Dire Means (13 page)

Mark wanted to get out of his apartment. He wanted to do something to take his mind off everything. He wondered if he might be able to find Uncle Leon again. Apparently he often visited a shelter called Soft Landing Shelter.

Mark would go tonight. Even if he failed to find Uncle Leon, he might be able to volunteer in some capacity there.

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Mark drove on Main Street through Venice into Santa Monica. Despite the crisp coastal evening air, the sidewalks bustled with shoppers. Some carried shopping bags while others sipped steaming drinks cupped with both hands on the patios of coffee shops and cafés. The reports of missing people had done little to stem the flow of tourists and locals who came out in the evening.

He parked two blocks from Soft Landing Shelter House and began a chilly walk. While he waited at a pedestrian crossing, he smelled the pleasant aroma of something home cooked and perfect for this sort of weather. It could have been soup, or cornbread and beans—just fragrant enough to interrupt the salty breeze of the ocean air. A young couple holding hands walked up behind him to wait at the crosswalk. The woman argued with her companion about whether the aroma was coming from a restaurant or a house.

The signal changed and they crossed the street. Mark could have sniffed his way toward the shelter blindfolded, as the delicious smell grew stronger.

At the front door of the shelter he saw a line that crossed the porch, went down four steps, and wound its way to the street. He scanned the line looking for Uncle Leon, but didn’t see him. He pardoned himself to reach the front door, stepping between the waiting people. It was locked. The people who waited in line studied him, waiting to see if he would dare cut in ahead of them. He noticed a wooden carved sign above the front door that said, “A Soft Landing Shelter House.” Below it, smaller letters read, “Soft Landings for Hard Knocks.”

“If you’re helping, you gotta go to the side door,” said a man sitting on the porch and leaning against a support column. His clothing was ragged and he wore no shoes.

“Thank you,” Mark said. The man nodded. Mark felt eyes watching him as he walked back down the sidewalk, around the corner and into the alley.

He came to a screened side door covered with security bars. It was through this door that the aroma of tonight’s dinner poured. The door had a small centered opening about the size of a lunchbox. Mark pressed a dirty button beside the door and heard a distant buzzer from inside the shelter. A woman appeared behind the screen. She was a short Latina in her thirties wearing a white food-stained chef’s uniform, complete with tall pleated chef’s hat. “Hi!” she said. “Volunteering tonight?”

“Yes, I suppose. If you can use some help.”

“Absolutely. Welcome!” She used her apron to turn the doorknob. “Come in. My name is Tory,” she said with a thick accent. They shook hands.

“Mark Denny. Pleasure to meet you.”

Tory led him down a plush hallway and explained that she was the head chef and gave Mark a brief summary of the shelter’s work in providing regular food services for the homeless. Mark noticed a hallway and rear office furnished as though it were an executive lounge rather than a shelter. Framed and individually-lit art pieces lined the hallway, spaced every three feet. Some paintings portrayed images of homeless people, and all the pieces appeared to have an ocean theme that featured some local landmark—the pier, the beach, the bluff, the Promenade, Pacific Coast Highway.

“Pardon the floor,” Tory said. “We just got new carpeting today.” They stepped over some remnant carpet scraps and a new roll destined for an unfinished office.

At the end of the hall, they came to a much larger, lit portrait of a woman. The label underneath read, “Executive Director, Neva Boyston.” She wore a business suit, heavy makeup, and a stern expression with her nose high—posing as though her portrait would be hung on the wall of a museum. To the left was a closed door with a golden “Executive Director” placard. A sign below it had a plastic slider with two positions: “Out” and “Not now.” Out was selected.

“Is she the founder of the shelter?” Mark said, pointing to the portrait.

“No, but she’s the boss. You’ll meet her soon enough,” Tory said, her eyes widened for a moment.

