker 1: these were not lost souls. They had families who loved them.

785
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: But for many of them, home had become a place

786
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: where they couldn't seem to do anything right, couldn't handle

787
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: school or work, and couldn't interact smoothly with their families.

788
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: Part of the pull of the rails was a chance

789
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: to shake off the scows with a blind act of daring.

790
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 1: Even if these kids had homes, they had found a

791
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: different sense of home on the rails, a place where

792
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: they didn't need to know each other's real names. To them,

793
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 1: safety was something they built together and it might only

794
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: last a moment. That part of what they believed. I

795
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: did understand. It had been nearly two years since Ruby

796
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 1: split down to join this community on the rails. At time,

797
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: i'd plunge into the train yard to try to understand

798
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: what drew her into this violent place. After my time

799
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, I now felt like I understood the

800
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 1: life where we had chosen and some of its appeal.

801
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: But it was time to stop trying to figure out

802
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: who she was and why she left, And I said,

803
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: examine what kind of a mother I was. I had

804
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 1: to reckon with the fact that there was something I

805
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: had done that helped push her onto the rails. Oh,

806
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:31,879
Speaker 1: wek now done helping help you and I have been

807
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: leading Rader. You're a little alive. Actually, I lost the

808
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: kid to the rails and wrote them for almost a decade.

809
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: We just had, sadly, a very different ending. I look

810
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: at the trains every day. I'm like, oh yeah, I

811
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: could just hop on that and be out of here.

812
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: There's a type of person that's just like there's always

813
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: somewhere else to go. That's next episode on City of

814
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:19,440
Speaker 1: the Rails. Save the Moticka seven Omaticka, I touster fourteen,

815
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: I s will be drinking gasoline. Damn this mallapou sit

816
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: on the beach is just turning the blue came out

817
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: with the brand new drug and then sat it to

818
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:41,760
Speaker 1: pull the plug in Loson. Oh look what you've done.

819
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: City of the Rails is hosted and written by me

820
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: Denil Morton and developed in partnership with iHeartRadio and Flip

821
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: Turn Studios. Call us you only have one episode left.

822
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: The number is seven oh seven six five three three

823
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: three nine. If you'd like to read full profiles of

824
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: seven of the eight people who perish in the squat fire,

825
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 1: I've posted them on my website. The link is in

826
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: the show notes. Our executive producer and showrunner is Julian Weller,

827
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: and our executive producer at Flip Turn is Mark Hiey.

828
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: Senior producer Abu Zafar producer She knows Zaki and Zoe Dankla,

829
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: Patrisha Mukherjee, Jackie Huntington, and Jessica Krinchich, with production support

830
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: from Marci Dupina. Original music every episode by Aaron Kaufman.

831
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: Our theme music for this episode is twelve to twenty

832
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,399
Speaker 1: eight by Profane Sass. Thank you for helping us tell

833
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: this story in so many ways, with your words and

834
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,240
Speaker 1: with your music. Thank you to Chris Rose for hosting

835
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 1: me all the way out in the Homachito National Forests.

836
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 1: Thanks to Nikki Etre and beth N Macaluso. From iHeart

837
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: and condolences to the parents of the people who died

838
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 1: in the Squat fire and for all the people who

839
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:52,759
Speaker 1: are still mourning this loss. We'll be back next week,

840
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,800
Speaker 1: one last time on City of the Rails.