Chapter Ten

Twenty minutes later, Alan pulled up in a blue 2009 minivan.

"Okay, who missed me while I was gone?" he said, hopping out and slamming the door.

He looked around trying to find where his family went.

"Hello? Heeeeeellooooooooooooooo! Yoooooooohoooooooo, family members who were just here a half hour ago, where are yooooooooooooooou?"

He stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Fine, if you won't come out, I'll just conduct my own self tour," he said.

He walked away whistling as he looked at the store fronts. He passed by the record store and pretended not to notice Madison who was grinning at him from just inside the doorway.

"Oh look, a solicitor's office, wonder what's in here?" Alan said as he stopped beside the record store.

"Hey dumb dumb, you overshot us!" Madison said, leaning out the doorway.

"Perhaps I can sue someone," Alan mused as he ignored her.

Suddenly his eyes bulged out when Madison ran up and snorted the back of his hair. He stared at her in shock as she ran laughing into the record store.

"Ooooh-kay," he said to himself.

He saunted back into the store and looked around.

"Ooo," he said as he wandered over to the Doctor.

He looked over the records in the rack.

"Find anything interesting, Brother?" he said.

"Several classical music albums," the Doctor said. "Tara's holding them for me if you wanna take a look."

Alan looked over and saw Tara standing by Rain across the way. She was holding a big stack of records in her hand while she talked to her mother. Alan sauntered over and pulled the top one off to take a look at it. He stared at the cover and frowned as he walked back over to the Doctor.

"Mickey Mouse Disco?" he said to him.

"That's not mine, that's Tara's," he said as Tara and Rain giggled. "I'd rather be shot than be seen with a copy of Mickey Mouse Disco."

Alan wandered back over to Tara and held the album out in front of her face.

"Explain yourself and your daft choice," he said to her.

"I like Mickey Mouse."

"I do as well but not to the point I'm buying his disco album," he said.

"We're finding her and the other children some record albums to listen to so lay off her, Dorkface," Rain said.

She gasped when Alan bonked her and Rain on their heads with the album.

"Shame on you for choosing this. Mickey Mouse Disco, what were you thinking?"

He took the other records from Tara's hands and looked through them.

"Strawberry Shortcake and Friends, The Smurfs, Chipmunk Punk?"

Tara giggled as Alan stared at her intently. He held up Beethoven Greatest Symphonies.

"I'm guessing this is Brother's because somehow I don't think you'd choose it," he said to her.

Tara snatched the records away.

"Give me those, I'm holding them for Daddy and I'm picking out things. Go find your own."

"Indeed I will and it's not going to be something like Fluffy Bunny does the Happy Dance," he said, laying the Beethoven album on top of the others.

He walked back over to the Doctor.

"Did you see that? Those albums she chose?" Alan said loud enough for Tara to hear.

"Yes, sadly, I did," the Doctor said while Tara giggled.

"And you're not doing anything about it?"

"Well, be fair, this is the girl who likes Happytown Tales," the Doctor replied.

"I know and you're letting her sink even lower into the depths of cutesiness and banality, pretty soon she'll be insisting we tie our hair up with pink bows and dance around in tutus and…"

His eyes widened when Rose ran up and snorted her hair.

"And why in the name of all that's sacred do people keep doing that to me?" Alan said as everyone laughed.

"Dunno, it started with Rose though," the Doctor said as Rose nudged Madison and giggled.

Rose ran back over and snorted the Doctor's hair.

"Mmm, snorting the Doctor's hair is like snorting cocaine!" she purred in his ear.

The Doctor and Alan stared at each other as everyone else bent over laughing. Rose patted his butt and ran back over to Madison.

"Hey!" Alan said, turning around to face her. "What about my hair? Is it like cocaine?"

"Nah, it's like dried turds," Tara said.

"I didn't ask you!" he said to her as everyone laughed harder.

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"Ah, now's that more like it," Jack said as they all climbed into the minivan. "Lots more room."

He inhaled deeply.

"Not to mention it smells like burgers in here," he said as he sat right in front of the crave cases and sacks.

"Yes, that's the best part," Alan said as he got in the driver's seat.

Rose got in beside him, The Doctor, Rain and Tara sat in the seat behind them and Madison, Jack and Ianto sat in the next seat. The burgers were stacked up at the back giving off a pleasant aroma as Alan started up the van and Jack put their purchased albums below them under the seat to protect them from the sun. He checked traffic and slowly pulled out. He kept it at a moderate speed so everyone could sightsee. He stopped at a traffic light when it turned red and whistled to himself while he drummed his fingers on the wheel.

"Hey! Let's go give blood!" Jack said.

Alan glanced back at him and looked off to the left when he saw him pointing. Beside them was a large black wrought iron fence that surrounded a parking lot and a large white block building. On the fence was a sign saying it was a chapter of the Red Cross.

"Yeah, we need to do our civic duty and give blood so our Gallifreyan brothers and sisters won't run out if they have to go to the hospital," Jack said.

Everyone snickered.

"Jack, are you seriously considering giving blood and risking it going into a human body?" the Doctor said.

"Yeah and maybe that way we can turn them all into Time Lords. We can make the whole world into Gallifrey just by giving blood," Jack said.

The light turned green and Alan drove off.

"Nuts," Jack said as they snickered. "Well, I thought it was a good idea!"

They headed out of midtown and headed back towards downtown. On the way, Alan spied something and slowed down. He pulled to the curb beside a vacant lot. Everyone stared at it wondering what he was doing.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked him.

