Curtis Libert and his friends built a shanty by the banks of the Quinnipiac River. With winter weather arriving, Libert vowed to stay at the shanty and protect it from the elements.
Libert, who’s 46, came to New Haven five years ago from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He’s not homeless; he has a place on Rowe Street in Fair Haven. But starting this spring he decided he preferred the banks of the Quinnipiac. It reminded him of home. He liked to look out on the water, catch fish, grill it with friends, pass the night in merriment.
He found a spot at the end of an abandoned gravel lot on industrial River Street. He has a clear view there of the nearby permanently-opened Ferry Street bridge. Unlike other people living in the area, Libert doesn’t worry about negotiating the traffic tie-ups that bridge closing causes.
Libert found some wood boards and built a three-walled shanty. He hung beads by the entrance. He threw a blue tarp on top for a roof. Friends, who also like to fish, gradually helped furnish the joint. One brought a heater, another a lamp, a SONY boom box, libations, a gas stove and grill. They put pictures of models on the walls, set up a grill, and left their fishing rods in Libert’s care. They dubbed the place “Shanty Town.” They fish for striped bass together. Libert feeds the ducks. He watches the swans.
Libert found himself spending more and more hours in the shanty. He made a bed out of a discarded plastic blue Little Tykes car that could fit a mattress. Some nights he sleeps in it.
He has a job detailing cars in Fair Haven, he said. It can’t compete with the lures of the water.
“Right now, to be truthful,” he said, “I’m on three months holiday.” People bring him food and coffee. Not just friends, but factory workers on River Street, too.
He welcomed two visitors Friday morning like old friends. As though he expected the company.
“What makes me come here?” Libert asked in his seductive West Indian lilt. “The view. I love fishing. This is a fishing camp, really. It’s not a house. But people think it’s a house. It’s how we live in Trinidad.”
Most of his fishing buddies come from Puerto Rico. They, too, feel transported home sometimes when they wile hours at Shanty Town.
“We hang out. We have fun. The police protect me; they make sure I’m all right, as long as we have no violence. I’m staying out of trouble.”
Libert plans to stay out of trouble for the four years left on his 10-year visa, so he can get it renewed and stay in the U.S. His wife, meanwhile, is staying back in Trinidad. For permanent companionship, Libert relies on Max, the friendliest Rotweiler (well, he’s half golden lab) you’ll meet.
The cold doesn’t scare Libert. He believes he said he will continue spending part of each day at the shanty throughout the winter, take in the change of seasons.
The biggest fish he has caught so far? A 44-inch bass. He proudly displayed a picture of it from a stack of snapshots.
The stack includes a series of Max photos. In one of them Max lies on his back, his head to the side. He looks like a corpse.
Libert reenacted the photo shoot.
“Max, play dead,” Libert said.
Max rolled on his back. He seemed to bid farewell to Curtis Libert’s world.
“Everything I tell him to do,” Libert said, “he does it.”
Then Max revived. Financial planners might not call Libert’s plan a sound long-term strategy for sustainable living. A visitor can only guess at other complications that lurk beneath the outline of his story, as in any person’s story. But for now, all is peaceful on the banks of the Quinnipiac.
