The Volunteer

The Volunteer

Other Titles by Nathan Everett

For Money or Mayhem

Computer forensics detective Dag Hamar is pulled from behind the safety of his computer and takes to the streets when he discovers a link between an online predator and real life kidnappings around Seattle. His fledgling romance is threatened when his girlfriend’s daughter is suddenly among the missing.

For Blood or Money

Computer forensics detectives Dag Hamar and Deb Riley discover secret files and hidden code can be as dangerous as dark alleys and flying bullets as they track a missing man and the billion dollar fortune that went with him. Fourteen years after For Money or Mayhem.

The Gutenberg Rubric

Two rare book librarians race across three continents to find and preserve a legendary book printed by Johannes Gutenberg. Behind them, a trail of bombed libraries draws Homeland Security to launch a worldwide search for biblio-terrorists. Keith and Maddie find love along the way, but will they survive to enjoy it?

Steven George & The Dragon

Steven has always known he was a dragonslayer, but on the day his village sends him to slay the fearsome beast he realizes he doesn’t know what a dragon looks like, where it lives, or how to kill it. His quest is facilitated by the exchange of “once-upon-a-times” with the people he meets on the endless road. Think Grimm. For young adults, not children.

The Volunteer

Nathan Everett

Elder Road Books
Bellevue, WA

Copyright ©2013 Nathan Everett

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
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ISBN 978-1-939275-20-2

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To my daughter who believes in me,
and to those who gave me courage.

♦♦♦

A COLD WIND BLEW across G2’s face and he stirred in his sleep. He clenched his eyes shut against wakefulness, but the ammonia smell of fresh urine assaulted him. He could have slept through the wind. He just never got used to the piss. He didn’t think it was his, but his hand slipped down to his pants just to be sure.

G2 cracked one eye open. Wee Willy was still letting go with a gusher not ten feet away against a bush that was nearly dead from the frequent waterings. G2 should have put his bedroll further away.

Before he let go of the last vestiges of sleep, G2 assessed his situation as he did every time he awoke.

No. It didn’t feel that way.

There was no “make you feel good inside” feeling. No deep satisfaction. No heroic pride. No nobility. None of the things there should have been.

When you read about it in school—back in sixth grade or so—you always knew the hero had that feeling. Like that Union soldier who led the charge up some hill in the history books. He knew when he set foot outside the bunker that he wouldn’t make it halfway up the hill before forty musket balls peppered his body. But someone else would pick up the flag where he fell and move it further up the ridge. He knew he’d done his job—done his duty. He was brave and heroic and proud. He was satisfied that his life had meaning. He felt good inside, even while he was dying.

That was the way it was supposed to be when you volunteered, even if it meant you died in the process. You felt good about it.

Gerald Good, G2 to everyone else, checked again. He looked for the feeling. The satisfaction.

No. It didn’t feel that way.

♦♦♦

BAD X was making his way through the camp, putting the touch on people to pay their “union dues.” Bad X was an organizer. It seemed there was one in every camp. G2 considered slipping out of camp while Bad X shot the bull with Greaser. It wouldn’t make a difference, though. Bad X would catch up with him tomorrow or the next day. You didn’t want to get behind on your dues. Of course, G2 could hop across the track and catch the train for Cincinnati that was leaving the freight yard. G2 was pretty sure it was in Cincinnati that he met his first Bad X, though, so it wouldn’t be any different there. Besides, if you didn’t pay your dues to Bad X, you couldn’t point to him when Bad Y or Bad Z showed up. You could always count on some bad ass coming around. You put the touch on folks at the supermarket and Bad X put the touch on you in the camp. Only most of the time you didn’t beat the folks at the supermarket to a pulp.

Shit. He might as well be working at General Fucking Motors.

“G2, my man.” Bad X grinned showing the empty spaces on either side of his one remaining front tooth. “Watcha got for me, brother?”

G2 reached out his hand and let his one crumpled up dollar bill fall out of it into Bad X’s giant paw. It took a minute for Bad X to smooth out the bill enough to tell what it was.

“That all you got?” G2 reached in his pocket and produced another quarter. He nodded his head. The weight of his chin seemed to drag his head down to his chest. Maybe Bad X wouldn’t beat him.

“When you gonna get your shit together, G2? Don’t know what I’m gonna do with you.” Bad X sat down on the upturned tin can next to G2 and slumped himself forward. From a distance they looked like identical statues—the kind of urban art you find at bus stops and random corners of public parks. “Brothers hearing the news” the artist would title the sculpture. People would read it and then walk all the way around the statue, trying to figure out what kind of bad news the brothers had just heard. “Death in the family,” one would say. “War,” would come from another. “Wall Street collapse,” a third would chime in. Whatever it was, it had to be terrible. Two grown men sitting there as morosely as if the world just ended. Some guy in a wool scarf would come by and look at them. The sculpture would “speak to his heart.” The next day he would come back with a friend and two more scarves. He’d wrap one around the neck of each of the bronze brothers and then sit beside them in the same position—chin lowered to his chest and shoulders slumped forward—while his buddy took a picture of them with his cellphone and posted it to Facebook. When they left, the guy in the scarf would consider leaving the scarves around the bronze necks for others to see, but then he’d grab them as he walked away.

“It’s the ’conomy, stupid.” Bad X chuckled at his joke. No one in the camp had ever got it. “You can’t even get sober for a buck. You go MacD’s and you still need the quarter to pay the tax on their dollar menu.” Bad X tilted his head to consider G2. “You been panhandling down in the district?” G2 nodded slightly. “Those rich shits don’t care about you. You gotta go to Safeway where moms with three kids hanging off their skirts will give you money to keep you away from their babies. They cover it up by trying to teach their brats about helping others. That’s okay. You get down there and be an object-lesson to the little ones.”

Having finished his lecture, Bad X stood up to move on. G2 didn’t move.

“G2.” He looked up. Bad X was holding the quarter out to him. G2 reached up for it slowly. “Bad X never leaves a man with nothing,” he whistled through the gaps in his teeth. “Put some more with this and bring a bottle of two-buck chuck to my fire tonight. We’ll call it even.”

G2 watched him go. Looked like Whiskers would be the next one Bad X touched. He looked back. G2 picked up his canvas bag with “Windows XP” stenciled on the side of it and headed out to work the parking lot at Safeway.

