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Chapter 3

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing left." The lady in the white apron turned to the faucet to wash her hands. "We've had about two hundred people in here this morning, and we only get enough supplies to feed a hundred and fifty every day. You'll have to come back tomorrow, boys."

Malcolm nodded curtly, as if he had expected as much. Trip answered the lady's sympathetic smile, and tried to hide his disappointment. It was what they had heard for the last four days - "Sorry, there's nothing left, try again tomorrow.". People started lining up in front of the soup kitchens as early as 5 am, and at 7 am the kitchen staff came outside to call children, old people and pregnant women to the front of the line. When it was the men's turn, there were hardly ever more than a few dozen bowls of soup left, and it was almost impossible to scrounge one of those without pushing other people to the back. So far, Malcolm and Trip had refused to do so, and so a compassionate smile was all they ever got.

"That's okay," Trip said over the groans coming from the people standing in line behind them. Most of them had been waiting for hours in the hope of getting at least one of the dry pieces of toast the kitchen staff gave out with the soup. "Ma'am, do you need someone to clean the kitchen? My friend here and I, we're lookin' for work, even if it's only a few hours..."

She shook her head before he had even finished his sentence. "Sorry, but no. I don't suppose you have a permanent residence?"

Mutely, Trip shook his head. The old warehouse where they had been spending their nights could not be called a residence, even if Tom, their neighbor, took great pride in the fact that he owned a "house" to call his own.

"Then we can't allow you to work here," she said. "Have you tried one of the shelters?"

Trip nodded. "They can't take anyone in at the moment."

The lady sighed, as if she had expected no different. "I'm sorry, guys," she said. "I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you."

"That's all right," Malcolm said. "Thanks for your trouble."

His politeness - and probably his accent - earned him a surprised look and a smile. "You're welcome," the lady said. "Good luck."

They nodded at her and left, trudging past the rows of tables where people sat gobbling down soup and toast. Most of them were children or teenagers with pale, pinched faces and, more often than not, a plastic bag containing all their belongings sitting on the bench next to them.

At the shelter, they had been told that there were more than 50 000 homeless people living on the streets of the city, and that at least 10 000 of them were children under 13.

"We take the under tens first," the manager of the shelter had said. "Then the teenagers, especially teenage moms, the women and then the men. I'm afraid you'll have to try someplace else, guys."

They had, but none of the homeless shelters seemed to have room for two young men who had no ID or proof of qualification. It was frustrating; not so much because Trip minded sleeping in the warehouse, even though the cold from the stone floor would creep into their bones at night, leaving them sore and stiff every morning. The problem, however, was that every place where they asked for work, the first thing the management wanted to see was their proof of residence, or at least a form stating that they had found a temporary home in one of the shelters. Without it, there wasn't a chance that they would be allowed even to clean the toilets. Malcolm and he had debated faking the form, but had decided that it was too risky in case they got caught. Tom, who had come out of his shell a little after he had finally believed that they had no intention of stealing his "house", had tried to be helpful, suggesting that they use a trick to get at least one of them into the shelter.

"You gotta beat him up a little," he had said to Trip, "then chase him to the door of the shelter, yelling that you're gonna kill him if he ever cheats on you again." He had smiled at Malcolm. "Try to cry a little and the lady at the Salvation's gonna take you in. She's got a soft spot for little guys who get beat up by their boyfriends."

Malcolm, who hadn't really liked the "little guy", had replied rather frostily that he wasn't all that good at playing the battered boyfriend part, and Trip hadn't been too enthusiastic either. If the shelter staff called the police, he would have a hell of a time explaining that it was all a ruse in order to get Malcolm into the shelter - which, even if they believed it, the police wouldn't exactly approve of, either. Tom had only shrugged when they had told him about their objections.

"It's your business, " he had said. "But one thing I can tell you for sure, and that is that you ain't gonna see one of those shelters from the inside if you walk up to their door and ask nicely. It ain't gonna happen."

