* * *
Things were pretty quiet under the bridges that Sunday morning, which was a little spooky when Mick went down there by himself. He didn’t see the Man With No Hands anywhere, but coming back up the bank he ran into the tall cross-dresser that he had first seen wearing a red-sequined dress. This time Sheila was decked out in a royal blue evening gown, limping down the hill after what must have been a rough night. His dress was torn and dirty, and one of the straps hung down the front. He looked like he’d been in a fight. He had broken a heel but was still walking on the other one—up, down, up, down.
“Seen the preacher?” Mick asked.
“I ain’t been here,” he said, stopping, looking sideways at Mick. “But it’s Sunday. He’ll be over to the Beal Street Mission.”
“I thought the mission shut down.”
He nodded, tucking in his bra strap. “Did, but it’s open again. Dooley’s kid’s runnin’ it, what I heard.”
* * *
Mick found the mission five blocks over, in the old warehouse district. Being Sunday morning, the world was deserted except for the occasional dark figure shuffling across a street or over the tracks, moving in the general direction of the mission. The place looked like an old brick church building except for the missing steeple and the whitewashed plywood in all the arched holes where stained glass windows used to be. Mick left his truck in the nearly empty parking lot, checking twice to make sure the doors were locked, and headed for the chapel. He could hear singing from inside. Up close, he could see gray wood where the white paint was flaking off the doors and little worms of shrunken calk curling up out of the corners.
While he was standing in the doorway trying to make up his mind about whether to go in, a bum tottered past him clutching at walls and doorframes on his way to the nearest chair. Still drunk—Mick could smell it on him. He wondered who else was out there and what they were up to, so he stepped back into the sunlight for a second and peeked around the corner. Already, some guy had his face pressed up against the driver’s side window of his truck. Mick strolled out there casually, with his hands in his pockets. When the guy saw Mick he backed away from the truck, then turned around and ambled past him toward the door of the mission like nothing was up.
Mick unlocked the truck, got his camera bag off the seat and hung it on his shoulder. Nothing else inside the truck was worth stealing, so he rolled the windows down and left it unlocked. He figured it might save him a busted window.
Once inside, he still didn’t see the Man With No Hands anyplace. He had fully expected him to be up there preaching. There were stairs leading down from the vestibule, but some young guy with long red hair all in his face was sitting at a table blocking the way to the stairs and tapping on a laptop computer. When Mick paused and glanced over at the stairs, Red looked up. His lip curled and he shook his head.
“After church,” he said. Obviously, he thought Mick was one of them.
He stood in the back of the church and looked the crowd over from behind. Mostly men, and mostly black or Hispanic. They were standing up singing when Mick came in, but a few sat slumped in the folding chairs. No pews, no carpet, just scuffed hardwood floors and rows of metal folding chairs with BSM stenciled across the back. They were singing old hymns out of hymnbooks, and the singing was better than Mick would have thought. Stronger, with a lot of bass. Uninhibited.
In that confined space the combination of smells was overwhelming—a lot of body odor, which Mick had expected, laced with whiffs of urine and vomit, which he hadn’t. A lot of these guys slept wherever they fell, and their clothes didn’t get washed much. There was a lot of long, dark, scraggly hair, and a lot of grime. Industrial grunge had worn their jeans slick and shiny and ground itself into the creases in the backs of their necks. Without really thinking about it Mick pulled out the camera and shot a few pictures. He kept an eye on the young preacher who was up front alone, leading the singing while a woman who must have been his wife played the piano. Some things never changed. The young preacher looked his way a few times but didn’t say anything and didn’t seem to mind him taking pictures, so he moved around to the side and kept shooting.
Looking down the rows Mick noticed right away there was a scattering of church kids among the street people. He could tell by the clothes. The church kids were clean—volunteers from someplace else. Some nice clean suburb with good schools, manicured lawns.
He got some great pictures. One guy was singing his heart out—dirty gray face uplifted, eyes closed, hands raised—while an equally grungy guy in the chair right next to him sat slumped over with his chin on his chest, sound asleep. Another man, with dark black skin and shiny scars all over his face, scowled in the general direction of the preacher while a young white boy, obviously a volunteer, stared up at him unnoticed. The kid’s eyes were full of teenage curiosity but his mouth had a little twist in it, like he couldn’t completely hide his disgust.
When the singing stopped and everybody sat down Mick found an empty chair near the back and took a seat holding his camera bag on his lap. He knew better than to put it under his chair. On the back row alone he counted four guys with backpacks, and every one of them was holding it on his lap, guarding it. He had learned from the Man With No Hands that a backpack—or a camera bag, for that matter—was a prize possession because it replaced the usual black garbage bag with something that could carry a man’s stuff while leaving his hands free. It could also be used for a pillow, and in a pinch could be traded for a bottle of wine or maybe even a rock. He didn’t dare leave it unguarded.