♦♦♦

THERE WAS TOO MUCH TIME to think, that was the hell of it. When that kid in the Civil War—or was it the Revolution?—when he went charging up that ridge, he only had to hold his thoughts of honor and bravery for a couple of minutes before they cut him down. It was over. He could spend eternity being a hero. Twenty years, though. That was too much time to think. That kid couldn’t have held his self-satisfaction and good feelings for five minutes if the first bullet hadn’t killed him. Twenty years going up the ridge—why that’d drive a man crazy. Had it only been twenty years? It seemed like forever.

G2 pulled the piece of church bulletin out of his pocket from last Easter. He had four of them stashed in his bag. He got them out of the recycle bin before the janitor chased him away. All the words to a hymn G2 didn’t know were printed on one side. A lot of Jesus and halleluiah. But the other side was blank. It was clean pink paper. He couldn’t understand why that rich church threw away perfectly good blank paper and then chased him away from taking it. Enough paper and you could do anything. One day he’d write all about what it was like—his life experiences. He’d sell the books to that rich church about how he was saved by the words of a hymn in their recycle bin. His experiences kind of all ran together after a while, though. He didn’t know exactly where to start. But he had paper. He dug the stub of pencil out of his pocket and chewed a bit of the wood back away from the lead.

“XXN417,” he wrote. Yes. That was definitely a good one. He hadn’t seen a license plate with a higher number than that. It wouldn’t be long now until he’d see one that started with “Y.” Maybe two or three months, or when he got back next spring. He put away his pencil and paper. Wouldn’t write down anymore today. It wasn’t like he was obsessed with it. He just liked knowing what number they’d got up to. There was meaning to the order. He would figure it out eventually. He held up his cardboard sign and a driver at the exit rolled down the window.

“G2,”the driver said. Well, of course he knew G2’s handle. It was scrawled on his sign right under “God bless.” G2 walked over to the car and bowed his head respectfully. “Have you eaten today?” G2 shook his head. “Here,” said the driver. G2 held out his hand hoping for a dollar and the driver put a wrapped granola bar in it. “That’ll give you a little something in your stomach.”

“God bless,” G2 whispered as he stepped back on the curb. The car pulled out of the parking lot onto 32nd Street and headed west. G2 put the bar in his canvas bag and waited for another car. Rule number one: Never let them see you eating.

Sometimes they were like that. They wouldn’t give you money because that just encouraged panhandling and drunkenness. But they couldn’t let you starve either. So they’d break into a six-pack of granola bars and give you one. Or they’d hand you a Jell-O Pudding Cup. Maybe they’d have a piece of beef jerky or half a sandwich. Stuff you had to eat today or it would give you cramps and the trots. They never cared about tomorrow. Why should he?

But when somebody gave you food, you never stood there and ate it. That discouraged anybody else from lending a hand. They’d see you had food and figure you weren’t bad enough off to need their help. It was like people who only played the lottery if it was over 20 million. Enough to make it worthwhile. That was the problem when there was a line of cars. If one person gave you something, that let everyone else off the hook. So you stashed the bar, the sandwich, the yogurt in your bag and waited until enough cars passed that those in line hadn’t seen you take a gift. Then maybe another one would feel generous and this time you’d get a buck. If you got enough… Well, five bucks would get you a liter-and-a-half bottle of cheap sweet wine. You could share that around the fire at night. Guys would give you their food for a taste of your wine. That was the way it worked. If G2 couldn’t make a few more bucks today, he’d trade that granola bar for a drink of someone else’s wine. G2 didn’t mind. He could go two or three days without food before his gut started tying up in knots. Going without wine was a lot harder. It made him think too much. That thinking. That’s what makes life miserable. If you just keep thinking about it, you’ll go crazy.

♦♦♦

THE LINE IN FRONT of the Job Corps office was long, as usual. Maybe even longer. G2 really couldn’t think why he got up to come over here this morning. They never had anything for him. He didn’t think they even liked him. Mexicans would get all the good jobs before he even got to the door. The Chinese lady who asked for your name and identification definitely didn’t like him. She got mad because he couldn’t understand her. Apparently her Spanish was better than her English because the Mexicans all seemed to understand her just fine. They grinned and nodded their heads and then they went to work. G2 wasn’t really sure if he would trust her enough to get in one of those trucks with the Mexicans, headed to some sort of job somewhere he didn’t know doing something he didn’t know how to do. He wouldn’t put it past her to send him off to a concentration camp. Maybe he’d disappear and nobody would know he was gone until they got sent to “a job.” They did that kind of thing. “What happened to G2?” Bad X would ask. Someone—maybe Bill White, black as night—would say, “I think he went to Cleveland. He been talking about Cleveland.” Like G2 would ever go to Cleveland. It was too cold there to live on the street and G2 hated the shelters that made you listen to the preaching and made you take a shower while they kept your bag “safe” and wouldn’t even let a bottle of cheap wine through the front door. He could stand the other if he could have a drop of wine. But no. It was like a concentration camp. If he got in one of those trucks to go to a job, he would disappear like a Jew in Poland and they’d dig his bones out of a mass grave in fifty years and say “Oh look. It’s G2. Guess he didn’t go to Cleveland after all.”

Two men walked across the street and stood in line behind G2. They weren’t day laborers. You could tell by their easy stance and the pack of cigarettes they shared. They must have come from across town to get the good jobs at the Job Corps. They were big men. G2 felt tiny standing in their shadow. He felt his heart beating faster. They would probably get nice clipboard jobs while G2 lifted boxes of fruit off a truck. That Chinese lady didn’t like G2. But she’d like these two. She would treat them special. “You want to work in air conditioned place?” she’d say to them in her Asian accent. Chinese? Japanese? Some nese. “I got nice supervisor position just made for man like you.” G2 just wished they wouldn’t stand so close behind him. There was a whole sidewalk there and they didn’t need to crowd him. G2 hated crowds. Crowds were dangerous. What was that story about people getting trampled in a football stadium? Or was it a nightclub? Didn’t make a difference. It could have been in line at the Job Corps. Newspapers would have headlines in the morning. “Stampede at Job Corps kills one, injures many more.” Would he be the one or the many more? That’s why he always put his bedroll on the far edge of a camp. Some people liked to be in the middle of things, surrounded by bums snoring and farting. You could die of ass-fixiation if you slept in the middle of camp. G2 had to get out of the middle. If he moved someone would be on him. Someone would step on him when they got up to take a leak. Some sloppy drunk would fall over him and then beat him up for being in the way. G2 didn’t like having someone walking around while he slept. It wasn’t natural. When G2 lay down on the outer edge of the camp, he could get up and leave whenever he wanted to. He might decide to catch that early morning train west and no one would be the wiser.

