hey kid | d2

tonight's the night when the waters rise
you're groping in the dark

It's called The Station even though you can't go nowhere. Guess it's terminal. That's the Dugout condition. Everything is terminal.

Not sure if the name's official. Probably isn't. Not much down here with official names. Not much down here with official anything. Probably was years after people were living in the stack of decommissioned train cars before they started calling it The Station, then years before someone dug up the rusty blue sign and bolted it to the metal post out front.

Real controversial move, I bet. Lotta folks down here don't want to be identifiable or easy to find. Three people got stabbed over that time Old Man Ramshackle painted unit numbers on everyone's apartment. ("Apartment.") Someone went around and scraped off about half. There's a unit on the first level that changes their number a couple times a year.

It's the kind of place you go if you don't want to be found, because it's the kind of place that District Two forgot.

the ticket takers will not board
the ticket takers are tied

Rule number one: Don't cause a ruckus. If your place starts wiggling, you'll make the whole complex unstable. Forget pounding on the walls, you'll have four neighbors at your door with bats and broken bottles and shanks and a cat-o-nine-tails made out of braided extension cords. Folks like to show off whatever they're packing, but that don't mean it's not a threat. If your place goes down you're taking the rest of us out with you. Shit ain't harmonious, necessarily, but it's The Dugout. Everyone knows we sink together or swim together down here.

they say the sky's the limit
but the sky's about to fall

Ratbite disconnects the power each July the day before the big one hits. Half the neighbors piss and moan about getting cut off when the sky's clear, but Ratbite has a real knack for predicting it. Says her trick knee tells her the weather. It sounds made up, but after how many years in a row she's been right you just gotta take that shit as fact.

Every year we stack the sandbags in front of the ground floor units. They never do enough. Then, y'know, we join the parade. Most of us do, anyway. March on up to higher ground. They pack us into the school gym. They're keen on watching us to make sure we don't do nothin' bad like we've already done it, so obviously we do. That's the best place to make new friends and new enemies. Don't got shit else to do but wait for the water to recede, except sitting around hoping that it does. That pond down the other side of Graffiti Mile gets bigger and bigger every year. One of these days it's gonna swallow us all.