Exile by Choice

Conor: I've never hopped on this train in the daylight.

Pat: He'll jump on trains, from here and

go all the way to California.

He'll do it with like 10 bucks in his pocket and

he'll make it there by himself and he doesn't like

staying in one spot, he likes to keep moving because

he feels like, that's what keeps him going in life rather

than just staying around and doing nothing.

He likes to be on the move.

Conor: Sorry it took so long man, here you go.

Man with American flag on his back:

good for the body, good for the soul.

Sue: I knew he wanted to be a musician,

and so in my mind I was kind of guiding him towards college.

He was going to go to Southern Illinois and I don't know if

you know what happened right before

he went to Southern Illinois.

[Conor starts playing The Nets by Roaming Bear]

Sue: I was pushing, pushing, pushing and the whole year

beforehand he kept saying: "No mom, that is not me

"I don't want to go to college."

And he actually did overdose, he tried to

kill himself, is was a call to say: "You're not listening,

"I have to be true to my own heart and soul."

Conor: We'll hop another train in New Orleans and

maybe we'll hitchhike from Memphis, I don't really know.

Jennie: Yeah from Memphis we have no idea.

[train crossing alarm and train horn]

Jennie: We're leaving.

Conor: The first time I traveled on my own,

I left the first week of November in 2008,

with 50 dollars and a backpack full of a bunch of junk

I really didn't need, probably like 60 pounds.

It all just made sense to me.

These guys are .

Jennie: These people were not ready

for Katrina to hit them.

Fuck this place.

Conor: We went over to the school that I was

squatting at the last time I came here.

When I was staying there, there was maybe between five

and 10 of us each day staying there.

There weren't too many kids and we were all friends.

Matt: Long story short it is all different.

It's just fucked, it's all fucked.

Every single spot that I have been to,

recently, has been more blown up than anything.

It's that movie 'Into the Wild', it fucked everything up.

I'm not even kidding, it was a great book.

Scabby: In the 90's-

Matt: But that movie fucked everything up,

That was a bunch of 14 year old motherfuckers now

that are out here blowing up lines.

You know, you think we're a bunch of drunk punks

that just want to fight people in the street?

We prefer to be by train yards and eat some good-ass stew.

Curtis: I don't want to fucking stay in the house anymore.

Matt: Dude, check it all out man,

Curtis: Yeah, you know what, there's certain things

you haven't done in your life?

Do them, you know what I mean?

You only got one life to live,

especially if you're this young.

Conor: Did you ride trains here from...

Right now Scab and this other guy named Chris

said that they were going to show us.

Conor: Cool.

Curtis: So you know, my friends around the hood are like:

"Yo, isn't that dangerous?"

and I'm like yeah, but so is the hood so what the fuck?

Scabby: Hobo stew, the Mulligan stew.

The one tradition that we actually hold on to

from the original hobo brothers, is served.

: Why are you guys listening to him?

Scabby: There's no point in bowls, there's no point in cups,

there's no point in separating things.

We spin everything, I mean...

Dude a bunch of fucking yuppies could show up right now,

I mean we will spin this pot with them.

There ya go.

: Thank you, my man.

Matt: This is the home-bum at his natural habitat.

Scabby: I'm not a home-bum.

I never stay anywhere.

Matt: Yeah bullshit.

Conor: I didn't meet one sober street kid today, not one.

Being around them was painful now.

The last couple of months before I decided to get sober...

they're all just madness.

It is really when I came down here last Halloween that

sparked the craziest days of my alcoholism and .

Jennie: I've never really thought of the future,

really stressed about it, I was always concerned

about what I'm going to do in the next few days.

I want to go everywhere, I want to see everything.

Conor: Lately, I don't even want

to be traveling with a backpack.

You know, this is definitely not

something I want to do all the time.

I couldn't even imagine working a j o b

to pay for rent or something, maybe.

Jennie: People always worry about the future,

we don't have a future right now.

You don't have the past right now,

you have right now, now, you know, that's it.

Conor: I love the feeling of going home,

there's nothing like it.

Sue: Oh well, why don't you start there.

Where do you usually sleep when you're on the road.

that's my like favorite place to sleep.

Sue: As I told you when I invited you to the classroom,

they just really, really, wanted to meet you because you

intrigued them and they've got lots of questions for you.

Conor: Alright, oh, I'm supposed to be calling you guys.

You had your hand up first though.

Girl with blue hair band: When you go out hitchhiking

and you get in other people's cars,

do you ever get scared or like...?

Conor: Sometimes, I am scared yeah and I would not

suggest that any of you guys start hitchhiking.

Boy with black hair and gray shirt: Were you scared

the first time, when you hopped on a train?

Conor: I wasn't scared, my heart was beating like

really fast but it was in a good way, I was so excited,

all my adrenaline started was pumping.

: Do you ever get like, lonely,

when you're just...?

Conor: Sometimes it really kicks in when you're a couple

1000 miles away from home and I, you know, want to be

with my mom, want to be with my friends and family and

it kicks in that, there's no way that I could possibly

come back here any time soon because I'm so far away that

I can't afford a ticket home, I'm just stuck.

Sue: has been begging me if he could go with you.

Girl with blue hair band: Would you ever take somebody

with you, like one of us ?

Conor: Do you have any plans, or any ideas of a plan?

Mikey: Not really, I mean I have like, yeah I guess,

a couple of ideas but like...

Conor: Then, where do you want to stop,

where do you want to go or who do you want to see?

Mikey: Surprised me though that they have some shit here.

This is what I wanted to do for a long, long time.

When I was a little kid I used to think about, you know,

like damn hobos ride freight trains and I thought

that was like a pretty cool life.

I guess I fantasized about it.

Conor: I don't really know what he is about, you know,

I don't know if he like wants to go and travel

and just like, score all the free pot he can in California

and like fuck off at rainbow gathering

or if he wants to like...

I don't know if hopping trains is even something

that he is into, or hitchhiking, or if he just wants

to do it to get away from a bad situation

which could be a possibility too.

Do you make jewelry at all?

Mikey: Uh-huh.

Like, wire wrapping and things like that?

You can get like 20 or 30 of these from

one bullhorn, which costs like five bucks from a farm.

You cut it down .

People pay like 20 or 30 bucks for one of these,

and it takes like an hour, tops, to make it.

Perfect way to make money on the road.

Mikey: I haven't tried it yet, I like make hemp and stuff

but like my brother started making wraps like before he died

and I have a bunch of his silver and like stuff like that.

I've looked at it, you know, like watching him doing it.

I like understand how to do it but I haven't tried it yet.

: ...and that is a fact.

Mikey: I'm stuck in here, these people are like stuck,

they've like and I'm going to break out of it.

Tammy: So what exactly are we discussing?

Tom: At age 10, when Michael was 10 and Matt was 13,

Matt had been down the city a couple of times and then

he asked if Mikey could go down.

They went down to the city, take the train and

street skated the city.

Tammy: Come back with stories about giving his money