Gerald had once been in the middle of a crowd of cheering, happy people. How can people in a crowd be happy? It was in high school or college; he couldn’t remember for sure which. When did he play ball? He played ball, didn’t he? The team won a championship and people flooded onto the court. Everybody was hot and sweaty and stank. Not just the players. The whole crowd stank. Gerald had a sensitive nose. Crowds stank. He hadn’t been the star player, but he played. He was caught up in the frenzy of cheering, back-slapping, and hugging. Hot stinking bodies gripping each other in big bear hugs like some orgy was happening. First the team and the cheerleaders. That was nice. Then the coaches and students and parents and teachers. Were his parents there? Gerald struggled to place them in the crowd, but they didn’t materialize in his mind. They weren’t always in Gerald’s memories, so he must not have been very important to them. They weren’t there to see him score in the last minute of the game and they weren’t there in the crowd afterward. It wasn’t the game-winning point. Their team was way ahead, but he scored. The crowd and teammates and cheerleaders were all there pushing around him and touching him. It was a happy time. How could a crowd be happy? G2 tried to find that feeling he had of joy and excitement that made being in a crowd okay. But he couldn’t feel it. Even thinking about that crowded gymnasium with people pressing against him from every direction made his heart beat faster. And it wasn’t happy. It felt like he couldn’t breathe. He tried to find the excitement and joy, but only found panic.

G2 turned in the job line to ask the men to back off a little and let him breathe. Their smoke was choking him. Three more guys had joined the line behind them. Gerald stepped out of line. There were too many people standing there, waiting to get in trucks and be taken to concentration camps where they would be crowded into cattle cars and wouldn’t be able to breathe. He motioned for the two big men with cigarettes to move up and take his place as he walked resolutely to the end of the line. They looked at him strangely, but moved up to take his place. G2 stood at the end of the line, almost gasping for air. He saw another man approaching from across the corner. Abruptly, G2 turned and walked away. There weren’t any jobs there for him anyway. They didn’t like him at the Job Corps. By the time he got to the front of the line, that ’nese woman would be sending people away, saying, “You should come earlier. Don’t be so lazy.” There just was no use being there.

♦♦♦

THE MANHATTAN CLUB was a business district café where the almost-there businessmen took their clients and secretaries for lunch. The real executives didn’t go outside for lunch. G2 could imagine them sitting in their offices with secretaries feeding them some egg foo young prepared by their private chef. The Manhattan Club was for those who didn’t have private chefs, but they looked like important people, anyway. When the important people wanted to be seen, they sat next to the big windows at the front of the restaurant and looked out on the street. Everybody ignored the businessmen who took their secretaries and mistresses to the enclosed booths at the back of the restaurant. Nobody ever looked at them as they went in, like only their waiter ever actually saw them. G2 worked there as a busboy once and got fired for looking at a man and woman in a booth. All he did was look and they fired him. Between the show-offs in the window seats and the non-existent people in the booths, there was the boisterous crowd around the oyster bar, slapping each other’s backs and ordering another martini.

Bad X always told G2 he was wasting his time going to the business district. Executives didn’t want to be seen giving money to bums. Executives wanted the streets cleaned up and people like G2 put in jail. That’s what Bad X always said. If you spoke to an executive, just to ask for a damned dime, they called the cops. They ignored the signs you held up. It was no good going to the business district, Bad X always said. But G2 was drawn there like a fly to shit. One day that cheap bastard would hand him a buck and look him in the eye—straight in the eye. And when he did, he’d know and it would all be over. G2 to saw him here once. Maybe twice. It was always on a Wednesday, and that’s when G2 went to the business district. When G2 was in town, he sat outside the Manhattan Club on Wednesdays and waited. The guy always had a buck in his pocket. He would come out of the restaurant, talking to some guy or gal like he didn’t see anything else in the world. He’d reach in his pocket and drop the dollar in G2’s cup. It was like an automatic response to the presence of the bum on the street, even though he never looked at G2 or acknowledged his existence. G2 often wondered if he treated any other bum the same way or if it was only him. G2 never told anyone else about it because nobody else came to the business district to panhandle and G2 didn’t want them to. Sometimes another man in a suit would throw some coins in G2’s cup. But it was always a single, wadded up dollar bill from this one. G2 wondered if he crumpled up the dollar so he could imagine he was throwing it away. Maybe he made a statement that said this was just a piece of trash and that old bum is a waste can. Or maybe it was an old unbreakable reflex to crumple it up. Was he angry at the dollar and that made him wad it up? Was he trying to make it small so it could be hidden and no one would see him give it away and say “that just encourages them?”

Gerald looked into a bum’s eyes once—a long time ago. Really looked deep. At first, he didn’t see anything but two eyes. They were a little glassy with the pupils dilated. Then Gerald began to read the silent desperation, the deep pleading in the bum’s eyes. And Gerald knew he could help him. If he looked hard enough, G2 could see that expression in the eyes reflected back at him in the café window. But now he knew that he could not help, and the eyes retreated back into emptiness.

The man left the restaurant talking intently to his companion. G2 was sure the executive hadn’t even seen him, but his hand snaked out of his pocket and a crumpled dollar bill fell into G2’s cup. G2 watched until the man turned the corner and then he got up and ambled away toward the freight yard. Warm weather was coming. G2 reckoned he’d go spend some time up north.

