A Knight to Remember

by Yvonne Lehman

So he walked and thought, heedless of his whereabouts until he was no longer walking but was jerked off his feet when his head hit something hard, or something hard hit him. The next thing he knew he lay facedown on what felt to his face like sticky concrete but smelled worse. His blurry eyes finally made out the color red, and he realized that was his blood under his head. A hand was in his back pocket, and when its owner pulled out the wallet he swore and acted like he’d won the lottery, and his companion became a cheerleader.

  Thomas pretended to be knocked out, which he felt like he was about to be, but sneaked a peek at them as they ran from the alley. He thought he’d seen them on the sidewalk earlier but gave them no thought except they looked like a couple teenagers looking for trouble by the way they swaggered and made remarks that he’d paid no mind to. At least he was alive, but his head throbbed, and he was going round and round into darkness.

  The next thing he knew he opened his eyes and wondered if he was blind. Everything was dark. A voice said, “About time. Got you some coffee from the shelter. Better figure out if you can move. I don’t share my place with just anybody.”

  Thomas didn’t know if he was trying to joke or if that was a threat, but a vague shape began to come into focus and that seemed to be a grungy old man. Thomas sat up. “No broken bones, except my head feels like it’s busted open. My watch,” he said, feeling his bare wrist. “And my shoes.”

  “I got your shoes,” the man said. “You can have them back. Just wanted to see how they’d feel.” He chuckled. “Want to trade?”

  A little moonlight filtered down, and Thomas was focusing better. The man held out the coffee. The cup felt warm. He took off the lid and drank half of it. He hadn’t eaten since lunch, yesterday he supposed it was. Then he realized that may be the way this man thought many times. Seeing a pair of grungy sneakers, he picked one up. The sole flapped down about an inch and the fellow chuckled again.

  Thomas decided to do the same and attempted to put it on his foot. In spite of his throbbing head, he laughed with the man as he forced his foot into it and his big toe stuck out about half an inch. They both seemed to think it better to laugh than cry. “You come here often?” Thomas said, tugging at the shoe. He got it off and set it aside.

  “It’s my home,” the fellow said. “Like to be near the shelter where I go when the weather’s too bad. It’s a favorite for them punks, too. They leave somebody in here ever once in a while.”

  “Alive?”

  “Don’t know nothing,” the fellow said, and Thomas detected a stiffening of his attitude. He understood. What would a homeless man’s word be worth anyway?

  “I’m Thomas,” he said, “And you’re?”

  The fellow shrugged and gave a little huff. He drank from his coffee cup.

  “Think I’d better get my head checked.”

  The man took off the shoes, and Thomas thanked him.

  “Shelter’s around the corner. Here, they left this.”

  His wallet. He’d check it out when he had more light than a distant moon. This fellow could have kept it. “Thanks.”

  Thomas was warmly greeted at the shelter. A volunteer, who said he was Robert, cleaned the wound at the side of his forehead just below his hairline. “Not deep,” Robert said, “just a lot of blood on your face and clothes.” He seemed to know what he was doing; he pinched the cut together, placed a gauze pad over it, secured it, then wrapped gauze around Thomas’s head like a sweatband.

  Thomas washed himself off as best he could, brushed off the dirt, ate breakfast with the homeless, and watched the volunteers. He thought about his dad having liked the hotel he ran, a place where people paid for warm hospitality and to enjoy life. He’d wanted to turn Wildwood into a place much like that, but where those who couldn’t afford to pay could go and also enjoy life. Just people, in a different place in life.

  Right then, Thomas could identify with the homeless.

  He couldn’t identify with the volunteers.

  He asked to borrow enough money to ride the Metro back to Silver City, but Robert gave him the money and said it was not a loan but a gift.

  He returned to the hotel, got cleaned up, and threw on jeans, along with a sweater that had been in a drawer for years simply because he didn’t much care for it. He headed out, stopped at the bank for cash, went to a shoe store, bought a pair of sneakers too small for him, rode the metro, and waited in the alley until the man who helped him came home.