They exited the hall through double swinging doors and entered a spacious kitchen with new stainless steel ovens, stoves, and refrigerators. Cookware hung from the ceiling in orderly rows. Several drawers filled with cooking tools and utensils of every kind were opened underneath two long slate countertops. Rinsed carrots, greens, and onions were stacked high on one side with chunks of beef cubed on the other.

The eight kitchen staff wore white full-bib aprons, and prepared food, cleaned and occasionally glanced up at the laminated “Today’s Menu” sheets taped above each countertop. A long food service area separated the kitchen from the dining room. Above it, a bold sign faced into the kitchen and read, “We Eat Last.”

A fat black man stirred a vat of soup with a spoon the length of a baseball bat. Mark decided that it was his concoction that produced the aroma that escaped the shelter. The man nodded to Mark and then reprimanded a passing girl about not having picked up more butter on the day’s shopping trip. When the girl argued, Tory paused to intervene and settled the matter. She then pointed to the dining room and said, “Mark, you can wait with our other volunteers in there. Thank you for coming.”

The dining room was sparse in contrast to the plush back office and fully equipped kitchen. Although it was the largest room in the shelter, no dining space was wasted and folding metal chairs and tables were arranged to have guests sitting elbow to elbow. Between entrance and exit doors at opposite ends of the dining room, windows looked out through the porch and onto the street. The bare tile floor magnified the sounds of utensils, chopping, and voices coming over the counter from the kitchen.

Through the window, Mark saw the line of people on the porch still waiting to enter. The man who had given Mark directions to the side door stood in front now. He peered into the dining room window and then tapped a woman next to him on the shoulder and she checked her watch and gave him the time. He sighed and opened up a wrinkled magazine. The line now stretched around the corner and out of sight.

A group of chairs were arranged classroom-style to face a small lectern off to one side of the dining room. Seven volunteers waited in their seats for instructions.

Mark took a seat in the back row. Tory reappeared in front of the volunteers, thanked them for showing up and announced that Ms. Boyston had called from her car and would be arriving shortly.

“Are all those people going to fit in here?” a young girl volunteer asked. She pointed out the window at the line of people who were now jockeying for position near the entry door.

“Those that have tickets will get in,” Tory answered. “The people you see further back on the sidewalk are on standby.”

She went on to explain the system. Most of the people waiting in line outside held a green ticket. James, a shelter staff member, arrived at 5:30 each morning to hand out meal tickets through a protected window slot in the back door. The shelter gave free food tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.

Each day James passed out all 300 tickets—usually within ten minutes—except on the 2nd and 16th of each month. On those days up to a hundred unclaimed food tickets were left over because aid checks from the county or other assistance agencies rendered many payees too stoned or drunk to show up for a meal ticket the following day.

They heard a chirp of tires on pavement and Tory said, “That might be Neva right now! I better get back to work.”

Moments later, the clip clop of heels echoed from the kitchen. “Well, if our inventory was off then you should have called me, shouldn’t you have?” Neva said. She burst into the dining room frowning and staring into a make-up mirror as she powdered her face. She wore a bright red dress under a black leather jacket and carried a matching leather purse. Large hoop earrings dangled against her neck with each turn of her head. Her shoulder-length blond hair darkened close to her scalp. Her tiny nose and swollen, semi-paralyzed top lip revealed her failed attempts to stave off aging.

Tory made a quick gesture of choking Neva as she passed.

When Neva saw her audience of volunteers, her expression melted into delight. She snapped her mirror shut high in the air, and tucked it into her purse. She then held her purse out to her side at arm’s length and scanned the volunteers. A uniformed woman stopped cleaning a table, scurried to Neva, and took her purse from her outstretched hand.

Neva leaned an elbow onto the lectern with the confidence of a seasoned professor. “My God, who are the most beautiful volunteers in the world?” She said with the tone of someone trying to get a baby to smile. She held both hands out toward the sitting volunteers. “Here they are!”