♦♦♦

HE WAS RIDING the train across country to Disneyland. His parents had put the children to bed in the compartment next to theirs and went back to the lounge car to have a drink. There was never any alcohol in their home. His father didn’t even allow beer or wine in the refrigerator. Knowing his parents were having a drink sent shivers down little Gerald’s spine as he tried to go to sleep. Gerald had a vague memory of his father sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer. He asked his father for a sip. It was a childish thing to do. Kids always want to try what their parents are doing, didn’t they? But little Gerald’s request shook his father. The man was at a loss for words. He looked at Gerald as though he’d never seen the boy before—had never contemplated the idea of being a father. In that long moment of eye contact, something unspoken passed between the two. Then, without saying a word in response, his father abruptly stood up and poured the beer down the kitchen sink. He opened the refrigerator, took out the remaining cans, popped the tops, and poured them out one by one. Turning to Gerald, his father said, “There is nothing to taste.” There had never again been beer or alcohol in their house as far as Gerald knew. But when his parents went out alone, or—as now—escaped from the children to a lounge car, they returned smelling of the sweet perfume of wine. His parents were always happy when they returned from these dates, as if a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders for a while. When Gerald turned twenty-one, he had still never tasted a drop of alcohol. Somehow the train was inextricably linked to this memory. Feeling the rhythmic bump of the rails filled his mind with images of his parents coming back to their compartment, bouncing against the doors of the sleeper car as the train swayed on the tracks out of synch with the swaying walk of his parents. The sweet smell of wine or champagne on his mother’s breath as she paused at their compartment to kiss the children in bed. The whispered good night to his little sister in the berth below him. The thoughts were neither happy nor sad. They were simply part of the rails.

G2 wondered if his sister still lived in Seattle. It was a temperate climate in Seattle, but G2 still didn’t like to spend the winter there. It was too dark. Even in the short hours of the day, the sky was dark with clouds. But his sister said she liked the area and that it was always green. She was 23 and newly married when G2 saw her last. That was a long time ago. He could tell she was embarrassed by him when she stepped outside her home to hug him and walk to a nearby coffee shop to talk. He didn’t recall saying much, even then. He would get his act together, he had said. He just needed sometime to see the country. His clothes still fit him back then. And he’d managed to grab a disposable razor from an apartment complex garbage bin so he would look clean for her. But she could always see through him.

When Gerald was fifteen and Marian was eleven, he was left at home to babysit. He’d had a clever plan. As soon as she was asleep, he would slip out and meet his best friend Brian in the park. He tried to get her to bed and asleep as quickly as possible, but she resolutely refused to cooperate. “I don’t want to be left alone,” she said. “And if I go to sleep, you’ll leave me alone.”

Even in the coffee shop, she knew he wasn’t coming back. She’d put a hand on the back of his and whispered, “Goodbye Jer-Jer.” Then she left him in the coffee shop with both cups of coffee and five dollars as she hurried home. G2 recognized that gesture.

Gerald must have been about twelve or thirteen when his uncle died. His mother’s brother fought lung cancer for three years before he succumbed. The mortician’s makeup couldn’t hide the emaciated remnant that lay in the coffin surrounded by flowers. Gerald and his sister followed their mother into the chapel and stood a respectful step behind as their mother stared at the corpse with tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Then she reached out and lightly touched her brother’s hand and whispered, “Goodbye, Donny.” She turned away, leaving Gerald and his little sister Marian staring into the casket. After only a moment, Marian mimicked her mother’s gesture and said, “Goodbye, Uncle Don.” Then she, too, turned to join her mother. Gerald hadn’t wanted to touch the corpse but was overwhelmed by a morbid curiosity to find out what it felt like. He expected cold, but not quite as cold as it felt. Nor did Gerald expect the plasticene smoothness he felt. The flesh was completely flaccid. It was like touching a plastic wrapped piece of meat in the grocery store. It surprised Gerald so much that he forgot to say anything—just turned and went to sit with his mother and sister while a man who knew Don stood to talk about all the wonderful things he had done and what a good friend he had been. All through the funeral, Gerald kept rubbing his fingers together, still able to feel his uncle’s dry, cold skin. When his father was killed in an automobile accident the next year, Gerald saw his mother and sister go through the same motions at the casket. Gerald declined to touch the man who had been his father.

G2 wondered if—in that coffee shop when his sister had said goodbye and touched him so many years ago—if his flesh had felt as cold and plastic to her as it did now to himself.

♦♦♦

G2 KNEW where the community center was; he’d been there before. It might be nothing—and if it was he was no worse off than before—but something deep inside told him this was the night. He wrinkled up his nose as he got closer, searching in the air for a tell-tale scent. He was almost to the door before he finally caught it. They were serving dinner for the homeless tonight. Dinners at community centers were always the best. You could go in and eat your fill of whatever they served, grab a few slices of bread to put in your bag, and leave without having to listen to more than a few God blesses, and maybe a prayer. There were always missions you could get a meal at, but the price of food was often to sit through a long sermon, sometimes even before they let you eat. They wouldn’t let you bring wine into the mission and it was too late by the time you got out to get any. Some nights, Gerald was too hungry to resist. He didn’t object to the sermons or what people believed and tried to get him to believe. He could even nod his head at what they said and whisper “God bless” back at them. But sitting sober at one of their sermons always started Gerald thinking. And thinking like that could make you crazy.

“Brothers and sisters,” a preacher would start out and G2 would start asking himself if he was related to the preacher. And if he was related and everybody in the room was the preacher’s brother or sister, then he must be related to everybody in the room—even the black men, the Asian whores, and the Mexican day-laborers. Now G2 knew none of them were raised in the same house he was. He was pretty sure his mother only had two children. But his father might have had children by as many women as he wanted. Of course he would have to travel all over the world to get Chinese and Mexican children. He’d be a regular George Washington who was father of his country. It just showed that religion started out lying in the first three words. Brothers and sisters. But they want people to believe really unbelievable stuff. G2 figured that if a preacher could make a bunch of bums in a mission believe they were his brothers and sisters, he was well on his way to making them believe any other thing he wanted to preach. G2 had long since learned how to talk like they wanted. Yes sir. I believe. Amen. God bless. If you tried to argue with them they couldn’t let go. They’d talk you to death and you’d be lucky to get cold soup for dinner. But at community centers you just walked in on a night they were serving dinner and filled a plate with hot greasy pasta and ate. Nobody looked in your bag to see if you were carrying a bit of wine. Nobody preached more than a God bless. Nobody noticed when you stuck an apple and three slices of doughy Wonder Bread in your pocket and left. Nobody noticed you. They were good people.