  He held out the shoes.

  The man’s eyes widened. “Those for me?”

  “Wanna trade?”

  “These?” The man held up his foot, the sole of his shoe flopped, and he laughed.

  “No,” Thomas said. “Your story.”

  The man sat down with a heavy sigh. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Does to me,” Thomas said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Thomas said.

  The man huffed. “You want me to talk about what I try not to think about. . .for a pair of shoes?”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve done for a bowl of soup.”

  They walked to the shelter for lunch. No questions were asked; the workers just filled his plate. The volunteers at the shelter wouldn’t know him. Thomas had been educated at Georgetown. He’d spent a summer in Paris. He came from a well-to-do family. He’d run in different circles than those volunteers.

  Volunteers only had love and kindness and hope and donated their time and money and caring to the needy.

  Joe, the man’s name, had been in prison most of his life because he hadn’t had any better sense than to be with a buddy who was going into a store to pick up a six-pack. The clerk fought him, and his buddy pulled out a switchblade and didn’t mean to, he said, but the clerk died. Joe was an accomplice. Joe’s family and friends had moved on with their lives, and Joe didn’t fit in with society anymore.

  Thomas told him there were places and people who could help, or homes where he could stay, and Joe said he didn’t know anything about that, so Thomas helped him get into a halfway house.

  Thomas thought about it that night in his bed in his studio in his empty hotel. Frank said he should paint what was in his heart. He knew how to love, how to care about other people, how to be helpful. But what was deep in his heart?

  He wanted to paint.

  He wanted his talent to be recognized as worthwhile. He didn’t want Jesus to say someday, “You wicked and evil servant. You buried what I gave you.”

  Jesus gave one new commandment. Love one another. Love others as you love yourself. How could he paint from the heart if only ambition and himself were there?

  Was he supposed to love the homeless? He could very well be one of them if he chose only to paint and not find a job somewhere. But that was no life to him.

  Maybe he should paint and be one of them.

  He laughed aloud at that.

  Whoa!

  That wasn’t funny. That’s actually an intriguing idea. . . .

  He stopped himself again.

  Don’t even think like that, Thomas.

  How could one love those people? Did Jesus love leprosy? Blind eyes? Crippled legs? No, but he loved the soul and eternal part of people that God created, the part that would never die. In other words, love wasn’t loving or even liking the outside of a person. Love wasn’t just feeling. Love was action.

  At least, at least, he should try to find out who he was, what he was, whether he could care about others like those volunteers, whether or not he could be a more productive painter than thousands of other artists.

  So he made a commitment to the Lord.

  I’ll be homeless and paint. I’ll paint what is in the helpless and the homeless, and I’ll paint what is in the caring, helping volunteers.

  He would learn to love if it killed him.

  In the three years out there, at times it almost did.

  He went on a journey to find his heart.

  At times he wondered if he cared because
he was learning to paint from the heart. Or if he painted from the heart because he’d learned to care. He would let the Lord sort it out. Give that a pass or fail grade.

  Since he’d returned, he’d begun reading his grandmother’s Bible. It opened easily to the place where she’d kept her soup recipe on a folded piece of paper. More important to him now was her underlined passage, one he’d often heard her quote, “If I have not love, I am nothing.”

  He’d learned to love being homeless because it challenged his heart. That time on the street taught him how to be a giver and a receiver.

  But for now, Thomas looked long at the paintings of Joe and Robert. The light was perfect today, so he set up the easel in the right spot and began to paint his latest subject. He liked to work in oils, but that would have been too difficult and expensive. He appreciated the effect he got from the watercolor. Instead of reflecting light, it bounced off the white paper and gave it a more luminous quality. That was the best medium for these paintings. It also eliminated the white pigment, so the painting looked cleaner than if he’d painted in oils, and it took less time to paint the portrait.

