Project Produce(65)

I shifted the grocery bag onto my hip, locked my apartment door, and then glanced across the street. No lights on, but that didn’t mean Dylan wasn’t watching. Dylan was a good guy. I knew that. But my suspicions of him having something to do with the Brat Pack had been dead on. I’d bet my job that wasn’t all he’d been involved with.

Peeping Tom my big ole behind!

I trudged down to the street. The snow had stopped, and someone had been kind enough to shovel the sidewalk. Good. My trek to the street where the Brat Pack had directed me to would go much easier.

Ten minutes later, I glanced around and shivered, remembering the night Flasher Freak had spied on me from the bushes near the Bates Motel. But this time I knew that I was safe. The Brat Pack had assured me that someone in disguise would follow me at all times. What a fun bunch of cousins Dylan had. I grinned. Once they had warmed up to the idea of pulling some pranks on him, they got on board full force. I’d really come to like them all.

I peeked over my shoulder and didn’t see anything, but I had a feeling the Brat Pack’s phony cronies weren’t the only ones following me. Hot Britches. Good, he’d followed me just as I’d planned. No one else made me feel the way he did.

I frowned. Maybe he was following me because he really did care. I wanted to believe that, but there’d been too many secrets for me to trust him completely. Refusing to dwell on my feelings, I took a deep breath and forged ahead.

I had a game to win and planned to do so by starring in a new series called, The Chronicles of Mean Mama’s Insomnia. Four crazy episodes that would keep Dylan up all night as payback for my lunatic adventures in the Twilight Zone.

Episode One: Mean Mama feeds the homeless at 2 A.M.

I kept checking the street signs but had no idea where I was. As I rounded a corner, I came upon an abandoned warehouse. It wasn’t the street the Brat Pack had told me about, but it would do. My Snow Flurries slid across a patch of ice, and I blinked at the sight before me.

Various groups of men, women, and children were scattered about, huddled up together as they slept. God, what had I been thinking? The homeless were human. They had to sleep sometime. I hadn’t considered that. I’d only thought about keeping Dylan up. I felt like a heel.

I decided to turn around and come back tomorrow when a movement caught my eye. A little girl crouched by what had to be her brother as they shared a half-eaten hot dog that looked like it had come straight out of a trash can. For every bite she took, she fed him two. Little kids probably had a harder time sleeping when they were hungry.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Back in Cutesville, we didn’t have homeless people. If someone needed a hand, they got it. I’d never witnessed actual families with children who were homeless. Suddenly my life didn’t seem quite so bad.

The Brat Pack had agreed to help me, but only if something good came out of my payback episodes. At the time I’d thought it would be a pain, but now I just wanted to do something. Anything. These poor people needed help much more than I needed to retaliate. I took a deep breath and shuffled over to the children. God, why hadn’t I thought to bring some blankets?

People began to stir, and soon, I’d managed to wake just about everyone. Good going, Cal. An old man, carrying a bottle of wine in a paper bag and wearing a moth-eaten, undoubtedly flea-ridden coat, even scurried away into the shadows of the warehouse.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone, I just want to help,” I said as I looked into the wide eyes of the dirty faces scrutinizing me. Which ones were homeless and which ones were the phony cronies the Brat Pack had put in place for my protection? I couldn’t tell, so I addressed them all.

“Y-You want to help us?” asked the brown-eyed little girl. A shred of innocence lingered in her young eyes, thank God. Maybe she still had a chance of making it.

I knelt beside her, and a woman about my age with dead eyes pulled her close. Other than that, the woman showed no emotion. She didn’t look as though she had felt anything for a very long time. My heart went out to her. I doubted I could be that strong for anyone. Then again, I didn’t have a child to think about.

“Yes, sweetie. I really do.” I set my sack of groceries on the ground, so glad I’d gone back for that pack of cookies. Yes, I included lots of produce. The real kind of produce. But this child probably hadn’t had a cookie since before her baby teeth started to fall out. “I have something for you.” I looked around, and a few more bodies stepped out of the shadows, drawing closer. “For all of you.”

“What do we have to do to get it?” asked a hard-looking man with a beard that didn’t quite cover his gaunt cheeks. He stood closer to the woman and child as he added a small piece of rotting wood to the fire. The fire snapped, and a stream of black smoke trickled into the air. Several pairs of hands shot out and hovered over the trash can, until the measly flame grew to a pathetic flicker once again.