by Pat Capponi
As I pass yet another well-lit and cheerful house, I feel like the little match girl and let myself imagine being inside by the fireplace—there must be a fireplace, the smell of burning wood is unmistakable—warming my toes and sipping mulled cider. My feet are already little bundles of ice, encased in my oldest pair of running shoes. I hate being cold, really hate it, but for the sake of authenticity, I’ve left my warm jacket behind, along with my gloves. I do have a hat, an old woollen thing that makes my scalp itch but covers my hair and most of my forehead, and I’ve layered up in true homeless style with T-shirts and oversized sweaters.
There are small groups of people ahead of me now, and a few solitary walkers like me. I must be getting close. The lady on crutches slips on a patch of ice and falls, knocking over her companion, who curses up a storm as his head hits the base of a street light on his way down. I reach them, and help her sit up; he’s a little dazed and bloody, but she’s okay. With a little effort she’s back on her crutches and yelling at the man to “get the hell up.”
Turning to me, she smiles, holds out one hand. “Thanks, that was nice of you. I’m Cassie. This,” she says, pointing with one crutch, “this is my sorry s.o.b. of a husband, Rick.”
“April. You all right?”
“Sure. I’m used to falling. Just a sec. Use the snow, idiot, wipe the blood off your head! No, big handfuls, and do your face!” She manages to stay upright as she whacks him several times on the back. She’d be a good hockey player with that crutch. “They won’t let him in if they see he’s drunk. You going to the church?”
I see a woman appear in a window across the street, staring out at the show, a look of pure horror on her face. “Yeah, is it much further?”
“No, we’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Would you mind?” She gestures at Rick, and I grab one hand and get him upright. Most of the blood is gone, and his face has a rosy glow—possibly a prelude to frostbite from all that snow he’s rubbed in—making him look healthier than he is. “Okay, maybe he’ll do. You must be new,” she adds, raising her voice to the backs of the other walkers. “None of them other selfish bastards would stop even if I was lying dead in the street.”
I’m relieved that we’re moving again; I’m sure the lady in the window is about to call the cops. Rick manages to keep up, though it clearly takes all his concentration to stay on his feet. “Yeah,” I say, “it’s my first time here. I’m a bit nervous, not sure what to expect.”
“The volunteers are pretty nice. And the food is really, really good. It’s different, though, I gotta tell ya, from other Out of the Colds. You gotta be good. There’s never any trouble, no fighting, no swearing, nothing, not even bumming smokes. Not anymore, anyway.” She lets this trail off without further explanation. “You gotta behave there, or you’re toast. They’ll come down on you with both feet. D’ya hear me, Rick?” With her face now inches from him, I’d be amazed if he didn’t. She turns to me to explain. “It’s too damn cold to be sleeping out, or I wouldn’t risk it with him so shit-faced. He’s got us barred from every shelter in town, what with him mouthing off and getting himself into scrapes.”
I hear Rick mutter something under his breath, but I don’t ask him to repeat whatever it was. I don’t want her to whack him again. Cassie, in fairness to him, isn’t exactly a paragon of sobriety either; her breath reeks of cheap booze, making it even more impressive that she stays upright.
We’ve finally arrived, and there’s quite a crowd waiting, must be close to a hundred people. I can’t make out individual faces, it’s so dark. The only light comes from a weak yellow bulb over the door; three or four animated young men have positioned themselves under it. With a start, I realize that one of them is Michael. Their voices are loud and carry over to where I stand.
“Where you been all these months? I thought the cops must have gotcha.” The guy standing beside Michael pounds him on the back, clearly happy to see him. I move a little closer and catch his reply.
“Up north, seemed like the smart thing to do, there was too much heat here.”
His friend talks him up to the others. “Mikey was cool. The best. He could be in and out of a house in less than five minutes, carrying everything but the toilet. We had some good times, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we did. We sure did.” It never occurred to me that Michael might be recognized, that some of his old street friends might be here. I feel a churning in my stomach, but there’s nothing I can do right now.