That’s the way it was with people. You get on in this world by nodding your head and keeping your eyes down. If you challenged people, they’d get you. G2 was never going back to Miami; that was sure enough. It was warm enough and you could sleep under the boardwalk or out on the beach without freezing to death as long as you weren’t there during a hurricane and kept out of the way of the patrols. But G2 argued with a man in Miami. It was a long time ago, but people like that don’t forget. It was nothing, really, but some folks just have to keep arguing even after you give up and move your bedroll to the other side of camp. Then they sneak up on you in the middle of the night and kick you in the gut with two of their friends, and you crawl away and slip into an empty boxcar on the first train heading north and you never go back.

♦♦♦

WHEN GERALD WAS A SENIOR in high school, he heard that his friend Jeff had been shot and was in a hospital in Milwaukee. Gerald was compelled to go visit the friend that he had played army with in the neighborhood. The Milwaukee County General Hospital was a bleak place. It was, Gerald found out, the same hospital that operated the TB sanitarium his father worked in during the Korean conflict and had a large wing that was considered a mental hospital. The medical facility was painted white throughout. Gray tile paved the hallways giving the impression of a stark black and white photograph of a hospital from another age. The people housed in its wards were mostly indigents who could not afford medical care. They were the people that Gerald’s family had sometimes referred to as being “on the county.” In the barbershop, Forrest the barber had once asked Gerald’s father what ever happened to Old Man Sanders. He never came into the shop anymore. Gerald’s father shook his head sadly and said, “Sanders lost his job and the bank took his house. He’s on the county now. Probably can’t afford a haircut.” Jeff’s ward had eight beds in it and Jeff was in the third on the right. As soon as he saw his one-time friend, Gerald couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he’d come here. Jeff was stretched out on the bed flat on his back. The TV in the corner of the room was playing “The Edge of Night” and occasionally Jeff’s eyes flicked toward it. The sound was turned so low Gerald could hardly hear it. Jeff’s eyes watched Gerald come into the room but he didn’t turn his head.

Gerald had dressed in his good slacks with a white shirt and tie on. He didn’t know what the rules were for getting into a hospital. He’d just turned eighteen, but maybe they didn’t allow people to visit who were younger than twenty-one. He’d chosen the tie carefully, opting for a straight narrow black tie instead of one of his father’s broad multi-colored ties. Gerald’s father had had a different tie for every day of the year. He wore a tie to the office every day. When he was killed, Gerald took all the ties into his own closet and a few white shirts as well. This was the first time he’d actually worn one of them.

“You some kind of a priest now?” Jeff asked as Gerald came up beside his bed.

“Naw. I just didn’t know if they’d let me in to see you.” Gerald could tell Jeff was in a sour mood, but who wouldn’t be lying in this place flat on his back.

“Why’d you come? Nobody else came. None of the gang. Not one of the guys who said they were my friend. They all scattered and left me there.”

“I don’t know,” Gerald said. “We used to be friends.” There was a little silence with neither boy knowing what to say next. “What happened?” Jeff looked at him and managed to turn his head slightly to see him better.

“You with the cops?” Gerald shook his head. “They want to pin it all on me. I didn’t do anything.”

“What happened?” Gerald repeated.

“We decided to go down to Chicago and try to get some real booze. Guys had been drinking three-two all day and said we should have some whiskey. We all decided Chicago was the best place to go. We could get there where everybody looked the same, get some whiskey, and sit by the Lake and watch the sun come up. Then we’d roll back home. By the time we reached Milwaukee, everybody was tired of the whole idea. They said we might as well just get some booze in Milwaukee and light up the town. Norm was a Polack, so nobody’d be the wiser. We swung to the curb at the first liquor store we saw. That’s when we realized nobody had any money to buy booze. So Norm, Kirby, and Sam said they’d go in. Billy was to keep the car running and I was to watch outside for the cops. Sam had a gun and they just walked in, waved it around and took a couple of bottles and money. I didn’t know what was happening and I’d gone up to the corner to look for cops and was coming back when the three of them came running out of the store and piled in the car. Billy floored it with me running along behind to catch up. Bastard in the store came out with a rifle and plugged me in the back. Now I can’t even piss by myself.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shoulda just kept my head down and gone the other way.” They were silent for a while. Gerald couldn’t think of anything to say. He would never have been caught with those guys in the first place. He guessed maybe he was a goody two-shoes. But maybe that was why nothing bad ever happened to him. He just wasn’t ever where the bad stuff happened.

“I ain’t ever gonna get out of this hospital, am I?” Jeff asked. “You were the smart one Ger. You were always the smart one.”

“I gotta go,” Gerald said. “I’ll come back and visit again.”

“Yeah, you do that. Thanks for coming.”

Gerald left and drove the two-and-a-half hours home lost in thought. Dad had been right. Just keep your nose clean and your head down and stay away from guns.

Jeff died later that winter.

♦♦♦

G2 HEARD SOMETHING he didn’t recognize in the noise of the crowded street. The bumping throb hit him in the chest and made his lungs vibrate. It didn’t seem to affect anyone else around, but it forced G2 to a wall for support. He must be crazy, thinking there was an earthquake when no one else could feel a thing. The teeth-shaking thump got louder and G2 could see a car—that was a Jeep, he remembered—approaching. As the Jeep went on past, the thumping gradually faded. That much echo in his chest made G2 feel empty. That must have been music, he thought.

There was a time when Gerald liked music. He was like any other teenager. He knew all the popular songs. They were good for getting to touch girls. Not all the songs. Some songs seemed to be made to keep people apart, dancing in their own little world as if no one else existed. One time Gerald took a girl to a dance and barely saw her all evening. When he took her home after the dance, she was effusive about how much she enjoyed herself, but she never went out with him again, even though they often went to the same dances and she never seemed to be with anyone else. There was some music, however, that seemed to make a girl melt into your arms—like at senior prom. It started out with everyone nervous about the big night, a corsage barely stuck with a trembling hand to the strap of a low-cut gown—that silent offer of a breast to caress, even if only with the back of one’s hand. The music started with lively numbers and kids jumping around—dancing—frantically trying to burn off the sexual energy that had built with anticipation of the evening. Gradually, the music slowed over the course of the night. Those who had outlasted the frenzy and were still on the dance floor moved together. By the end of the dance, their feet were barely moving, their bodies practically glued to each other.

