"Well, it's coming along." Josiah said. He and Chris stood on the sidewalk in front of the "new" mission.
"Josiah, only you could consider one new window as 'coming along'." Chris replied. "There's still fourteen windows to be replaced, and three doors, the bricks need repointing, the chimney won't last another stiff breeze…"
"All in good time, Brother." Josiah assured him. "As the bible says, it's not the outside of the cup that matters, but what's inside."
Chris gave another look to the squat, brick, tattered building.
"And the inside is better?"
Josiah grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now you know, it's not the what that's inside this building, it's the who."
Chris gave him a dubious look.
"My question stands."
Josiah didn't lose his smile. "Come on, let's go in and see how our first customer is faring."
7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7
They found Nathan coming from the as-yet improvised clinic at the back of the ground floor.
"I was just looking for you." He told Josiah and Chris. "He came to after a few minutes. He seems oriented though he's not saying much. He's got some bruised ribs and that lump on his head. Other than that, he needs a bed, a bath, and some food, and not necessarily in that order."
"Did he tell you his name?" Josiah asked.
"Did he say who attacked him?" Chris asked before Nathan could answer Josiah.
"He said his name is Vin Tanner." Nathan said. "And when I asked who hit him, he just shook his head like I was asking a dumb question. He's still in the back." He gestured over his shoulder. "Thought I'd get lunch going in the kitchen, get some food in him before he passes out all on his own."
"All right Nathan, I'll go have a chat with him." Josiah said. "Chris, you might see what clothes we have to give him."
The three men each went off in a different direction.
7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7
Waiting for the wave of dizziness to wear off, Vin stopped a minute in the middle of putting on his sneakers. The last thing he remembered clearly was getting knocked on the head out there in the alley, and fighting with some unknown assailant for his army surplus backpack. A quick touch of the green pack sitting right next to him reassured him – again – that he still had all his portable worldly possessions. The next thing he remembered was waking up on this Boy Scout reject cot with a black man leaning over him, telling him to take it easy and count fingers. Vin had been tempted to give him his own finger to count, until he realized the man was trying to help him, not cause any more damage.
In between those two points of memory, he had a very fuzzy impression of one or two men chasing off his attacker and lifting him to his feet. They must've brought him in here. He didn't know where 'here' was exactly, but it didn't matter. As soon as he finished getting dressed, he'd be on his way.
He was in a room that was probably an office at some time or other. Tile floor, white walls, a lot of outlets. Over head, light from a contrary fluorescent tube shivered and fussed in and out of existence, while the other one stayed grimly constant. The room was furnished with this old cot, an old conference table, two old kitchen chairs, and a roll of paper towels.
Vin figured he'd get his sneakers on, find the man to thank him for his time, and be on his way.
Another man came into the room, a white man this time, older. He had gray hair and a graying mustache, and compassionate eyes.
"How're you feeling son?" He asked and Vin had a fleeting odd thought of wondering why younger men were always called 'son' but women were never called 'daughter'.
"I'll be outta your way in a minute." He offered, recommencing getting his sneakers on.
"You're not in the way." The man took a seat in one of the old metal and vinyl kitchen chairs. "My name is Josiah Sanchez."
"Vin Tanner." He set his hand down on his pack to keep it safe next to him.
"Vin." The man – Josiah – nodded. "How's your head?"
"Staying in place seems like. I appreciate your trouble. I'll be outta your way as soon as I get my shoes on."
"You're not in the way." And the way he said it made Vin think he might actually mean it. "Besides, lunch will be ready in a bit, and I'm sure you could use a meal."
At the offer of food, Vin couldn't hide the look of surprise and need on his face. He hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon, and that was just some trashed food he'd found in another alley. He wondered though – if this was a shelter it wasn't like any of the shelters he'd been in. This place was quiet and empty, with only two other people beside himself here so far. Still, the offer of food was too tempting to pass up.
"If you could spare the food, I'd be obliged."
"We can spare it, there's always enough." The man said and stood up. "You get your sneakers on and I'll meet you out in the hall. We haven't opened for business yet, so it'll be a small party."
"Business?"
"In a manner of speaking a business. This will be a mission, a soup kitchen and shelter for homeless men. We only closed on the building this past week, and as you can see –." He gestured around the bare room with its pulsing light, broken window, and peeling paint. " – we have our work cut out for us."
"I didn't mean to cut in on you before you were ready." Vin said. He felt like he had to apologize, even though the man – Josiah – didn't seem to be requiring it.
"We're honored to have you." He answered back. "Though I'm sorry you had to be hurt for us to make your acquaintance."
"It's nothing." Vin rubbed the knot on the back of his head. "You helped me out if I'm remembering right."