Gerry is standing a few paces back, fiddling with his lighter, trying to get it working; one of the guys points his chin at him and says, in an ugly voice, “If he’s so cool, why’s he hangin’ with the retard?”
I can feel Michael stiffen; I’m only a couple of feet from him. Michael turns his head, looks at Gerry, then shrugs. “He has smokes, and enough for a case of beer.”
“Fuck, you can do better than that! Lose him.”
The other men join in, giving Michael grief until he walks over to Gerry and grabs him by the front of his jacket, shoving him away from the group. I can’t hear what Michael’s saying, but my heart is pounding as he leans in and starts searching through Gerry’s pockets, taking his cigarettes and lighter and something else, probably the money we gave him for a cab. Gerry is making feeble efforts to free himself, but Michael shoves him again, causing Gerry to fall backwards into the snow. He returns to the doorway to the raucous applause of his new friends. I want to go to Gerry, who’s just lying there, probably heartbroken, but I stick to the plan. I have to trust that Michael knows what he’s doing, that he would never deliberately hurt Gerry, and that Gerry is strong enough to take it. I tear my eyes away from that lonely figure and scope out the rest of the waiting guests.
Another man is lying in the snow, but it’s clearly his choice—his arms are propped behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles, just another day at the beach. Behind him, a guy is pacing out the distance from one shrub to another. I can hear him counting under his breath. A little group of three women are sharing a cigarette like a joint, taking deep drags and passing it on, savouring the smoke before coughing it out. Another huddle of men are pulling at a wine bottle, shushing each other while arguing over whose turn it is to drink from it. They drop it, and before they can move to pick it up it’s mostly spilled over the ground, which starts them pushing at each other, cursing mightily before remembering where they are. One of them, the soberest, bends down and grabs the bottle, emptying it down his throat before sending it sailing into the dark. The fight stops abruptly as they watch its passage. For a moment, I think they’re going to salute.
“Shouldn’t be long now.” Cassie is right behind me. “Don’t know why they don’t open the door when they see us waiting, especially in this cold. Listen, one more thing, not that you heard it from me.” She’s eyeing the clique under the yellow light, and speaking low and fast. “If a woman starts coming on all friendly, telling you she’d like to help, blow her off quick, it’s a set-up. I know one girl that fell for it, she found herself having to spread her legs for a bunch of losers. All she got were some hits off a pipe, not a cent for all that work. She had to run like hell the minute she had a chance, never comes here no more. So okay, you got the message? Don’t say I never warned ya.”
Rick is muttering something. I can’t make it out, but she can. “Shut up, she’s fine. Nobody heard, anyway. I’m sick of those bastards and their threats.”
At that moment, there’s a surge forward, like a human tidal wave, as the door finally opens, and we’re swept along. Rick makes it in, and we’re right behind him. A man at a desk asks if we’re here for the night, or just for dinner. Then it’s down a few stairs, into a brightly lit basement where a bunch of long tables are set up; it’s warm and inviting. Cassie leads the way, and soon, to my great relief, we’re sitting down, the three of us in a little grouping near another doorway, where volunteers bustle in and out. “We get served first, they start with the tables closest to the kitchen. God, I’m st
arving, how about you?”
Nodding, I look around. I’m facing the back, able to survey the whole space. Across from me is Cassie, while Rick is between us, at the head of the table. Michael is sitting closer to the back of the room, against the rear wall, where it seems only the streetwise young men gather, as if the table’s reserved exclusively for them. Their numbers have swelled to a good dozen.
All the other tables have a more egalitarian mix crammed elbow to elbow: former psychiatric patients, marked by their shaky hands and stiff movements, the simply poor, ranging from middle aged to elderly, addicts in all shapes, sizes and colours, the youngest of them exuding wariness and distrust, behaviour learned on the streets. Gerry is sitting in the middle of the room, bracketed by two ladies almost as large as him.
