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My nights at Eshleman
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by Gabriela Monico
Last year on a hot summer afternoon I met up with my friend Antonio to go get burritos at Pancho’s. At the bus stop, we started talking about the scholarship interview we both had the week before. I kept listening inattentively until he said:
“Yeah, I mentioned to the committee how we used to spend the nights at Eshleman Hall. It’s funny remember? How we would freak out about getting caught.”
When I heard the word Eshleman, images of the third floor, the smelly girl’s bathroom and lonely halls at midnight flooded my mind. I had forgotten about that chapter in my life. Sometimes I try to block memories from the past, perhaps as a defense mechanism because they are too painful to remember. But fortunately, my friend Antonio reminded me of them.
It was the first semester of my sophomore year. I was at a point where I could no longer bear commuting late at night, walking through the dark and empty streets of West Oakland, especially after being chased by a guy on my way home. I was at the corner of Union and 12th Street when all of a sudden I see a man biking from afar. He gets closer, and closer. Then he yells at me. I was so scared that I couldn’t remember any of the words he said. He got off his bike and started running after me. Luckily, I was only a couple of blocks away from home. I ran as fast as I could.
“FIRE! FIRE!” I yelled
And people started looking out their windows. The man stopped chasing me as I started desperately knocking on the door of the house where I used to live in and screaming; “OPEN THE DOOR, PLEASE!” with tears on my eyes. Scariest experience ever.
I decided to ‘move in’ to Eshleman after the incident. Around the same time, I learned that my friend Antonio didn’t have a place to live. I suggested that we both spent some nights at one of the student offices in the building. The first days were rough but soon we got used to the routine. I would sleep on this old yellow couch and he would sleep on the carpeted floor. At 5am, the Latina in charge of cleaning the offices would come to take out the trash. She reminded me of my mother. Always wearing a ponytail, comfortable t-shirts and jeans.
Every time we heard the door to the hall opening, we just had to make sure to be awake and pretend to be on the computer or something. We tried to be extremely friendly with her when she came into the office.
Antonio would often make compliments about her dedication to her hard, back-breaking job.
“¿Cómo está senora? Qué duro trabaja usted.”
“Sí mire, la vida del pobre,” the woman would say.
Antonio was almost done eating his burrito. “It’s crazy how we used to do that. Sigh. The life of an undocumented student”, he said between bites.
I nodded.
Antonio said, “Haha. Remember how one day we were so sick of waking up at 5am that we were like ‘fuck this’ and did not care if the lady would see us sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
As we walked out of the restaurant, I looked around and wondered how many other undocumented students have done what Antonio and I did. I’m sure there’s many.
Last year on a hot summer afternoon I met up with my friend Antonio to go get burritos at Pancho’s. At the bus stop, we started talking about the scholarship interview we both had the week before. I kept listening inattentively until he said:
“Yeah, I mentioned to the committee how we used to spend the nights at Eshleman Hall. It’s funny remember? How we would freak out about getting caught.”
When I heard the word Eshleman, images of the third floor, the smelly girl’s bathroom and lonely halls at midnight flooded my mind. I had forgotten about that chapter in my life. Sometimes I try to block memories from the past, perhaps as a defense mechanism because they are too painful to remember. But fortunately, my friend Antonio reminded me of them.
It was the first semester of my sophomore year. I was at a point where I could no longer bear commuting late at night, walking through the dark and empty streets of West Oakland, especially after being chased by a guy on my way home. I was at the corner of Union and 12th Street when all of a sudden I see a man biking from afar. He gets closer, and closer. Then he yells at me. I was so scared that I couldn’t remember any of the words he said. He got off his bike and started running after me. Luckily, I was only a couple of blocks away from home. I ran as fast as I could.
“FIRE! FIRE!” I yelled
And people started looking out their windows. The man stopped chasing me as I started desperately knocking on the door of the house where I used to live in and screaming; “OPEN THE DOOR, PLEASE!” with tears on my eyes. Scariest experience ever.
I decided to ‘move in’ to Eshleman after the incident. Around the same time, I learned that my friend Antonio didn’t have a place to live. I suggested that we both spent some nights at one of the student offices in the building. The first days were rough but soon we got used to the routine. I would sleep on this old yellow couch and he would sleep on the carpeted floor. At 5am, the Latina in charge of cleaning the offices would come to take out the trash. She reminded me of my mother. Always wearing a ponytail, comfortable t-shirts and jeans.
Every time we heard the door to the hall opening, we just had to make sure to be awake and pretend to be on the computer or something. We tried to be extremely friendly with her when she came into the office.
Antonio would often make compliments about her dedication to her hard, back-breaking job.
“¿Cómo está senora? Qué duro trabaja usted.”
“Sí mire, la vida del pobre,” the woman would say.
Antonio was almost done eating his burrito. “It’s crazy how we used to do that. Sigh. The life of an undocumented student”, he said between bites.
I nodded.
Antonio said, “Haha. Remember how one day we were so sick of waking up at 5am that we were like ‘fuck this’ and did not care if the lady would see us sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
As we walked out of the restaurant, I looked around and wondered how many other undocumented students have done what Antonio and I did. I’m sure there’s many.