"We heard the tussle around back and decided to lend a hand. We managed to save you that at least." He pointed to the backpack and Vin pressed it a little closer to himself. Josiah seemed to notice the gesture but didn't mention it. "I'll be out in the hallway wrangling with a door that won't stay shut. Whenever you're ready, come on out and we'll get some lunch."
"Okay. Thanks."
7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7
Josiah met Chris out in the hallway. "I left the clothes in the bathroom for him, he can take a shower first before he changes." Chris said. "How is he?"
"Walking and talking, so that's good. He's getting his shoes back on, I told him to join us for lunch."
"He looks like he could use a lot of lunches. I heard Nathan out in the kitchen, I don't think he'll get out of here without eating enough."
"Or the rest of us either." Josiah said. "I'm going to work on this door until he comes out, then I'll bring him to the kitchen."
"All right." Chris headed back the way he had come, and Josiah unscrewed and re-screwed the hinges on the closet door, trying to get it to stay shut.
"You should put a shim in there, behind the hinge." A voice behind him said. Josiah turned to find Vin had come out of the clinic and was watching him work.
Standing and conscious, he didn't look much better than he had lying semi-conscious on the cot. His face and hands and clothes were dirty, his hair needed to be brushed, and he could stand a shave. His plaid cotton shirt had been torn and neatly stitched in three or four different places. His jeans were faded and thin, and ragged at the heels. The only thing that seemed in relatively good condition was the olive green canvas pack he had tucked quite securely under his left arm.
"A shim?" Josiah hadn't thought of that.
"Yeah, if you've got an old shingle around. Or even a thick piece of cardboard. That'll work. Loosening the screws will only make it screech."
"Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. You know carpentry?"
"If that's carpentry, I guess so." Vin shrugged. That was all he had to say about it.
"Well come on and let's see if Nathan has lunch ready." Josiah said. "I know I'm hungry."
7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7
Vin followed Josiah down a hallway, around a corner, and through a big empty room. He could smell the food in the kitchen and hoped his stomach wouldn't growl. This Josiah seemed all right, but Vin didn't want him to get any idea how desperate he was.
Desperate probably didn't even begin to describe it. The machine shop he'd worked at for four years had laid him off, then shut down. He looked for work. His unemployment ran out. He cancelled his cable and his internet. One by one he sold or pawned what possessions he could. He sold his car. With no family to turn to for help, eventually he was evicted from his apartment and wound up on the street. The manager had given him as much time as he could and Vin didn't fault him for what he had to do. He'd even been nice enough to let Vin store what things he still owned in a locked closet in the basement.
He hadn't been on the street long, though that could be a relative term. He'd been there long enough to get cold and hungry and dirty. Long enough to fear for his life whenever the sun went down. Long enough to realize that homeless people weren't really people, not to the people who crossed the street to avoid them, not to the people who thought of harassing and molesting homeless people as a pastime. Sometimes they weren't even people to the people who ran the shelters and kitchens that were supposed to support and relieve them.
Vin had been on the street long enough to become desperate.
Josiah led him into a kitchen that was as makeshift as the clinic. A wooden picnic table served as the kitchen table with half a dozen or more kitchen chairs – not one of which matched any other – neatly set around it. The other man – Nathan – stood at a stove that had to be older than Vin. The refrigerator was so old, the freezer didn't have a separate door on the outside, and the handle was the lift kind that'd been outlawed years before. A narrow sheet of plywood on two saw horses seemed to serve as the counter space; plates, cups, napkins and silverware sat there next to some Rubbermaid tubs and brown paper bags.
"Where's Chris?" Josiah asked.
"Oh, Buck called. He's down at the wholesale shop where they're giving him grief over the shelter's not-for-profit status, so Chris is on the phone with the manager, practicing all that patience and restraint you recommended he strive for." He – Nathan – grinned as he said it. As Josiah muttered something about needing to say 'extra prayers', Nathan turned to Vin.
"How're you feeling? How's that knot on your head?"
"I'm good. It's OK." If this Nathan wanted more information than that, he'd have to ask - and be specific.
"Well, I hope you're hungry. There's more than enough and we've got a law against waste here."
As he said that, he pulled a large pan of lasagna out of the oven and set it on the plywood counter. From the Rubbermaid tubs, paper bags, and refrigerator, he and Josiah brought out sliced homemade bread, butter, a pitcher of lemonade, a huge bowl of salad and bottles of salad dressing, bowls of vegetables and what looked to be an ice cream cake.
"Just grab a plate and dig in." Josiah told Vin. He sounded friendly and pleasant, like Vin was just a friend who'd dropped in and was a part of all the clutter and make do. He even went first and filled his plate with enough food that Vin didn't feel too bad for taking as much as he thought it would take to fill him.
