Robert Tanenbaum - Resolved

A jailbird was her first thought when he came down the line, not a homeless. The overdeveloped arms and neck said prison, as did the new suntan. They were always in a rush to lose the prison pallor so they stayed out in the sun too long, or under the lamp, leaving tell-tale redness along the rims of the ears. Clean clothes that looked new; he might have a place to stay. A halfway house? Probably. A number of guys from St. Dismas took their meals here at Holy Redeemer. She ladled out his stew and he smiled at her. She smiled back, a formal one, because she couldn't see his eyes behind his dark glasses, and she felt uncomfortable about smiling without meeting the eyes of the person. That's what the social work ladies did, the professional smile. No one looked these guys in the eye from one week to the next, except her. Guys had told her this, that they felt invisible on the streets.

She had a real smile for the next man in line, a smelly bundle of rags with no front teeth. "How's it going, Ramon?"

"Doin' g'ate, Rucy, g'ate."

"Your ship come in yet, man?"

"Not ret, but I got a numbu doday. You p'ay for my numbu, huh, Rucy?"

"Sure thing, Ramon."

Dollop of thick stew, slice of homemade bread. Same smile for the next one and the next, the same kind of chatter. Now one of her favorites, Hey Hey, born Jeffrey Elman. Despite the heat, Hey Hey was wearing a red doorman's coat with gold braid over a T-shirt with the planet depicted on it and bearing the legend "Love Your Mother." On his head he wore what must have once been a fedora, but which was now a vast tangle of monofilament line, tinfoil, brown plastic packing tape, fish hooks, and electronic components. Hey Hey said the rig was necessary to keep his thoughts from escaping his head.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, Lu, hey, hey, Lu, hey, Lucy," said Hey Hey.

"Good afternoon, Jeffrey," said Lucy, with the big smile. She thought that the peaceful kind of schizophrenic was in many ways preferable to the majority of the sane.

"How's it going today?"

"Oh, hey, hey, you know, hey, okay. Hey, hey, I got hey, something to hey, show you after lunch, hey?"

She smiled her agreement, and turned to the next one. They didn't just come for the chow, according to the Catholic Workers who ran the place, but for the civility. There were paper table-cloths on the tables and flowers in vases, and real crockery and cutlery and napkins. Men would carefully tuck napkins in at their waists to protect clothing that had not been washed in years.

Felix took a table in the rear of the church hall, back to the wall, ignored his stew and bread, and watched the girl. The pictures told the truth: a skinny little bitch, no tits, a big nose, hair cut short like a boy's. Probably a lesbo, probably because she was shit-ugly and never had a real man. Getting close to her ought to be a cinch, she'd probably come in her pants the first time he hit on her. He was not interested in eating charity soup with fucking piss bums. Besides, it reminded him of prison, although there were a bunch of women here, too. He checked them out: none of them were worth looking at, old bags mostly, and niggers. That might be one reason the bitch worked here, she was a dog but at least she had a set of teeth. It probably gave her a charge to be the best-looking piece in a room for once.

The diners finished their meal and drifted out. Felix hung out by the door and watched Lucy Karp and a couple of old cunts in aprons and headscarves strip the tablecloths and the few abandoned utensils from the tables and wash the tables down. Lucy and one of the women began to sweep the floor. Felix removed his sunglasses, strolled over to the girl, and said, "You need a hand with that?" He put his smile on maximum charm.

She looked at him, their eyes met. He saw that hers were pale brown, almost the color of cigarette tobacco, with gold flecks, and he also saw that her face was not, as he had previously thought, simply that of an ugly girl. It did not have the beaten look of the unbeautiful, but instead challenged his previous concepts of what beautiful was. But beyond the discomfort this caused (for Felix did not like having any of his concepts challenged) was his sense that the girl could see into him, past his array of masks, down to a place he had nearly forgotten himself. He felt fear, and for an instant he thought it was because she recognized him, that something had gone wrong with the plan, that the cops were wise. He stood there like a dummy, the smile congealing on his face, until she broke the spell by saying, "Yeah, thanks, you can hold the dust pan."

He held the dust pan. In the next few minutes he told himself a plausible story that explained in a way more suitable to his self-image the feeling he had just had. She had confused him with someone else, some other guy she knew. He was spooked a little, this was dangerous, this bitch was the daughter of a big prosecutor, who knows what she really knew? It was incredibly brave of Felix to expose himself like this, like something you could see in the movies, heroic.

They swept the floor together. When they were done, she held out her hand. "I'm Lucy Karp." He took it, and shook it like he would a man's hand, which being a dyke she probably liked. Some deep protective instinct told him that hitting on this one would not be a good idea. Another scam, then, not sex.

"And you are…?"

She wanted his name. "Fel… Fellini," he stammered. "Joe Fellini." He felt a flush and sweat broke across his brow. He'd forgotten the name on his new ID. Uncool, but nothing major. He'd recover.

"Italian?" She gave him the real smile now, which, had he still been capable of human feeling, would have flooded his heart with gladness. "I'm half Italian myself. You from the city?"

"No, Buffalo. I'm here trying to get my kid back. I'm a little short, so I figured I'd save on lunch." He smiled in self-deprecation. Good, the story was flowing into his head. It would work; women were suckers for kids.

"When did you get out of the can?" she asked.

Always tell a little truth to cover a big lie. Some con had told him that and it was good advice. He hung his head. "You can tell, huh?"

"A guy's got weight-bench arms, no color on his neck, a fresh sunburn, and he sits in the back of the hall, too nervous to eat and watching everyone who walks in, I figure he's just out."

"Well, yeah, okay, what can I say? I did a three-year jolt in Elmira, out this past Thursday. A guy paid me five hundred to pick up a package at one of those private mailboxes. They had the place staked out. It was full of dope."

"What did you think was in the five hundred-dollar package, Joe? Stuffed bunnies?"

He shrugged, easing into the part- a working stiff nailed for a stupid mistake. "Yeah, it was dumb, but it was Christmas, I got laid off just before Thanksgiving, and I wanted to, you know, for my little girl…"

"It happens. What's her name?"

"Who?"

"Your little girl."

"Oh," a laugh, "it's Sharon. She's nine. She's with a foster family in the Bronx, nice people and all, but we really want to get back together."

"Her mother isn't…?"

"Oh, man, that's a long, long story and I got a job interview to go to. Listen, would it be okay if I got a meal here once in a while? I'm not really homeless and I don't want to like deprive…"

"No, it's fine- whenever you want. We get some really high-class people in here, because the food's so delicious."

"You're kidding."

"Our motto- Nothing's too good for the poor."

Felix felt a laugh was called for, so he laughed. "I'll see you around then."

"No doubt," she said, and watched him walk away down the street.

Lucy went back into the church hall. Sister Mac was mopping the floor. Lucy got another mop and joined her. Sister Mac was in her late sixties, with jaw and hair of iron, and a grudge against His Holiness the Pope. She'd spent twenty-three years in the Republic of the Congo and was working fourteen hours a day for the Catholic Workers as a form of rest cure.