Out of the Box(11)

Jeanette tells me this is the lounge, and the soup kitchen and dining hall are up the flight of stairs in the center of the room. As we make our way there, heads turn and people watch us. I don’t know if I should look friendly or tough—show no fear, like they say in self-defense class. Jeanette is walking straight and tall like she always does, smiling and saying hello to people. She knows a lot of them by name. Suddenly I imagine her coming here with Alison, the two of them walking in and stopping to chat along the way. I pull myself taller and follow Jeanette up the stairs.

The kitchen gleams—metal appliances and white walls. The other three volunteers are all Jeanette’s age or even older. The one woman, Louise, has tanned skin and bright white hair. One guy has an army-style brush cut and is in a wheelchair, and the third volunteer is a man whose wrinkled face reminds me of a turtle. They tell me their names too, but minutes later I’ve forgotten.

Louise shows me where to wash my hands, and then we start making sandwiches. As I smear margarine on hundreds of slices, I keep sneaking glances at my aunt. She’s smiling like nothing happened out there on the church steps. I can’t even see anger simmering in her eyes. She’s much better at hiding it than my parents, I guess, or maybe I just don’t know her as well. I’m not looking forward to our walk home, although maybe she’ll wait until we’re behind the closed doors of her house to ream me out.

“Ned’s looking good these days, eh?” she says to the others, then catches my eye and tells me Ned’s the guy with the earring we met as we came in. I nod as if I noticed that kind of detail, and she goes on. “He got out of detox a few months ago and has never looked back.”

Louise smiles. “I hear he’s moving in here soon.” She jerks her head toward the far end of the dining hall. Behind those doors, my aunt has told me, homeless people can have a room for up to three months, until they find a more permanent place to live. To be accepted, though, they have to be sober and looking for work.

“Pretty impressive, considering what he’s been through,” adds Turtle Guy.

Again, Jeanette fills in the blanks. “Alcoholic parents. On the streets by the time he was fourteen. In and out of shelters for ages. Finally got into a program for drug addiction, but the program’s funding got cut, and he wound up on the streets again. Last year, he got hit by a car. It happened right here, in front of the soup kitchen, and a bunch of people saw it. The driver got out, looked at Ned, made some comment about one less drunk and took off. Left him for dead.”

I stare. “God.”

“Yup, and that’s just one story,” says Louise. “Everyone here’s got stories like that. Amazing they keep going, really. It’s humbling to work here, that’s for sure.”

I think about that as I keep plopping margarine onto bread. Jeanette goes on smiling and talking, but I tune her out. No wonder Jeanette and Alison wanted to donate money to this place. I’ve never thought about the stories behind guys like Ned. And when I realize that, I see how dumb I’ve been. Like anyone would choose to live like they do. I shake my head, trying to shake my thoughts into some kind of order.

On our way out, I smile at a few of the people in the courtyard, and they smile back, like normal people.

For the first few blocks of our walk home, Jeanette acts like I haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, she even smiles when she says, “I’m glad you shook hands with those fellows on the church steps.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.

“One of the biggest gifts you can give people,” she says, “is to treat them with respect. You did that, and I was proud of you.” It sounds like the kind of Teachable Moment speech most adults would make, but Jeanette doesn’t do Teachable Moments. I know she’s totally sincere.

I don’t do tears, yet suddenly they’ve sprung to my eyes. I wonder if I’m turning into my mother, getting emotional about absolutely everything. I blink furiously. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“For shaking their hands? Why would I—?”

“For not shaking their hands,” I say. “I didn’t want to at first.”

“But you did, in the end. That’s what counts.” She looks baffled.

Suddenly I am too. When I was just visiting for a week or so, I didn’t worry about making Jeanette mad, but now that I’m here for two months, the thought of crossing her makes me jumpy. What’s worse is that I don’t know the rules. At least at home, I know where the danger zones are. For the first time it occurs to me that maybe there are no danger zones here.