Josiah waved him to a chair, and Nathan got his own plate and sat down. The two men bowed their heads, so Vin did too, while Josiah said grace.
This wasn't like any shelter Vin had been in so far. Of course, they weren't officially open yet. At the other shelters the workers doled out the food, no matter how much you might want, and nobody who wasn't homeless too would ever sit down to eat with him. He couldn't help wondering what was going on.
He tucked his pack between himself and the back of the chair and commenced eating. The other two men talked amongst themselves for awhile. Vin didn't pay them much attention, he mostly concentrated on eating with whatever he could manage by way of good manners. He was hungry enough to want to simply inhale the food, and he would've done that if he was alone, but he didn't want to do that in front of these men. It was bad enough he was sitting down to eat dirty and disheveled.
At one point, Josiah took the pitcher of lemonade and filled the three cups on the table. Vin thanked him and took a drink.
"Do you have any idea who attacked you?" Josiah asked.
"No." Vin said. He had to ask, "You're new at this, aren't you?"
"New at what?"
"Taking care of homeless people." He kept his voice casual, and slightly joshing, he didn't want to piss them off.
"We've both worked with homeless people before." Nathan said. He sounded confused, not pissed. "What's that got to do with who attacked you?"
"I just wondered why you bothered asking who did it. It doesn't make any difference."
"Of course it makes a difference." Josiah said. "It's still a crime, whether you're homeless or not."
"You really are new at this, aren't you?" Vin didn't want to be pushing at these men, but it felt good to finally vent what he'd been feeling since the first time he allowed himself to acknowledge his plight. "There can't be a crime committed against a homeless person, don't you know that? We can't even be murdered, we're just 'found dead'."
"We see things differently here." Now Nathan sound deadly serious and Vin was afraid he'd gone too far.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything. You get used to a certain kind of treatment out on the street. I'm not used to being treated this nice." He fixed his eyes on his plate and went back to eating. He was almost done and he actually felt full. As soon as he was done he'd thank them again and be on his way. He'd be sure never to come back here, even when they were 'open for business.'
A heavy, warm hand on his shoulder brought Vin's head back up in surprise. Josiah was touching him, looking at him with those compassionate eyes. "No son, we're sorry that you've had to accept treatment that would strip you of your humanity. It's the person we care about, not the homelessness. You're not a homeless man, you're a man who's homeless. There's a difference. Don't ever let anyone make you forget that you're a person first, before anything else."
Vin nodded because he didn't know what to say, and he went back to eating. Just a few more swallows of food and lemonade and he'd be on his way.
Josiah stood up from the table and went to the plywood counter and pulled the clear plastic dome off the ice cream cake. "I hope you saved room for dessert, Vin." He still sounded pleasant and friendly. "I'm going to make coffee. Instant, but we've got real cream for it."
"No. No thanks. I'm full." He said it fast. "I couldn't. I'll just -."
"Well if you're done then," Nathan said. "You can go have a shower and change your clothes."
"What?" The idea surprised Vin so much he couldn't form his mind to think what Nathan might be talking about.
"We've got clean clothes for you, waiting in the bathroom. You can take a shower and shave."
"No, that's okay. You don't have to." Even though the thought of a long, hot shower had been tormenting Vin for weeks.
"Come on, I'll show you where the bathroom is." Nathan said as though he hadn't heard Vin at all. He stood up, and after a moment, Vin stood as well to follow him out of the room. He picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder.
"If you change your mind about the cake after your shower, there'll be a piece here waiting for you." Josiah said.
"Okay. Thanks." But Vin knew he wouldn't take him up on it. He'd have the shower and change his clothes and be on his way.
His way. He kept saying that, didn't he? Well his way sure had been a bust most of this past year, hadn't it? He'd gone, at the beginning of the year, from a young man with a good job, a comfortable life, a decent apartment, and a reliable car, steadily working to finish his college degree to this – broke, homeless, and filthy, needing the charity of strangers just to get a clean pair of socks.
He'd never considered himself an overly proud man. He had faults and shames, same as anybody else, and he knew them. He supposed he was just an appropriately proud man. Or at least he had been, until that first time he found himself scrounging food out of a garbage can in a back alley. He never thought a person could get that low. He never thought he could get that low.
Something collapsed inside of him right at that moment, and maybe it had been his pride. So, if he wasn't too proud to scrounge garbage, he sure couldn't be too proud to accept the offer of a shower and clean clothes from these men. It wouldn't change his being broke and homeless, but it would change for a little while being filthy. Maybe that would give him back a speck of pride.
Maybe, but he doubted it. It would only make him broke, homeless, and clean. And that would last all of twelve hours or less until he found somewhere to sleep again, and even if he did find somewhere relatively clean to sleep, it was never so clean that he didn't wake up with some dirt on him.
