Asheville Stories - Biltmore

On each end of Biltmore Street there’s a gas station; there’s a liquor store on one end. The gas stations were important because they were the only places within a short walking distance of downtown where you could buy cheap food on EBT and of course, malt liquor, which was a constant presence in our lives.

Starting from the Citgo on one end (off to the side is ‘Ravenscroft’ and my personal squat - but we’ll get to that later), to the other gas station, there’s ABC Liquor, which did not sell beer, and then an organic food store that was expensive but took EBT. a place called Shitty Bakery (really it was City Bakery) where we used to get dumpster bread. The “dumpster” actually had a sign that said “This bread is for charity but if you need some, go ahead”.

Then there was the Aloft, a hotel or something. We used to go up in there and use the computer and drink the free kava-kava coffee until they told us to cut it out. One time, Shabazz met Yolandi from Die Antwoord in there. Next on Eagle Street there was a smoke shop where you could get a pouch of Peter Stockeye for $10.

All up and down this Biltmore Street were alcoves and closed shops where street kids and buskers would sit and play and spange. You weren’t allowed to hold a sign so you had to either heckle everyone going by or play music. anything to get the message across - give me money, any amount is fine. We’d also ask for cigarettes, and any food that they were carrying. You had to be ruthless. We’d drink (as always) while doing this.

There was a pizza place called Bailey’s that used to leave all the extra pizza out at closing time. I can’t eat pizza. One night at Ravenscroft, I was hungry and I ate the pizza. Big mistake - soon i was blowing chunks out my ass in cold weather, stomach cramps all night. I kind of knew that would happen but I was so hungry, everything was closed and that time of year, you could live outside but at night, it was almost too cold to move around; you had to get in your sleeping bag. So I didn’t want to go forage for food either.

There was a JimmyJohns where a guy we knew who sold weed worked. Across the street from Aloft there was a parking garage where we used to smoke weed. When I say we, I don’t mean just me, Kiev, Lucas and Shabazz. I mean lots of street kids I used to know. I never went in any of the restaurants but I’ve probably eaten food from all of them.

Then there was the Asheville Square, which intersects Cox (“turn left to cross Cox”) and Biltmore. Here was a Korean noodle restaurant. I ate the hot sour soup there a couple of times, on the outside table. The kids used to sit on the bench out in front and the best buskers played here. The chef used to come out of the noodle shot onto the bricks and smoke in his uniform, with a look of pure bliss. Clearly, the street kids didn’t bother him at all. The only people we bothered were the bike cops in their yellow uniforms. One of them was so fat, he had a golf cart instead of a bike. I got a ticket from him, ended up a warrant; but that’s another story.

In front of the Square, on the other side was the Vance monument. a tall stone pillar with a pyramid on top and a square stone bottom that just said “Vance.” I heard “Vance” was a slave driver who built a railroad and a bunch of people died building it. So they built him a monument. One day, the monument was surrounded by a chain link fence. There were even police cars. Someone had spray-painted “Black lives Matter” over the “Vance” in red. Eventually the cars left, but the fence stayed for a long time. they washed the paint off - almost a denial of the truth of the statement. How dare they besmirch the good name of the Vance the great railroad baron.

North Kakalaki.

If you went past the monument, down Cox, eventually you’d hit the courthouse and then a tunnel road you’d follow out to our squat. It was across the street from an Ingles Grocery that sold canned boiled peanuts.. There was a liquor store too. We made a little bridge across a stream, into the woods. there was an abandoned tent. We set up tarps blocking the wind in all directions. Shabazz set up his tent. Lucas and Kiev camped down the hill. Here we could even have fires to cook on and there was lots of dead wood.

Shabazz called this place “Lost boys Camp”. Back to Biltmore.

The other direction down Cox was Mellow Mushroom, a pizza place. some of the pizza was vegan, in other words, wouldn’t make me sick because it had no dairy.

Across from Mellow Mushroom was Kiev and Jordan’s prime busking spot. Jorday played flute, the metal concert kind, and Kiev played a little talking drum. It wasn’t fast money but I guess they ate a lot of free pizza. I can’t play music, so I usually left them to it, which resulted in some other friendships. I’ll get to that.

Down Biltmore past the Square was Rosetta’s. Rosetta’s would give you beans and tortilla chips for free, and you could have hot sauce too. This was every day except weekends, and before 5. They were amazing - they were also a restaurant too, with a sliding scale payment or something. There were free condoms in the bathroom.

Past Rosetta’s was an overpass with a mural of two men playing chess. and then the furthermost gas station. I used to drink under that bridge until I got popped by the pig in the golf cart.