Everyone keeps their coats on, making it feel even more crowded. As the first full plates appear, carefully juggled by smiling but clearly exhausted volunteers, an anticipatory silence, as heavy as a thick fog, falls on the room. Our server is an older woman, in her sixties at least, and very thin. Her dress is covered by an old-fashioned smock, and she’s wearing thick-soled shoes as she dashes back and forth. Her cheerfulness is unforced, and returned in kind by the folks at the table.
“Good evening, how is everybody tonight?” She asks as if she really wants to know. A chorus of “goods” and “greats” comes from us, and she smiles beatifically. “I do hope you enjoy the dinner, but make sure you leave room for dessert!”
She lays down a few plates, then bustles off to the kitchen for more.
“Man,” I say, leaning into Rick, “these ladies really move. I’m surprised none of them trip, carrying all those plates.”
“Sometimes they do. Not trip, exactly. We had one volunteer down, she was near the washrooms when it happened. They took her out by ambulance.”
“Oh, wow, she just fell?”
Cassie, her eyes following the server, mutters just loud enough for me to catch, “She didn’t fall. She was pushed.”
Rick is suddenly very serious, warning us both. “If you don’t want the same thing happening to you, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
Cassie rebels, hissing at Rick. “I seen it, you didn’t. She was looking for a coat for me, something with a lining. I was waiting and I seen him follow her. I heard them arguing, so I stuck my head around the corner, she was on the floor, and he gives me a look, like keep your mouth shut or else, you know, so I had to leave her like that. I felt bad, still do.”
“Cassie, shut up! We got enough to worry about. We can’t afford no trouble from him.”
I’m almost jumping out of my chair with frustration, I want Cassie to keep talking, I want to ask who “he” is. And I’m wondering if “he” of the pushing is the “he” who went to the rest home. But both Cassie and Rick lose interest as the volunteers show up with their dinners.
A plate filled with roast beef, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, and gravy is placed before me, and for the moment I too forget all about “him.” In the centre of the table, a large bowl of salad and another of rolls appears, and we fall to. Food never tasted so good; even with the smell of wet feet and unwashed bodies, it’s ambrosia.
Cassie kicks me under the table. I cut off an automatic protest before it escapes my lips, and follow her stare to a woman who’s leaning over to whisper in the ear of a girl sitting across and a few seats down from me. The girl listens, then nods quickly and whispers back. In spite of another kick from Cassie, I keep my eyes on the older woman, wondering if she’s half of the mystery couple we’re looking for, the “she” that goes with the “he.”
It’s difficult to see it in her now, but look hard enough and it’s evident she would have been a looker once. She has large grey eyes almost too big for her face, which is thin and pale, her complexion spotty, and she’s dyed her limp, shoulder-length hair an unnatural shade of black, which only serves to emphasize her pallor. Her clothing is pretty unusual for a homeless person. I’m sure that’s a cashmere pullover she has on, and the tight, tight jeans have a designer look.
Throughout the meal, trying not to be obvious, I manage to keep her in sight as she moves around the room. She’s not the only one walking about, but she’s certainly the most purposeful. I watch her sidle up to other young women, all of them barely out of their teens. She touches their arms, their shoulders, their hair, and smiles. Some of the girls are streetwise, their faces already hardened; others look innocent, lost and afraid, desperate for rescue, in whatever form it might appear. She whispers to them and none of them turn her down.
It’s clear too that she avoids approaching the less attractive, the overweight, the overmedicated, and the over-twenty. As though she’d come with a shopping list she was determined to fill, and nothing would distract her. After tapping five or six females, she heads to the back and takes a seat at Michael’s table. The boys ignore her.
“You’ll get us into trouble,” Cassie hisses at me for the umpteenth time. “Stop staring at her!”
“What does she ask them?”
“I already told you! Now leave it alone, will you, and eat your dessert. It’s none of our business!”
“All right, don’t worry.”