  He smiled, thinking about his latest subject, Jim. His smile faded when he thought of Gloria. He mustn’t allow thoughts of her to invade. She belonged. . .somewhere, but not in this particular project.

  twenty

  All week Gloria and Thomas reviewed the résumés of the thirteen who wanted help and had set up appointments for the practice interviews. Thomas made them realize that the interviewers wanted and needed the unemployed as much as the unemployed needed a job. He emphasized they could ask what the representative had to offer them just as the rep could ask them that question.

  Gloria remembered some of her own interviews. She’d given her résumé then waited like a beggar for a few pennies. She hadn’t been ready.

  Here, everyone was learning and being. . .personal. Heather volunteered to cut the hair of the residents instead of their being taken to a barbershop. The church decided to pay her. Caleb and Bobby were spending quality time together.

  One morning after the practices, Thomas asked to watch her enter information on the computer since he’d been away from technology for a while. She did and remembered Clara saying, “Ask him.”

  Looking at the computer she said casually, “Thomas, are you working somewhere in the afternoons?”

  “Every day but Sunday.”

  Just as she opened her mouth to ask what kind of job, he said, “But I don’t get paid.”

  She looked over at him. “You. . .volunteer?”

  He grinned. “You could call it that. I do it voluntarily. Now, what is this Twitter thing?”

  She told him and demonstrated how shelters and the center could twitter each other, which reminded her. “Thomas, where do you sleep at night?”

  “In a hotel.”

  Personal or not the question popped out. “How can you afford it if you have no job?”

  “It’s empty.”

  Oh my goodness. She immediately started telling him about Facebook and clicked in. Her thoughts ran rampant. If he broke into an empty hotel and slept there, and she knew it, she’d be legally and morally required to report him.

  When she finally had nerve enough to gaze into his eyes again, she thought surely the mischief there and his broad smile wasn’t satisfaction about breaking into an empty hotel.

  She couldn’t imagine that look was about. . .Facebook.

  But she wasn’t about to ask any more questions.

  In the weeks that followed she looked forward to the mornings when they worked together, each teaching things to the other. Plans had to be finalized: how the church basement would be set up, which representatives would stay more than one day, who would stay with church members, who would need reservations at a motel, how long each session should last, which reps the interviewees would talk with so no one wasted valuable time.

  Finally the day arrived. The job fair started on Thursday and would last through Saturday afternoon. Some representatives stayed the entire time. Some came for one day. Throughout the church basement long tables, covered with white cloths, were set up with two representatives at each table. Chairs were placed opposite them.

  The first day was trial and error. For the most part, things went well. She and Thomas had tables set up near the door for the hundreds of unemployed to register and be given the names and table number of the representative most likely to be interested in their abilities.

  The only ones that seemed suitable for Heather were a couple looking for clerks or waitresses. Caleb had been concerned about finding work all along, his only experience being tinkering with his car in high school and carrying a gun and throwing grenades in Iraq. He tried to joke about it, but his anxiety was obvious. Determined to do anything to help, Thomas suggested several possibilities, including James.

  “James?”

  “That’s someone coming in tomorrow for a couple hours. Only the ones I picked will talk to him.”

  Gloria was afraid to ask if James might be involved with mechanics or guns.

  On Friday afternoon a nice-looking man maybe in his midthirties, wearing a suit and tie, walked in. “Thomas,” he said.

  “James.” Thomas looked at him rather askance and handed him a number.

  James had the look of a man who’d been handed a rotten tomato.

  “Your table is along the back wall.”

  Thomas must have wondered, as did she, whether or not James was going to go to the table. Thomas said, “I really appreciate this.”

  James nodded. “When I asked if you needed anything. I was thinking along a different line.”

  “Trust me,” Thomas said.

  “I’m trying.”

  Thomas nodded. “I know.”