Gerald drove his date home in his mother’s old Ford Galaxy. She sat in the center of the front seat, snuggled under his arm, holding his right hand against her breast as he carefully maneuvered the big car down the country roads, never going faster than thirty. This was a moment he wanted to last. He remembered there was music then, too, on the radio. She used her free hand to tune to a late-night jazz station. When he pulled into her long farm-house driveway, he coasted to a stop near the barn and turned off the car and the lights, but left the radio on. She sank further into his embrace, giving him even more access to her breasts as she lifted her lips to kiss him. That first kiss after the prom was exquisite. He never wanted it to end. When it did, their hands had found every intimate part of each other’s body and their breathing was shallow and intense. Gerald knew that this was the night and she was the girl. All he could think was a silent prayer that if they made love tonight he would never make love to another woman as long as he lived. She would be the one for him. But it wasn’t to be. As if in answer to his prayer, she whispered to him, “Nothing that could last longer than tonight, Gerald. No long-term consequences, just the moment.” They had cum together, but not through intercourse. When they were sated, she pulled her dress back together, kissed him one more luxurious time and got out of the car. Gerald jumped to walk her to the door, but she motioned him to stay. She walked to the back door of her house alone, turned to blow him a kiss, and then disappeared inside. They had only one date after that when she told him they were just too different to be dating. He was going to college and she was going to stay home and work. She just wasn’t cut out to be a college guy’s girlfriend. Later that year, she married a local farm boy and Gerald heard she had had two children by the time he finished college. Gerald had quit listening to music by that time. It was an interruption he didn’t need. Even when he went to see a movie with his college girlfriend or watched television, he hated the way music manipulated his feelings. Music could trigger fear, tears, and lust. Nothing could be trusted to be what it appeared to be if there was music playing.

G2 moved his feet around to see if he could dance, but he couldn’t remember any music. There was no rhythm, no sense to the movement of his feet, and no girl to hold. As he was intently trying unsuccessfully to remember a song—any song—from his teen years, a passerby dropped a coin in his cup, and all thought of music disappeared.

♦♦♦

G2 WAS LOOKING for an unoccupied corner in a retail area. People were more likely to give a handout in a retail area than in a business district. Business people were working and thought you should be, too. People who were shopping, though—especially those who bought things they didn’t really need and felt guilty about—were in a spending mode and were sensitive to people who couldn’t afford what they could. They could buy a quick indulgence for their greed and vanity with a few coins in his cup. You had to be careful of some businesses, though. He had once been taken by a well-meaning older woman into a beauty salon where she paid to have him barbered, shaved, and scrubbed. G2 came out looking young, clean, and smelling of some kind of fruit. He couldn’t get a handout for a week after.

He turned a corner and walked into the trailing scent of a woman who had recently passed by. Even after such a long time, the scent had a familiarity to it, and a fragment of lyrics to an old song flitted through his mind. “Never gonna give you up—never gonna let you down.” For a second he could feel the soft silkiness of Lori’s hair against his face and the scent of her perfume filled his nostrils as he kissed her neck. A bus drove past and its exhaust erased the last lingering fragrance in the air.

He should have said goodbye.

He stood in place for a moment, bewildered by the sudden burst of memory that had come upon him. He was confused about where he was and blinked an unexplained tear from his eye. The world around him came crashing back in on his awareness. A crowd of people pressed toward him in the wake of a walk light. A gentle hand tapped him on the shoulder and G2 turned toward it quickly. “Sorry,” said the young man who had touched him. “Didn’t mean to startle you, but you’d better step back away from the curb. People are going to run you over out there. That bus mirror almost got you.” G2 ducked his head and shuffled back toward the storefront on the other side of the walkway. To his surprise, the young man walked with him instead of turning to go away. G2 would normally not look twice at a boy this age. He’d learned long ago that males between 16 and 30 were simply too self-absorbed to notice a bum and give him a handout. This fellow looked like all the others. He wore khaki pants with a yellow polo shirt that had an animal stitched over his heart. Ear buds dangled around his neck and the cord led to his pants pocket. He wore loafers with pennies stuck in the tongue. This was not the kind of fellow who helped out bums.

“I’m gonna grab a cup of coffee,” the guy said. “You want one?” Gerald barely nodded his head and the young man was off at a trot to a Starbucks on the corner. For a few moments Gerald considered leaving before the guy got back, but an elderly woman struggling past paused and fished in her purse, finally dropping two quarters in his cup. He bobbed his head toward her and quietly muttered “God bless,” when the hand of another passerby reached out with a dollar for his cup. A small child, firmly gripped by his mother, smiled up at G2 and reached on tiptoe to drop a dime in G2’s cup. The mother added a dollar. By the time the young man returned with coffee, there was $3.10 in his cup. “I hope you like cream. I just fixed it the same way I like mine. I’m Phillip, by the way. Oh, and here. They had these on sale in there because it’s so late in the day.” Phillip held out a plastic wrapped bagel sandwich. Gerald hesitated, though his mouth had begun to water. The sandwich had an egg on it. “Go ahead,” Phillip encouraged him. “It’s not like I paid a fortune for it or anything. They practically gave it away. Besides, I know where my next meal is coming from and I’ll bet you don’t. That’s why I’m standing out here. My girlfriend is going to meet me. We’re going shopping for an engagement ring and then out to dinner so I can propose properly. Did you ever get married, old man?” Phillip paused in his rambling only long enough to confirm that G2 shook his head. “Well, all that talk about how guys should buy a ring and surprise her with it is dumb. I mean, she’s going to wear it every day for the rest of her life. She should have some say in what it looks like. And Lisa has some very strong opinions, let me tell you. You know those signs in a ballpark they put messages on? Some guys put their proposal up there and put the girl on the spot with 30,000 people watching. Man, if I did that I’d be a bachelor for life. No a eunuch. She’d make sure I was out of the running permanently. But you know what? If Lisa wasn’t in my life, it would be empty. There just wouldn’t be anything to give it meaning. Why would I want to be an engineer or move out west? I’d be pretty much like you. It’s too bad you never found the right girl.” Phillip kept talking, but G2 had stopped listening a long time ago. He was thinking again.