He didn't have to worry about other people stripping him of his humanity, like Josiah said. Just being alive and homeless did it all by itself.
Nathan led him down another short hallway.
"We've started calling this place 'house of a hundred corners'." He told Vin. "You can't get anywhere in a straight line. There's Chris. Excuse me a second."
They stopped in the doorway of a small office, an actual office with a big old-fashioned wooden desk and one of those old oak desk chairs on wheels that looked like they came right out of a 1940's detective movie. Vin expected to see a candlestick phone on the desk. As it was, the phone that was there was the square looking rotary kind he remembered his grandparents having. A man sat at the desk. He was looking through a phone book.
"Chris – how'd you make out?" Nathan asked.
"I think everything turned out okay, or it will anyway." He – Chris – smiled. "I sent Ezra over there to take care of things."
Nathan laughed, but shook a finger at Chris. "You'll have to go to confession for that!" he said. "Oh, Chris – I'd like you to meet Vin Tanner. Vin, this is Chris Larabee."
Vin was startled to hear his own name spoken out loud by somebody else. He couldn't remember the last time someone had referred to him by his full name, or even introduced him to somebody else using their full name. That shock had barely begun to recede when he got an even bigger shock – Chris Larabee stood up. He stood up to greet Vin and he offered his hand without hesitation.
"It's good to meet you, Vin. I hope Nathan and Josiah have been taking care of you."
Vin nodded, and managed a distracted "Hi," while they shook hands. This man had stood up to meet him. Nobody, in Vin's whole life that he could remember had ever stood up to meet him. It made him feel human again. It made him feel like he was a man again, not just some dirty piece of refuse that'd randomly drifted to this spot.
"I'm taking him back so he can have a shower." Nathan said. "And don't forget there's lunch waiting for you in the kitchen."
"I won't forget Nathan." Chris released the handshake. "Vin – I put some clothes for you in the bathroom. Let me know if they don't fit, I'll see if I can find you something better."
"Oh – okay. Thanks. Thank you – uh -."
"Chris, call me Chris. And you're welcome. If you need anything, just come find one of us, we'll be around."
"Okay. Thank you." That feeling of being startled just wasn't leaving Vin. It only increased when Chris gave him one last smile and set a hand on his shoulder. "Good. I'll let you go get your shower. It's good to know you."
7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7
Chris ate a quick lunch. His mind was filled with all the things that needed doing to get this place up on its feet and running. Josiah always trusted God; Chris always remembered the story that ended with the man saying, "Reverend, you should've seen this place when God was running it by himself."
He'd just placed his dishes in the sink when a sound at the kitchen door made him look up. He saw a young man standing there.
"Can I -." He started to asked 'can I help you?' when he saw the green backpack held close. Vin. This was Vin Tanner. He'd lost ten years as well as all the dirt and whiskers. "Come on in and have a seat, Vin. Josiah's been bragging on the ice cream cake like he made it himself. We can have some and let him know if it's as good as he says it is."
"Okay. Sure. Can I help you?"
"Nahh, I've got it. Coffee?"
"Sure. Thanks." Vin looked at the table, he seemed to be going through a debate with himself where to sit. The chair Chris had been sitting in was pulled out; Vin ended up sitting in the chair across from there.
In a few minutes, Chris had them each set with coffee and cake.
"How long have you been out of work?" he asked. No point beating around the bush. He was willing to help a man only if that man was willing to help himself. The sooner he figured out if that was the case, the better.
"Since February. I got laid off, then the company shut down for good a little while after that anyway. I've been looking for work, but people tend to look at you funny when you don't write an address down on the application. Even temp jobs and day labor."
Chris nodded. He knew that was a problem for most homeless people. "We'll talk to Josiah. He's going to let people use this address to apply for work, so that'll help. What kind of work do you do?"
"Machine shop." Vin said, and Chris listened while he explained the other jobs he'd had in the meantime, and what he'd been doing to get a permanent position somewhere, anywhere. He presented himself well, Chris could see he was an honest, thoughtful man who'd done everything he could possibly think of to take care of himself. Even now when he was homeless and starving, he had a dignity about him, his self-esteem was still intact.
"I'll see what we can do to help you find a job." Chris said. "In the meantime, we could use some help here if you're willing to work for room and board. And I'm sure we can get you hooked up with some programs to pay your tuition at college. JD can help you with that."
"How many of you fellas are there?"
"Six so far. Josiah's sure we'll get some more vocations once we're established here and get a little better known."
"Vocations?" Vin asked him. Chris realized that he hadn't realized.
"Yeah, vocations. We're religious brothers."
The End
A/N: There is an order called The Brothers of Mercy in the United States and Europe. I used to work with some of them at the Nursing Home they have here in Western New York. Other than that, this story isn't connected to them in any way.