Photos by Scott Walker

For the past nine months, Charles Beavers has slept under Murfreesboro’s Church Street bridge, just a few feet from the very active train tracks.

Beavers, who has been homeless for nine years, says he is growing tired of being homeless, but that he has everything he needs and his spot is far from the worst place in the world.

“I’d rather be out here and have some privacy than be bunched up with a bunch of kooks in a mission; the mission in Nashville is like a jail,” Beavers said while sitting on his mattress below Church Street, where thousands of cars whizz past overhead every day. “And I’m probably safer here than in the projects.”

His few possessions and Reese’s Pieces wrappers, Chef Boyardee ravioli cans, Vienna sausages, peanut butter and crackers, and pudding cups surround his mattress and blankets. His view to the front is a thickly wooded forest; to his back is a concrete ledge. Both serve to keep his area cool, shady and secluded.

But just beyond the concrete barrier, trains thunder down the train tracks, everyday, non-stop.

“They never stop coming, 24-7, 365 days a year. Even on Christmas,” he said.

Currently, one other man resides under the same bridge, his camp set up a little ways down the tracks.

“There were some others, but I had to run them off,” Beavers said. “They was raising Cain and drinking.”

In the past, the area under the bridge contained a great deal of trash, bedding, blankets, glass, and odds and ends. But currently, other than the two men’s few possessions, it is quite tidy.

“I’ll carry my trash away,” Beavers said. “The cops come down here, but if it’s clean, if there’s not trash all around, if you’re not drinking and harassing people, they’ll leave you alone. They know I’m down here, they even come and check on me sometimes.”

While he prefers the outdoors to an urban mission setting, Beavers does take advantage of the services at Murfreesboro’s Journey Home.

“You can take showers, do laundry and keep yourself clean there,” he said.

He also appreciates an occasional hot meal from the local Salvation Army.

“Your mid-sized towns are where the good help is,” he said.

Beavers doesn’t go hungry, he said; his food-stamp card is loaded each month.

When asked if he needs anything, he replied: “Cat food. I’ve been feeding some cats down here.

I have everything I need.”

Originally from Georgia, Beavers attributes his current situation to drinking and driving.

“I’ve been caught eight times,” he said.

“I’ve been homeless for nine years now. I’m kind of tired of it. I’m tired of the road,” Beavers continued. “I’ve been out west, out in Colorado, California, but they don’t speak the dialect. I’d rather be in Tennessee or North Georgia.”

He has family in Georgia, but said he does not plan to ever see them again.

“They’ve pretty much disowned me,” Beavers said, and he has accepted that.

“I’m going to get off of my lazy hind end and get a job one of these days,” he said.

Until then, Beavers is at peace with his living quarters under Church Street, or at least not highly motivated to make an immediate change, his cats as his companions, and using his portable radio with headphones—one of his few luxury items—to listen to his Atlanta Braves on WGNS for entertainment.