He could smell spaghetti cooking someplace, probably downstairs since there was no room for a kitchen up behind the dais. The sanctuary was nearly full, and Mick figured most of these men came for a hot meal and a handout. The young preacher was talking about choices, decisions, but Mick wasn’t listening, he was watching people, checking out faces and body language. Some of them were really into it, like they came there hurting and were serious about getting help. Others nodded off. They were just there for lunch and a goody bag. Mick didn’t hang around long; he had come there looking for the Man With No Hands but didn’t see him in the crowd, so as soon as the preacher got cranking he slipped out.
The red-headed sentry was still sitting at the head of the stairs, tapping his laptop. He warned Mick off without even looking up.
“I told you, man. After church. You know the drill.”
“I’m looking for the Man With No Hands.”
“Oh. You a volunteer?” Red looked him up and down then and relaxed a little. Even in his work clothes Mick figured he was too clean to be mistaken for homeless.
“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Mick said. “Whatever. I just wanted to talk to him, but I can hang around and help out if you need me to.”
Red jerked his head. “Go on down, then. He’ll be back in the kitchen.”
* * *
The basement of the old church could have been a thrift store, except it was a lot more crowded, like a warehouse in a phone booth. Rows of old coats hung on racks jammed up against racks of pants jammed up against industrial metal shelving full of all kinds of shoes with the laces tied together and handwritten paper tags hanging from them. There were sweatshirts and T-shirts and underwear and socks, toothpaste and brushes and mouthwash and soap, all sorted and stacked and labeled. Mick squeezed between the racks and wormed his way to the back. From the other side of a swinging door came the sound of pots clashing. The scent of spaghetti drifted over the musty odor of old clothes.
There were three volunteers in the kitchen with him, two boys and a girl. High-school kids. Mick stood in the door for a minute or two, watching the Man With No Hands run the kitchen like it was an orchestra. He was clearly in his element, and he had those kids synchronized. It was a typical church kitchen, six-burner gas stove with an industrial vent-hood roaring over it, a walk-in cooler at the far end and a large worktable down the middle—everything stainless steel. The girl was chopping a mountain of salad on the
worktable while one of the boys stirred a cauldron of spaghetti sauce and another hustled a two-handled pot of water over to the stove. The Man With No Hands opened the door to a stacked oven and snatched out two trays of rolls. Mick couldn’t help chuckling at that—anybody else would have had to use a potholder.
When he turned around to slide the trays into a standing rack he spotted Mick.
“Mick! I’m glad you’re here! We can use some help.”
Mick unslung his camera bag and glanced around for a place to put it.
“Set it anywhere,” he said. “It’s safe. Nobody’s allowed down here except for volunteers and staff.”
The Man knew how to run a kitchen. For the next half hour Mick filled paper plates, poured tea into Styrofoam cups and loaded meals onto rolling carts that fit neatly into a dumbwaiter that took them upstairs. While he worked, he told the Man With No Hands all about the show at Arts Clayton, how he took second place and opened a door with A.J. Ecklund. Only after he told the story, and after the Man was suitably impressed, did Mick realize that it mattered to him. He wanted the Man With No Hands to be impressed.
The young preacher, who turned out to be Robert Dooley, son of the man who had been running the place for years, came down himself to tell them when it was time to serve lunch. Once the preaching was over they converted the sanctuary upstairs to a lunchroom. They hauled everything up to the front through the dumbwaiter; then the guys in the sanctuary came up front for a plate and took it back to their seats to eat.
After lunch Mick found out what Red’s laptop was all about. It was their tracking system. All the homeless guys were required to register in the system, and they were given an ID card.
“Keeps them honest,” the Man With No Hands told him while overseeing the distribution process in the vestibule. Volunteers—mostly high-school kids on the day Mick was there—circulated through the crowd asking each man what he needed and checking his ID. Then they brought the card to the table with the laptop, and if the database agreed with the order they’d send a volunteer downstairs to fill it.
“You can only get a pair of work boots every other month,” the Man With No Hands said. “Same with backpacks, when we have them. Otherwise, they’ll just sell them on the street.”
Mick didn’t know where to find anything, but it didn’t matter. There were volunteers who stayed downstairs and pulled stuff from the shelves. Mick took an order down and handed it off, and a minute later he came back up the steps with a black garbage bag containing a shirt and a pair of pants in the size requested, a couple cans of fruit cocktail, a hygiene kit and a couple of aspirins. He couldn’t help noticing the aspirins were always in small quantities.
When he got back upstairs with the bag he asked the Man what to do next.
He waved a hook toward the sanctuary. “Take it up front and call out the guy’s name. When he comes up to get it, check his ID before you give it to him.”
He could handle that.
“Then ask him if he wants you to pray with him.”
Mick just stared at him. He was afraid something like this might happen. He hadn’t signed up for this; he only came to shoot some pictures. He certainly didn’t feel qualified to be praying for anybody.
A little smile came into the Man’s eyes as if he’d read his mind. He laid a hook on Mick’s shoulder.
“Just do it,” he said. “It’s okay.”
So he did.