He should have said goodbye.

Everything had come so easy for him. He’d never really had to make a decision. Never in his life. He wore the same kind of clothes everyone else wore in school. He ate whatever his mother put on the table. He went to school and did what he was told to. “Keep your nose clean and your head down,” his father always said. As a result, he got good grades. He scored high on his tests. He went to the first State University that accepted him. His schooling was paid for by scholarships. He met the perfect girl and they dated all through college. He assumed that someday she would simply tell him when they were going to get married and they would have a perfect life together. When he finally made a decision—the only decision he could remember ever making in his life—it all changed.

“You’re drifting,” Brian had said. “You honestly have the balls to complain that you never really had to work at anything. It all came too easy.” Gerald and Brian had been friends for as long as he could remember and Gerald knew it had not all come easy for Brian. He’d worked hard in high school to get the grades Gerald got while playing ball. He’d taken loans to pay for college tuition that Gerald got on scholarship. Gerald not only respected Brian, he envied his ambition and drive. Brian knew what he wanted and wouldn’t stop until he got it. Gerald had nothing more than a vague notion that he should do some good with his life. He had so much; it should help the world some way. But he didn’t have an idea of what it should be. “What I’m saying is, don’t throw it all away,” Brian had said. “If you want to find meaning in life, then don’t take the corporate job. Go volunteer. Do the one thing that no one else would do and make a difference.”

It was two weeks before college graduation. Gerald finished his last paper and took his last exam, all the while wondering what would truly make a difference. If he could just change one person’s life—change it for the better—then perhaps he could look at himself in the mirror and be proud of himself. Maybe he would know his life wasn’t a waste—that it had meaning.

“Now there’s a guy,” Brian had said as they walked uptown after class, “who would give his left nut to be in your shoes.” The man in question was dressed in fatigues. He stood in a light rain, staring out at traffic coming to a stop at the light. The sign he held in his hands read, “Homeless Vet. Need a little help. God bless.”

“Hey man, wouldn’t you like to be area sales manager for a hot new company?” Brian was never subtle in his approach. The homeless vet looked up and muttered “Fuck off” under his breath, but Brian was undeterred. “The only thing that separates you from this homeless guy is nobody dropped an opportunity in his lap. You want to do something good, for somebody, why don’t you walk a mile in his moccasins and let him try on your wingtips. This guy would make something of his life if he had your opportunity, wouldn’t you buddy?” Brian looked at the homeless vet and found him nodding his head.

The homeless man looked straight at Gerald and Gerald made up his mind on the spot. There was something in the man’s eyes that had more spirit and fight aroused by Brian’s pep talk than had ever found its way into Gerald. There was a kind of pleading in the man’s eyes that captivated Gerald. For just a moment, Gerald could see the world through the other’s eyes. It was harsh and grim. The man was building a wall between himself and the desperate gray world that surrounded him. The glimpse of hope when he looked at Gerald was a last chink in the wall.

Gerald’s heart began to race as his breathing quickened. This could be possible. He could make a difference in the life of a man who desperately wanted what Gerald had. If Brian would agree to guide the man in his transition to a new, productive life, then Gerald could simply trade places—trade lives—with the homeless man. The way everything good just came to Gerald, he could earn his way out of homelessness in a year or two. Maybe he could develop a program based on his experiences—write a book. He’d do an analysis of life as a homeless man from the inside and he would be able to change not only this guy’s life, but the lives of every desperate man and woman on the street. Gerald was young good things always came to him. It wouldn’t be that hard and this guy would get the benefit of being Gerald for a year or two—enough time for him to be on-track for a good life of his own. It suddenly all made sense. Once he made his decision there was no reason to hold back or to wait. He had already earned his degree. Graduation was a mere formality. Within twenty-four hours, Gerald was homeless—G2, a man on the street—and the vet was dressed in Gerald’s clothes, learning how to do Gerald’s new job. Gerald didn’t wait for graduation; didn’t say goodbye. He walked out of his old life with the clothes on his back and disappeared.

Yes. He should have told Lori goodbye.

♦♦♦

THE SUDDEN DOWNPOUR had caught G2 unaware and he was soaked through. The weather had been getting warmer, but the rain was cold and G2 shivered. He wasn’t supposed to get caught in bad weather. Homeless people, especially those few like G2 who eschewed shelters and semi-permanent encampments like tent city, were supposed to develop feral instincts that enabled them to get to shelter before bad weather hit. But G2 had been sitting near the river, hiding in a bend out of sight, while he nursed a magnum of wine. It had been a good day and he bought the largest bottle he could with his $7. He’d sat by the river all the previous night, sometimes sleeping while sitting up, then starting awake to take another little sip from the jug. In the morning there was still quite a lot of wine left in the bottle, so Gerald simply stayed where he was instead of panhandling at the freeway exit again. He’d spaced his little sips out all day long, so focused on his precious bottle that he didn’t notice the clouds rolling in, or even the first few gentle spatters of rain until lightning split the night sky and the few drops turned to a downpour in seconds. When it started, G2 jumped up to run for cover, but a momentary disorientation as he bent to scoop up his bag and bottle left him unsure of which way to go. If he stepped out in the darkness the wrong direction he would fall into the river. It was some feet below the edge of the retaining wall and G2 knew that no matter how deep the water, he would be unable to climb back out. So G2 stood where he was, immobile as the rain washed over him.

“All things come to those who wait,” his mother said to Gerald. It had been on the occasion of his 8th birthday and the bicycle from Sears that he had wanted for so many months sat next to the breakfast table. He hadn’t dared to ask for it. His parents had a hard and fast rule to keep their children from being beggars. If you asked for it, you didn’t get it. Gerald and his sister learned early never to ask their parents for so much as an ice cream cone when they were out. But they had also learned to express their admiration for things they desired. Whenever the family went to Sears, Gerald made a point of admiring the bicycle, sitting on it, and examining the price tag and information. His parents had noticed.