It turned out that he was right; in four days they hadn't found one shelter that was willing even to put them on the waiting list. And since no shelter meant no part-time jobs, all they could really do was try to survive on a day-by-day basis, getting up every morning with a hollow ache in their stomachs and little hope of feeling any better when the day was over. Trip guessed that they hadn't lived like that all their lives; in the days since they had woken up in this place, they had both visibly lost weight, and their unwashed overalls no longer fitted snugly, but were becoming rather loose around the waist and legs.

"We could try the pizza place a few blocks down," Malcolm said as they walked past graffitied walls and rows of the strange vehicles that seemed to be everywhere.

Trip only nodded, trying to ignore the pain in his stomach. The smell of the soup had intensified his hunger, and he had to force himself not to think of the chunks of meat and potatoes he had seen on the other people's plates. It was only fair that the kids came first; he himself would have made the same decision, had he been part of the kitchen management. It was how things were supposed to work, even if his rumbling stomach wasn't convinced.

As they entered the restaurant's dirty backyard, a smell of grease and old tomato sauce announced that the two trash containers next to the backdoor hadn't been emptied yet. Keeping an eye on the door to make sure no one came out, Trip and Malcolm began to rummage through the containers' contents, after chasing away a stray cat that seemed to have had similar plans. Tail twitching angrily, it sat down a few meters away and watched as they pulled out greasy boxes and paper plates to check if there was anything left they could eat. After they had scraped off the worst dirt, they stacked the half-eaten pizza slices in a paper box, stuffing the occasional bite in their mouths to calm the worst hunger. Malcolm had just added a greasy box half-full of spaghetti when the kitchen door opened and an elderly man with a trashcan came out. His eyes widened when he saw them, and he retreated hastily enough to lose the trashcan whose contents spilled all over the doorstep.

"Get out of here," they could hear him yelling from behind the door he had slammed shut. "Get off my property or I'll call the police!"

Quickly, they gathered up their booty and retreated, their hands full of pizza boxes and half-empty soda cups. Behind them, the cat meowed triumphantly as it jumped back onto the container, and the man, now back outside, threw a bottle that shattered on the pavement.

"Goddamn bums, get the fuck outta here!"

They ran until they were out of hearing range, then leaned against a wall to catch their breath. Trip's head was throbbing, and he had to close his eyes, waiting for the woozy feeling to subside. With little or no food to sustain it, his body wasn't up to much exertion.

Malcolm had slid down the wall and was sitting on his heels, coughing harshly. The pizza boxes lay forgotten on the pavement beside him as he pressed a hand against his chest, hacking and hawing. Trip watched him worriedly. Two days ago as they had rummaged through the trash, someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over their heads, too quickly for them to jump aside. Malcolm had caught the brunt of it, and the icy wind that had blown on their way back hadn't helped. He had started to sneeze, then the cough had developed, and by now there was no denying that Malcolm was ill. He didn't complain, however, and Trip pretended not to lie awake at night and listen to Malcolm's suppressed coughs. He wasn't going to say anything when the other man so obviously wanted to ignore the problem.

After a while, the coughing stopped. Malcolm leaned against the wall, eyes closed and hand still resting on his chest. His breathing came harshly and he shivered, small tremors running through his body as he tried to regain his breath.

"Malcolm?" Trip asked. The other man's silence was beginning to worry him. "You okay?"

Malcolm opened his eyes. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, right." Trip held out a hand to help Malcolm to his feet. Malcolm chose to ignore his sarcasm and gave no answer, picking up the pizza boxes instead.

"Let's go back," he said. "I'm starving."

Trip followed him down the street, slightly annoyed at Malcolm's insistence on claiming that he was perfectly all right. For some reason, it didn't surprise him that Malcolm wouldn't admit to being sick; it seemed typical of the man to do so. There were a lot of things Trip recognized about his companion; Malcolm's little smirk when something went wrong (which happened a lot these days), his quiet way of talking, his sarcastic remarks. It was an uncanny feeling, discovering all those familiar traits about a person he had met only four days ago, and Trip often wondered what their life had been like, before. It seemed as if they hadn't had one; no one here knew an organisation called "Enterprise", and by now Trip was beginning to doubt that such a thing existed at all. It wasn't a comforting thought, although he didn't know why the idea should worry him; as far as he knew, "Enterprise" was only a word stitched onto the sleeve of his grimy overall.

