Lost in the shadows

Lost in the shadows

Rachel Pritchett
Sun Staff

Oy! Oy! Oy! Alfie Susman yells out the universal code among squatters to announce his arrival at a vacant ramshackle house behind the Silverdale Safeway.

Hearing no reply -- one Oy! to enter and two to get lost -- Susman, 40, and close friend Jason Bostwick, 19, cautiously dip in under a partially opened garage door.

Susman and Bostwick are giving a tour of their former squat. They were at this white, boarded-up house for a few months last summer and fall. It is well-known to teen squatters.

Inside, litter is strewn about standing water in the pitch-black basement. Stepping across strategically placed pieces of wood and cans, they head upstairs with flashlights. Jason, clad in his signature brown jacket, chains and a studded black cap he shoplifted, is angry that someone has shoved a refrigerator in front of the door. He shoves it back.

They make their way through the cold, bare house.

A corner bedroom has been tagged by a recent occupant. Pornographic drawings and anti-Christian messages jump out from the walls. Susman, a high priest elder in Wicca, a form of witchcraft, says a Satanist drew them.

Disgusted, he shares this rule among squatters: Don't tag, as it causes the police to come looking.

Small white candles are arranged in a circle on the floor of an adjoining room. Susman recognizes this, too, as a ritual Wiccan circle of life.

Alternative beliefs are popular among homeless teens who have rejected their families' values and are searching for an identity. A few of the 36 homeless young people with whom Susman has regular contact are Wiccans, a practice he fosters. Thirty of the 36 are from Silverdale.

Later, Susman remembers stealing food from nearby grocery stores when he and Bostwick lived in the squat.

"The only way for us to survive -- we had to have something," he said. He blames Silverdale for not having a feeding program for the homeless.

HOMELESS TEEN NEIGHBORHOOD

A few days later, Susman, who was at the time the assistant director of outreach for the Silverdale unit of StandUp For Kids, let a group of StandUp trainees to other squats near the old house, teaching them about the squatter's life he had known for 22 years.

StandUp is an organization dedicated to helping homeless teens.

The trainees peer into large Clear Creek culvert. Water gurgles past a rocky flat area. Recent squatters here included a young man known as Jesus and a couple of teenage boys.

Susman has a no-drugs policy in his squats, but this spot has no rules, explains Patrick Taylor, outreach director for StandUp For Kids. There are no squatters here at the moment.

That's another rule in the universal squatters' code. "You leave early and you get back late," Susman told his trainees. You wear hoodies -- black hooded sweatshirts -- to disguise your identity.

Susman and his trainees walk through mud and grass to another squatters' den -- this one a dilapidated red outbuilding.

When Susman's and Taylor's trainees are finished, they'll go searching on their own for homeless teens, giving them blankets, 911 cell phones, snack packs and hygiene kits.

Many of West Sound's homeless teens now are couch-surfing, staying with friends until the welcome wears thin, then moving on.

AN ENIGMATIC LEADER

Susman's no choirboy.

His Wicca association alone would be enough to chill many parents, to say nothing of his past.

Susman has spent the last half of his life in squats in 49 states, but now has an apartment in East Bremerton.

High adventure and few responsibilities have been the reward for this Colorado native. Susman was married five times; he has seven children, ages 3 to 21. He has little contact with them.

He is clean and sober now, but takes medication for manic depression and schizophrenia, which he developed from many years on hallucinogenic drugs. He said he receives $564 in Social Security disability and another $107 in food stamps.

What Susman does have is a rapport with West Sound's homeless youth, say StandUp For Kids organizers.

His stories captivate them. Trained as a chef, he frequently cooks meals of goulash and baked chicken for them at his apartment. He counsels them, assists them in crisis and supplies his young charges with food and survival supplies gathered by StandUp For Kids.

Many of them are in alternatives schools, Susman said. Kitsap Mall is a central meeting place where they can get out of the weather. Other preferred haunts include the All-Star Lanes coffee shop and a couple of others on Callow Avenue in Bremerton, Rush's and Psycho Betty's.

They "spange" for spare change in front of Silverdale grocery stores, perhaps using the money to hear a punk band at Rush's that night. Beer, vodka, pot and downers such as Vicodin are popular intoxicants, although a few of the young people are into meth. Unlike their counterparts from Seattle or Tacoma, they have no weapons, save for some small knives and scissors.

To get by, they steal, spange or sell drugs or sex, Susman said.

Of the sex, StandUp's Taylor said, "It's an easy way of survival."

CONVENTION CENTER SQUAT

Susman and Bostwick are gutter punks, streetwise squatters sometimes dressed in black hoodies with patches, Jnco jeans and steel-toed boots. The pair came here last year from Seattle, where they met, to be with another friend.

"Silverdale is soooo nice. We fell in love with Silverdale," Susman said.

"People are more tolerant here, Bostwick agreed.

Bostwick is couch-surfing in West Bremerton with a Wiccan couple and their child.

Before coming to Silverdale, he squatted in several downtown Seattle locations.

Incredibly, Bostwick and Susman together had a squat at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, they said. It was up the main stairs, then up a small tree, over a wall, behind a partition and inside a tent.

"That was the most killer spot in the world. No one knew about it," Bostwick said. But center security spotted them after a week.

Raised by his mother and stepfather in south King County, Bostwick quit military school at 16 and began to wander. His stepfather treated him like "an outcast." His mother officially kicked him out at 18.

Now, Bostwick spends part of his days studying Wicca under Susman.

"It teaches you to be nice," he said. He's cast his first spell -- for his coven of friends to get some money -- and is awaiting the result.

Bostwick also watches the back door at one of the Callow Avenue coffee shops during nights when punk bands are playing. He hangs out with friends at the mall.

He gets $142 a month in food stamps and occasionally Dumpster dives and shoplifts to help make ends meet.

Bostwick regrets dropping out of school.

"If I hadn't left school, I'd have a good job right now," he said. He dreams of becoming a model or singer.

He is bisexual, not unusual for homeless teens.

Between 20 percent and 40 percent of homeless teens are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, the national StandUp for Kids group estimates.

A TOUGH TRANSITION

Susman knows that some homeless teens, once accustomed to travel, adventure and no responsibility, will have a tough time making it back into the mainstream. "It's a challenge for young kids," he said.

A few, like Susman, never will.

Susman wants the Silverdale community to build a teen drop-in center. And he's joined the chorus of others calling for a Silverdale network of free meals for the poor and homeless.

He has harsh words for parents.

"It bewilders me how some don't even care. And it happens a lot."

Just a few weeks after the interviews for this story, Susman disappeared after packing all his belongings and leaving without telling anyone where he was going or why. He left his StandUp shirt behind.