"Look at the sign over there," Alan said, pointing to a huge white sign at the entrance to the lot.

Everyone got out so they could get a better look at it. Jack raised his eyebrows when he read it.

"Veteran's Park?" he said. "What park? This is an empty dirt lot."

"Not according to the sign," the Doctor said, gesturing to it.

"Yeah, but there's no trees, no benches, monuments, nothing, just the sign," Madison said.

"There's a lot of trash around here too," Tara said, pointing to wrappers, cups and broken beer bottles in the grass beside the lot.

"Yes, come to think of it, the whole area has become a bit trashy since we left the shopping district," Ianto said, looking around.

They had gone only a couple of blocks from midtown but the area was rundown and trashy with garbage in the streets and in the grass and old and worn out buildings. All of them got back inside the minivan and Alan headed back towards the city. He had a thought when he saw some abandoned buildings off to his right and turned down a side street. Everyone stared at the rundown and abandoned buildings on either side of them. There was even more trash strewn all over in addition to rusty cars and graffiti laden walls.

"I believe this is officially the ghetto," Alan said as he drove.

"It's gross. Look at all the trash, why would anyone want to live in all this?" Tara asked.

"Some people don't care about their environment, Star," the Doctor said sadly.

They turned right and headed back towards midtown. On the way there, they passed a homeless shelter. The shelter was a large blue block building with a chain link fence surrounding it. In front of it and around it, homeless people sat and lay on the ground and on the sidewalks. Dozens of seagulls and pigeons flapped around the area, diving and eating scraps of food that were thrown or abandoned by the people. Alan slowed down slightly going through and they watched and listened to them. They heard a few men fighting by the fence while several others stood around and watched it. Around the area was trash and dirty clothes that had been left on the ground. A few tents had been pitched in front of the fence and over by a tree that was shading a portion of the road, a man slept under blankets on a wooden pallet. Rain shook her head when she estimated that about forty people were around the shelter.

"This is terrible. It looks like a third world country through here," she said.

"This is terrible. All these poor people," Tara said.

As they were heading towards the intersection, Alan noticed a small white truck pulling up with Salvation Army Bed and Bread Club painted on the side of it. He noticed everyone start to line up on the pavement beside it and curiosity got the better of him. Rose looked at him when he went through the intersection, pulled over to the curb and parked.

"What are you doin'?" she said.

"Just seeing what's goin' on. Won't be a moment gang," he said, opening his door.

"Wait, I wanna come too," Tara said, opening the sliding door.

"Honey, be careful, stay with Uncle Alan," Rain said.

"Okay, Mommy," she said as she got out.

Alan stopped and waited till she closed the door before they both headed back across the street to the queue.

"What's going on?" Tara said to him.

"My guess is it's a portable bread line," he said to her. "You know me though, gotta see for myself. Just pretend you're homeless, yeah?"

"Okay."

They walked around the truck and got into the queue. Already there were twenty five people in front of them. Alan put his arm around Tara's shoulder as they slowly moved forward. They saw a sliding glass window in the side and someone was handing out sandwiches, oranges, potato chips and Styrofoam cups of liquid. Around them the gulls and pigeons were circling, squawking at each other as they fought for scraps.

"You're new."

Alan turned to see an elderly man behind him. His face was haggard and his short afro was snow white. He was dressed in a white secondhand t-shirt and dingy green trousers. Alan smiled warmly at him and spoke with an American accent.

"Yeah, my family and I got evicted from our home," he said to him. "We couldn't keep up with the mortgage."

"I feel ya," the man said, nodding. "Got evicted from my apartment for the same thing. So you and your family are living in your car? I noticed you pulled up in a minivan."

"Yeah, we are," Alan said.

"Why not stay here?" the man said, pointing to the shelter. "You have to sleep on chairs, no beds, but at least it's bigger than a minivan."

Tara was shocked at that but Alan mentally told her to keep quiet.

"Thanks but I think we'll be moving on and finding somewhere else to park the car," he said to him.

"Suit yourself, brother," the man said.

They reached the window and Alan thanked the man as he passed him two bologna sandwiches in a plastic bag, an orange, a snack sized bag of Lay's potato chips and a cup of Sprite. He was about to walk off when the elderly man came up to the window.

"Can you give him more, he's got a family to feed," he said to the man.

Alan and Tara both a bag filled with several sandwiches, chips and oranges. They thanked him and waved at the elderly man as they started to walk off.

"Hey, ya'll need clothes?" the elderly man said as he took his food.

"No, we're fine, we have our clothes," Alan said to him.

"Because I was gonna say, down the road this Saturday they'll be passing out food in the park at 11 am and they always have a busload of clothes and shampoo and soap and things like that."

"Thank you, we'll keep that in mind."

"Take care, you two."

"You two," Alan said.

"Bye!" Tara said, waving.

They walked back to the car. Once they got inside, they showed them the food and told them what the man had said.

"Chairs? That's all they get to sleep on is chairs?" Rain said, shocked.

"That's what he said," Alan said.

"That's terrible," Madison said. "Those poor people, no wonder some of them choose to sleep outside."

"What did they give them to eat?" Jack said.

Tara held up each item.

"At least they're fed well," Jack commented. "And they're able to get fresh clothes."

"Yeah but they really should put beds in there or camp beds at least," Rose said, shaking her head. "I know I wouldn't wanna spend a night sleeping on a hard chair."

Alan started up the car and pulled out into traffic. He and Tara sipped their soda while they continued their tour of the city.