G2 still made a practice of never asking, even when he stood with his cardboard sign on a street corner. It said simply, “Thank you for your help. God Bless. G2” It wasn’t clever, but it was the way G2 approached his life. Mad Jocko in Cincinnati was different. He boldly shook his sign at passersby. The sign read, “Ugly, broke, and homeless. Please help!” It worked all right for Mad Jocko. But he was crazy. Petey in D.C. usually sat outside the Greyhound Bus Station. He was pushy and the cops had been by to warn him off a few times. “Buddy, can you gimme a dime? Just a dime. I got ninety cents already and I just need one damn dime.” He was pushy, but people listened to him. He got a lot of dimes and a lot of other change, too. He didn’t hold any signs. He held a fistful of loose change that he was always looking at and counting. Then he’d look up suddenly as you passed by. “Hey Miss, could you spare a dime?” I got ninety cents already, but I just need another dime.” Petey’s favorite spot was next to the vending machines, but he never put money into them. Whenever someone got something from a machine, Petey would walk over when they left and check the change tray. Then he’d turn all of a sudden and catch a passerby. “Hey, you wouldn’t have a spare dime would ya? I only got ninety cents here.” Yeah, Petey did pretty good, but he was pushy.

G2 couldn’t figure out which way to move as he stood soaking up the rain, so he tried to remember how much money he had in his pocket. He was sure he had more than ninety cents, but a dime really wouldn’t do him any good. He started to shiver as the rain continued to pelt him. Each drop drove him closer to the ground until he was hunched into a little ball on the wet and muddy grass. One more sip from his precious bottle and G2 went to sleep with the rain still falling in torrents.

♦♦♦

IT WAS ONLY A FEW BLOCKS to the General’s house. She was an old lady, retired from the Salvation Army. She had a modest house on the East Side, not far from the river. There, she lived an austere life, seldom straying from her living room. But it was known among a select few of the transients that she had half a dozen cots in her basement and no one in need of shelter for the night was turned away. G2 stood quietly at her door, waiting and dripping water on the steps. The door opened a crack and the General looked out. Then it was flung open wide.

“Heavens, man! You are soaked to the skin!” the General shouted. “Were you out in the rain all night?” G2 nodded his head. “Who are you? Is that G2?” G2 nodded again. “Haven’t I told you to come any time you are in need? Come in here and let’s get you dry and fed. Don’t worry about the water; I have a mop.” The General led G2 into the house and directly to the basement stairs. She grabbed a cloth shopping bag from a hook as they went. “There’s only Bill O’Reilly down here at the moment and I guess he’ll sleep another two hours. So here is a bag to put your valuables in. Empty all your pockets then throw your clothes out here on the floor.” She turned the water on in a corner shower stall. It began to steam and G2’s shivers shook him nearly off his feet. “Choose clothes out of the closet when you are done. I’ll wash these and you can have them back if you want them. You use that yellow soap all over, even your hair, and use a razor, too. I want you clean and shaved when you sit at my table.” The General left and G2 stripped and stepped into the steaming shower.

It took several minutes standing in the hot water before G2 stopped shaking enough to hold onto the bar of lye soap and scrub it on his body. It stung a little, but he knew it would kill the bugs that had infested his hair and skin. The General was fussy about cleanliness. G2’s last suit of clothes had come from the General’s closet. No doubt she would cut his hair off before nightfall. It would be cooler for the summer that way. Being clean and in clean clothes, the General would send him out to a job tomorrow. The General always had a job for you and you didn’t have to stand in line for it. You just went to a mission or a legion hall or even a church. You swept and mopped all the floors and cleaned the toilets. They gave you $20 and you left. It was good that you got that money, because you would be too clean and fresh-looking to make any money panhandling for a few days.

When he lived at home with his mother and sister, Gerald always had to be careful about how long a shower he took. If he used all the hot water his family would be upset, so his showers were hurried. By the age of fourteen he had become a speed masturbator. A few minutes in the shower with a bar of soap and Gerald could step out both clean and satisfied.

The General never seemed to run out of hot water, so unless there was a line of men waiting to get clean, there was no pressure to keep it short; but once he was warm, G2 felt no desire to stay in the shower as he had in his youth. G2 liked to be clean, but you couldn’t really be clean and homeless. It wasn’t that you couldn’t clean up, but no one gave money if you looked too well cared for. He saw it all the time. The first week was hardest on people who had been cast from their former lives and had to find a way to make it on the street. Like Jane. Of course she didn’t stay on the street too long—most women didn’t. Women mostly went to the shelters and they got them into a program. Once you went into a program, you were expected to do what was necessary to get off the street. They got you a real job, a babysitter, and even dressed you for respectable work. But a lot of women didn’t identify the shelters right away. They tried to make it on the street, sometimes living in their cars until the car ran out of gas and they couldn’t move it again. Then it would get towed and from then on they’d never see it again. No one who lived on the street could afford to get their car out of an impound lot. Jane had a car—and a baby. She ran away from an abusive boyfriend and suddenly discovered she had nowhere to go. She stood on a corner just off the exit ramp with a neatly lettered sign that said, “Homeless. Have baby. Need help.” The “have baby” was a nice touch because children moved people to pity, but at the same time, if you didn’t have the baby with you, they wondered if you really had a baby and if you did, who was watching it while you stood asking for a handout. And she didn’t look homeless. She was young and pretty. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed in a white blouse and dark pants. And no one stopped to give her money. That first day G2 saw her, he was the only one who gave her anything. It took four days before the freshness wore off. She’d been parking in the Walmart parking lot each night and then using their facilities to clean her and her baby up in the morning. She parked the little car that she drove just across the street from where she stood with her sign. That fourth day, the baby was wailing in the car and she couldn’t stand it. She wrapped the child up in a makeshift sling and carried her to the corner. Jane’s hair came down out of its ponytail and her white blouse showed the dirt and wrinkles of three days wear. She couldn’t get the baby to shush and before long tears were streaming down Jane’s cheeks, too. It all seemed too much. But that day, Jane got $14 in gifts. It was enough to get food and cloth diapers for the baby. Jane was at that corner for two weeks before she found a shelter that could take her and her daughter in. The last time G2 saw her, her hair hadn’t been washed in 10 days. Her clothes were rumpled because she slept in them as well as wearing them in the sun. The armpits were yellow and Jane cried almost constantly. But she got $15 - $20 each day standing at her freeway exit.

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