But she is worrying, and so is Rick, who’s watching a nervous little guy at the other end of the table. He’s got a runny nose and hair that sticks up in clumps and tufts. He’s leaning way over like he’s trying to hear us, practically climbing onto the table. When I turn to him, prepared to be rude, he gets up, leaves his paper napkin spread open on the table to mark his spot, and rushes to the back where the bathrooms are. Maybe he’s just lonely for conversation, maybe he’s terminally shy.
The last of the empty dessert dishes are whisked away. We’d been given three kinds of cake, all very tasty, I’m glad to report. Then, almost as if there was a signal I missed, everyone gets up and moves to the side, and a group of male volunteers starts folding the legs of the long tables and putting them against a far wall. The noise is deafening. I try again to get Cassie talking, but Rick looks so upset I have to back off.
There is a minor exodus for the door, mostly smokers, I presume, desperate for a last cigarette. The tough boys, Michael still with them, are also moving; they have their jackets on, as does the woman “procurer,” who is gathering the young ladies to her. A couple of them seem quite excited, giggling and whispering to each other. The woman has her arm around one girl who looks like she’s ready to bolt.
I decide I could use some air myself.
The blast of frigid cold is almost welcome. Between the food I’ve eaten and the warmth coming off all those bodies, I’m overheated. I light a cigarette from the pack I brought for cover, and pretend to smoke it while looking around. The gang of young men is heading down the road, toward what, God knows. The girls are with them, trailing behind. They don’t look back and as I stare a van intercepts the group, honking a little tune as it pulls up. They all pile in, the sliding door slams shut, and the driver does a slick manoeuvre so that he’s pointed back in the direction he came. It’s too dark to read the licence plate, or even to make out the colour of the van.
I whisper to the night air, Be careful, Michael, throw away the cigarette, and go back inside.
Back in the warm, cleared basement, Cassie points to a corner where mats are being distributed, and sends Rick to get theirs. I join the group crowding around the man in charge. You wouldn’t think there would be choice places to sleep on a floor, but a number of the folks are in a great hurry to mark out their territory. I’m pushed and jostled and my feet are stepped on.
“Oh my God, Dana, is that you? What are you doing here? I can’t believe you’re here, of all people!”
It’s one of the regulars from the drop-in centre. I frantically search my memory for her name, while at the same time shushing her. “Keep your voice down. And call me April, okay?” We’re packed in, and right behind me, breathing down my neck, is the eavesdropper from my table.
“Oh, I get it. You’re w
orking, detecting, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.” It might be too late to worry about that, I’m thinking, as I try to dampen her enthusiasm. Janie, that’s her name, a gossipy, flighty woman who’s addicted to card games, especially euchre. “This is so exciting! Can I help? Please?”
I lean in close, not hard when we’re pushed together by the pressure of the crowd. “The biggest help you can give me is to ignore me. Will you do that?”
She nods vigorously, manically. “Sure, Dana, I can do that. I’m so relieved, I don’t think I could bear it if you were on the streets too.” Before she can move away, I reach out and grab her arm to stop her.
“Janie, wait. Just a sec. How did you know it was me? I mean, I don’t normally dress like this, look like this, do I?”
“No, of course not. But I’d know you anywhere.”
I’m afraid she’s humouring me. She pushes to the front and grabs herself a mat, winking in a parody of slyness as she turns to go find herself a space. When I get home, I’m going to take a serious look at my wardrobe. Maybe it’s time for a change.
The mats smell of a powerful disinfectant, and they are awfully thin, like the kind we used to exercise on in high school. There’s no pillow, no blanket. Poor Gerry, I think sadly, this is going to kill him. Cassie waves me over. She and Rick have set up close to the bathroom. “When I have to go, I have to go!” she tells me, and I lay my mat down by hers, less than six inches away, all the personal space allowed each individual. Rick is arranging her coat, which she has taken off and handed to him. He fusses around until every inch of her, except her head, is covered, then he collapses on his mat and starts to snore immediately.