When they arrived at the warehouse, Tom was gone, probably visiting his girlfriend who lived on the other side of the town in one of the shelters. Tom was forever trying to convince her to move in with him, and didn't seem to understand why she would prefer the dorm in the shelter to his "house". He had even announced that he was going to kick them out, should Ashley decide to come and live with him.

"You're not gonna steal her away from me," he had said. Malcolm had responded that he might want to consider working on his personality problem, after which Tom had disappeared into his house to sulk. So far, however, Ashley seemed to have no intentions of leaving the shelter, and Trip hoped that she wasn't going to change her mind. They didn't need any more trouble than they already had.

After a few minutes, they had gotten a fire going inside their makeshift dwelling and spread the pizza on a sheet of newspaper, holding the slices over the flames before they ate them (as Malcolm said, roasting them might kill the taste, if not the germs). Trip's stomach protested a little against the onslaught of grease and artificial flavor, but he didn't really care. The pizza wasn't good, but it was edible, and he welcomed anything that would alleviate the empty feeling in his guts. In the last few days, Trip had discovered that hunger could hurt worse than frostbite, which was painful enough in itself when left untreated. The hunger was worse, however; it was like a constant ache that was getting harder and harder to ignore as the hours went by. He had seen grown men cry when they were sent away from the soup kitchens empty-handed, and after having experienced the feeling himself, he could sympathize. Going hungry for a longer period of time was a little like being killed bit by bit from the inside; it could drive a man insane.

They didn't talk as they finished the pizza slices, wiping their hands on their overall legs when they were done. Outside, they could hear the morning traffic filling the streets, a constant hum with the occasional honking of a horn. Trip leaned back against the brick wall and closed his eyes, thinking that the traffic sounded wrong. It was too loud, and there shouldn't be any screeching brakes or revving engines. Why that would be so, he did not know. All he knew was that he never lost the feeling that there was something out of order... something he could never quite put his finger on.

Maybe I'm just crazy. He smiled a little at the thought. It hardly made a difference whether he was in his right mind or not; Malcolm and he seemed to have sunk as low as you could get, and if his marbles were starting to roll away, well, then it was fine with him. Maybe it was just as well that he didn't recall his former life; remembering might make their current situation even harder to bear.

Malcolm coughed, and Trip opened his eyes again. The other man had wrapped himself in one of the old blankets, pressing a fist against his mouth as he strained to clear his airway. His face was flushed, with drops of sweat gleaming on his forehead.

Trip decided that he no longer cared whether Malcolm wanted his condition acknowledged or not, and laid a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Malcolm," he said. "Why don't you lie down, at least for a while."

Malcolm opened his eyes and tried to glare at him, but there seemed to be little of his bristly spirit left. A shiver ran though him and he pulled the blankets tighter around his shoulders. Trip tightened his grip. "Malcolm..."

"Oh bloody hell." Malcolm shrugged his hand off and crawled over to his bed of newspaper sheets and old cartons. The blanket still wrapped around him like a cocoon, he lay down on his side and closed his eyes again. His breathing was harsh, as if he were fighting a block in his chest every time he inhaled.

Trip watched him as he fell asleep, which didn't take long despite Malcolm's initial reluctance to lie down. He could feel his own thoughts beginning to drift, and allowed his eyes to droop.

I ought to take him to a doctor, he thought, and then, out of the blue: Too bad Phlox isn't here.

Trip tried as hard he could, but he couldn't for the life of him think of who Phlox was, or why he or she would know how to help Malcolm. The name was nothing more than a random sound, and after a while, Trip gave up trying to remember. His eyes closed, and soon he was fast asleep, dreaming of a strange place with narrow beds, white curtains and a small, screeching being that lived in a cage. When he woke up again, the dream was gone, and with it the memories of a life that no longer belonged to him.

TBC...

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