Stay the Night by Lynn Viehl Page B

every Saturday at a church hall with no air-conditioning, standing around for hours feeding homeless people.
    It was beyond disgusting.
    â€œYou put one sandwich, one bag of chips, and one apple in the box,” the shelter manager was saying. “Then you close the lid and hand it to the client.”
    Jane looked at the long line of dirty, shabby people waiting along one wall. “You call them clients ?”
    â€œI’d better not hear you call them anything else.” The shelter manager handed her a pair of cheap, clear plastic gloves. “You have to wear these while you’re handling the food.”
    Gloves. As if she were going to contaminate something. Jane thought about walking out, but her caseworker had warned her that any problem with her community service would get her tossed into juvie. Jane would certainly rather feed these people than have to spend the next six months living with their kids.
    She put on the gloves and went to her place on the serving line. Prewrapped sandwiches were piled in one box, chips in another, and a plastic bin of rinsed apples sat on the floor. She took a cardboard box from the stack piled behind the counter and filled it with the food before folding over the top and completing the box lunch.
    Definitely not rocket science .
    She looked over the counter at the first of her “clients.” Despite the heat of the day, the old skinny guy was wearing four jackets and a knit cap under a battered straw cowboy hat. His eyes were swollen, his eyelashes encrusted with some greenish white stuff that looked like dried snot. The amount of dirt on his face made it hard to tell if he was black, white, or other.
    â€œHi.” Jane held out the box. “Happy lunchtime.”
    â€œI want three sandwiches.” His fetid breath stank of rotten teeth and sour wine.
    Jane shook her head and jabbed the box at him.
    â€œThree,” he insisted, trying to reach across the counter for the pile of wrapped sandwiches.
    Jane screeched and backed into the shelter manager, who pushed her aside and came to the counter in her place.
    â€œNow, you know you can only have one sandwich, Mr. Patterson,” the manager said, her voice sugary-sweet as she pushed the boxed lunch into his trembling hands. “Otherwise we won’t have enough food for everyone else.”
    Patterson muttered, “Frigging nigger,” before snatching up the box she offered and moving on to the boxed-drinks server.
    â€œDid you hear what he just called you?” Jane demanded.
    â€œLast week he called me a fucking wop,” the shelter manager said. “I think his eye infection is finally clearing up.”
    Sinking into a sullen, resentful silence, Jane kept working and handing over boxes to the homeless. Some were dirty old men like the foul-mouthed Mr. Patterson; some were bony women with sores around their mouths and running up and down their arms. A few teenagers like Jane came through the line, but they were just as dirty and smelly as the drunks and the junkies.
    One good-looking guy did come through the line, and held it up for a while as he stared at her. He smelled great, too, like her favorite candy. Jane pretended not to notice, but the man sat at a table just across from her station and watched her.
    She didn’t mind older guys, really, and this one had the prettiest eyes.
    â€œLady.” A little black girl looked over the edge of the counter, distracting Jane. “Can I have choklit chip cookies?” she asked, smiling and showing that she’d recently lost her front teeth.
    Jane knew the cute guy was watching her, so she put on a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, honey, but we don’t have any cookies.”
    â€œBitch, don’t you be talking to my baby.” A big, scowling black woman strode back from the drinks station and scooped up the little girl. “Just gimme her box.”
    Jane handed her the box, looked over, and saw that the