  That sounded like a catch in his voice, and he looked away from James, who grabbed Thomas’s shoulder for a second and walked on back.

  Gloria couldn’t figure that one out. But for a brief moment, Thomas seemed as apprehensive as Caleb. The next instant he was again the competent, self-assured man who looked at the line and called, “Next, please.”

  Later, when James came by to leave, Thomas told her he was taking a break and the two walked out together.

  Most unemployed came in the mornings, and the numbers dwindled as did the day. Late one afternoon Jim sat down with them.

  “What do you think about our showing appreciation to the reps?” Thomas asked. “They could have just put ads in the papers.”

  Jim tightened his lips then lifted his brows. “I don’t think you’re saying give them a hand.”

  Thomas smiled at Jim’s chuckle. “I’m thinking dinner tomorrow night. A lot of the reps are staying over. We could invite them and those host families from the church.”

  “Takes money. Time. People.”

  “Not really. We can serve them in the dining room at the shelter. I’m sure several of the residents would like to serve. Cleanup would be on a volunteer basis. And as far as people”—he shook his head—“this menu can be cooked with only one. . .people.” He pointed to himself.

  Jim nodded and grinned. “Soup.”

  “Soup,” Thomas repeated like it was the most precious word in the language.

  Jim jumped out of his chair, excited. “I know Clara or Lois, or both, will be glad to make the rolls.” He was already on his way as he said, “I’ll print up the invitations and have them at their places in the morning.”

  Gloria could only stare.

  “Don’t worry,” Thomas said. “You’re invited to this fancy dinner.” He winked. “Trust me.”

  She and James suddenly had something in common.

  I’m trying.

  The next evening Gloria took a final look at herself in the mirror and realized Thomas hadn’t seen her wear anything but jeans and a T-shirt. On Sundays she attended the big church and he the Bible study at Wildwood. She wore a grass-green sundress with mock lace across the top of the bodice and at the hem. The basket weave n
ecklace went well with the woven belt and wedge sandals. Her hair hung to her shoulders in a windblown, natural style, like that errant lock did all the time. She flicked it. Now it was welcome to fall freely.

  Not that it mattered how Thomas had seen her dressed before. It was. . .just a thought.

  After Jim let her and Clara off at the road in front of Wildwood, he drove to the church parking lot. Clara had removed the shoe boot but was being careful with her foot and dared not wear heels yet. As soon as they exited the car, Clara exclaimed, “Oh, that aroma.”

  Whatever it was smelled delicious. Clara stopped right inside the doorway, and Gloria stepped up beside her. “I couldn’t imagine the dining room looking like this.”

  Clara nodded. “I’ve seen it before.”

  Gloria didn’t know when it happened or where it all came from, but the tables were covered with white linen tablecloths with gold edging. Candles were lit in golden candleholders. Residents wore white aprons, as did Lois at the oven. Thomas in a white apron and chef’s hat was stirring a caldron on the stove.

  Where did all that come from? She feared she knew the answer. The hotel. He was a Robin Hood. But nowadays that was called a thief who could spend time in jail for his criminal activity.

  “Come this way, please,” a man said, grinning and eyes shining. That was Sam.

  The same thing happened over and over as men in suits and women in suits and nice dresses entered. After they were seated, Jim asked the blessing and the residents-turned-waiters put breadbaskets on the tables and served soup in bowls on plates she’d never seen before.

  After the first bites the elegant diners became like oinkers in a pigsty. They exclaimed softly between bites, “Oh, what is this? I’ve never tasted anything like this. This isn’t soup, it’s heaven.” They began to turn and look for the chef. Gloria handed her camera to Greg since the job fair was mainly an event sponsored by the church.

  Greg zoomed and snapped while Thomas stood behind the countertop, smiling, and gave a little salute. After everyone paid their compliments to the chef, at the beginning instead of the end of the meal, she felt sure he looked at her with an expression of you should have trusted me.