She scanned her new volunteer crew and nodded as though approving her choice in furniture after its delivery. She winked at Mark who deflected it by looking back over his shoulder as if he had heard something. Neva continued her review of the volunteers, examining those in the back row. “Hi, Randy, back again for the third week in a row?”

“Yep, you know I wouldn’t miss Happy Hour, Ms. Boyston!”

“Now, Randy, you’re going to give all our freshmen the wrong idea about what we do here!” Neva said, feigning embarrassment by patting the back of her hair with the palm of her hand. “Let me explain to our ‘newbies’ what Randy means. Each day we pass out three hundred tickets and set a goal of feeding at least two hundred and seventy guests between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. If we reach our goal we celebrate an hour before closing by serving the volunteers non-alcoholic drinks and refreshments. We call it ‘Happy Hour.’ There is one announcement I have before we get started. The shelter is in need of computers. Our endowment pays for many of our amenities, but computers missed our list this year, so if any of you have, or know of people who would be willing to donate, their computers to us we’ll be happy to provide a tax deductible receipt that I’d leave blank for you to fill in,” she said with a wink.

Mark often had clients who upgraded their computer systems and never knew what to do with the old ones. It wouldn’t be difficult to find a client for such a donation—if not immediately, then soon.

Neva checked the clock on the wall by the door and then proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes telling the history of the Soft Landing Shelter House with an emphasis on her rise to the position of Executive Director. She told the story of Wilson Medford, a wealthy retired Air Force pilot who had established a generous endowment to form and support the shelter. She described his dream of establishing a permanent, dependable resource of food for the homeless citizens that he so frequently saw roaming the streets of Santa Monica.

After her lengthy introduction, she instructed all the volunteers to stand and hold hands in a wide circle that enclosed their chairs. When the volunteers moved too slowly for Neva’s liking, she clapped her hands twice and said, “C’mon people! I want every head bowed and every eye closed as we pray to our maker.”

After a minute, Neva bowed her head, lifted the hands of the two volunteers standing next to her, and prayed aloud. Her voice became that of a raspy preacher’s. “Oh dear God Lord Jesus, have mercy on us your humble servants…”

The voices of the kitchen staff called back in unison, “Yes, Lord!”

Mark and most of the volunteers found it impossible to keep their eyes closed in light of Neva’s dramatic voice change and the unexpected response from the kitchen. They saw a row of chef’s hats above the counter tilted in prayer.

“Lord, we come here tonight to serve you,” Neva continued.

“Yes, Lord!” came a louder response. More volunteers peeked toward the serving counter and then back to Neva as though they watched a tennis match. Neva’s eyes were squeezed shut, her head was tilted back, and the volunteer whose hand was clasped in Neva’s mouthed the word, “Ouch.” Mark bit his lip to keep from laughing.

“We know we serve you, Lord, because you tell us that if we have done it to the least of these your brethren, we have done it unto you, dear GOD!”

“Oh yes, Lord,” replied the kitchen. More volunteers opened their eyes in disbelief.

“Lord, God our father, we ask you to bless the hands that prepared this food, oh Lord.”

“Yes, Jesus,” said two of the volunteers, attracting an incredulous gaze from others.

“And, dear God our savior, we ask you to bless our humble shelter.”

“Oh yes, Lord!” The preacher-congregation exchange was now at full volume with nearly all participating. Mark’s eyes remained open and he made no effort to hide it.

“We ask you to multiply our efforts, dear Lord, holy Jesus, and give grace to those we serve.”

“Oh yes, Lord!”

When Mark heard Neva say the word “grace,” he thought of Uncle Leon and wondered if he would show up late or at all.

Neva continued. “Dear Provider of all our needs, may we not only fill the stomachs of your flock tonight, dear Father, shepherd of all, but may we fill hearts, nourish souls, cleanse pain, and shower our fellow man with your love, dear God above all.”

“Oh yes! Lord.” The shelter staff and many volunteers were now frenzied, as hands rose into the air.

“In Jesus our savior’s precious name, dear Lord, we thank you again. AMEN.”