He got lucky at first. The first couple guys came up there with dull eyes, wobbling a little, and when Mick mumbled something about praying with them they shook him off.
“Just gimme the bag.”
He was relieved. Felt like he’d dodged a bullet.
But the third guy Mick waited on came up there with something else in his eyes. He was wide awake and he looked scared. When he took the bag his hand was shaking.
“Is there something I can pray for?” Mick asked, hoping the guy would blow him off and slide out the door like the others.
But he nodded.
Uh-oh. “Well . . . okay, what?”
“Everything,” he whispered.
Mick hesitated, not knowing exactly what to say.
The man’s eyes wandered, lost, and he went on, “I don’t know. I don’t know nothin’ no more. I used to. I really did—I used to be okay. I had a job, a car, my own house. Last night I sold my jacket. For a rock,” he said, his face twisted with pain. He looked down at himself. “This ain’t what I started out to be. How’d I get here?”
There was desperation in his eyes and he looked like he was fighting back tears. Mick waited.
“Look, bro . . . if you know God,” the man said, “I wish you’d tell him to show me somethin’, cause I don’t know nothin’ no more. I’m wasted, man.”
It wasn’t as hard as Mick thought. He already knew the words to that prayer, so long as God didn’t expect him to sound like a preacher.
Before the man walked off he gripped Mick’s hands, looked into his eyes and said, “Thanks, man.”
Mick couldn’t say anything. He just stood there and watched him go.
The next one brought him back to earth. He was a big guy with a stone face and gray hair spread out loose over the shoulders of a T-shirt that said Another Brick In The Wall. Mick had seen him hanging around outside during the service, smoking cigarettes, waiting for it to be over. The look in his eye said he was just working the system. It was in his face and his posture.
“Just gimme the bag,” he said, then opened it right away and started digging in it while he walked back through the sanctuary. There were others waiting their turns, so Mick went out to the vestibule for another card.
The big guy turned around at the outside door, spotted Mick and said, “Hey, these ain’t the boots I wanted. I said eleven. These are eleven and a half.”
Mick went over to him and looked at the tag.
“Okay. Wait here and I’ll go down and get it straight.”
The kid downstairs who pulled the order, a pimply teenager with a buzz cut and glasses, looked at the boots and said, “Right. We’re out of elevens. That’s the best I can do.”
Mick took the boots back upstairs.
“I don’t want these. I’ll take some athletic shoes instead. Size ee-lev-ven.”
Back downstairs, back up.
“Here. Sneakers. Size eleven.” Mick tried not to show his irritation.
The shaggy gray head shook side to side. “I don’t want no canvas sneakers. Athletic shoes. And clean. These are dirty.”
Mick figured clean ones would sell better on the street.
“Right. And what would be your preference, sir? Nike? Adidas? Reebok?”
The man leaned toward him, a little too close. Mick got a whiff of liquor.
“I just want some decent shoes, man. Why you want to bust my chops? I don’t see you messin’ with nobody else.” There was a lot of activity in the vestibule, volunteers going and coming, the Man With No Hands directing traffic. In that moment it seemed like everybody had stopped and was staring at Mick.
Mick had to remind himself where he was, and that it was not his place to argue.
“All right,” he said, through clenched teeth.
He brought up a pair of leather athletic shoes.
“Clean. Size ee-lev-ven,” he said. But now the big guy had pulled the shirt from his bag and was holding it up by the corners.
“I don’t want this. I want a sweatshirt,” he growled.
Mick had worked guys like this a hundred times. But people were watching and it was a church, after all. He took the shirt downstairs without a word and brought back a sweatshirt—double X.
The man took one look at it and got right in Mick’s face, bobbing that head.
“Wrong color,” he sneered. “I want blue.”
He was pushing all the wrong buttons. “Listen to me—sir,” Mick said, his voice shaking. “You got shoes, and you got a sweatshirt. That’s what you got, and it’s all you’re gonna get. You want ’e
m or not?”
Silence fell like a blanket over the vestibule.
The man saw people watching, changed his tactics and sulled up like a child. “I don’t know why you’re givin’ me grief,” he said, and his voice even had a little whine in it. He was a pro. “I’m just a guy down on his luck, and it seems like you’d have a little Christian compassion.”
He glanced around, judged that he had the sympathy of the crowd, and went on the offensive again. “But you don’t care, do you?” he snarled. “You’re just like my old man.”
Mick wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but the next thing he knew his forearm was pinning the man and his bag and his athletic shoes and his sweatshirt to the wall between the back doors—with considerable force. Their faces were inches apart. There was fear in the homeless man’s eyes, and this time he wasn’t faking it.
“Let me tell you something,” Mick said, intentionally keeping his voice low because he knew it would feed the fear. “You ain’t the only one with a rough old man—I’ll swap stories with you all day long, pal. But the truth is, it wasn’t your old man that made all the choices that put you on the street. You did that yourself. And until you figure that out, you’ll stay on the street. Right this second, your best choice would be to take your goody bag and go.”
Summer of Light Page 23
