Lois stumbled a little as she stepped forward, her heart still racing. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but she didn’t have much of a choice other than to press forward and hope it went away. Possibly she shouldn’t have had a third cup of coffee before getting up and dropping her film off at a small shop in Midvale.
She didn’t particularly like using that shop; it was owned by an octogenarian who acted as though teenagers should be shipped off to another country. It was also agonizingly slow. However, there was no chance that a curious teenager would look through it and cause problems.
Thinking about her story helped calm her. By the time she made her way through the crowded benches to reach Clark and the people he was talking to, her heart was almost back to normal.
“Lois!” Clark called out. “Come and meet the guys.”
Lois was surprised to see that the food had already been cleared off the table and someone had pulled out a deck of cards.
The man with the dog was the only one who still had a plate, and he was feeding him biscuits. He smiled as Lois approached and he rose to his feet. His clothes were somewhat loose on his frame, but he had broad shoulders.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “Charlie King and this is Rufus. Clark’s told us a little about you.”
Somewhat puzzled by what he’d said, Lois absently took his outstretched hand. His smile widened somewhat.
One of the men who was seated said, “You should be honored. Clark never talks about his life outside. You’re the only person he’s ever brought here.”
The men scooted to the side, making a space at the end of the bench across from Charlie King and next to his dog. Clark remained standing.
Lois sat gingerly, and Charlie’s smile widened. “Clark was right about you. Never knew an uptown girl who’d even think of sitting where one of us had been.”
Forcing herself not to flinch, Lois smiled and leaned forward. She’d still been a little stunned by her reaction earlier and hadn’t thought about where she was sitting. Now, however, her imagination was running wild. She could almost feel things crawling on her.
She wasn’t going to let the silent challenge she saw in the men’s eyes go unmet, and besides, the last thing she wanted to do was embarrass Clark in front of his friends.
“Cornelius Carver,” the man seated next to her said.
The other men introduced themselves in rapid succession and Lois found herself having trouble following their names. If she was going to be a reporter, she’d have to work harder on her memory; of course part of the reason that she was distracted was that Clark had moved around behind her.
“Be nice to Lois,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “She’s been good to me.”
Lois had no idea what he meant by that; as far as she could see it had been strictly one sided. He’d kept her secret in the locker room, had taken her to the ball game, protected her from the players and had cleaned her car and carried her mother. All she’d done was play a cassette tape and gotten him in trouble.
He’d carefully constructed his life so as to blend in with everyone, and all she’d done was bring that crashing around his ears. She was lucky he was still willing to speak with her.
He removed his hand, but she could still feel her shoulder tingling from where it had been.
“Clark told us about your tape….he even sang a little.” Charlie King grinned
Glancing back at Clark, who was flushed, Lois asked, “Clark sings?”
“Like an angel,” Cornelius said. He grinned. “If the angel had laryngitis and gargled with Drano.”
“You’re just a music snob,” Charlie said. He looked at Lois, “He keeps bragging about having perfect pitch, but he won’t sing as much as a happy birthday. Clark’s no Frank Sinatra, but he’s not tone deaf either. From what he sang, it sounds like a pretty good deal. You think they’ll make a play out of it?”
“It’s a concept album. It would be a pretty good play I think,” Lois paused. “How do you know about Les Miserables anyway?”
“We’re not all illiterate cavemen, except for Charlie here,” Cornelius said. “Some of us even went to college.”
Charlie shook his head. “Again with the college. It’s not like you aren’t digging through the same trash as the rest of us.”
There wasn’t any animosity in their tone. From their expression and tone of voice, Lois gathered that this was what passed as good natured teasing between the two men.
“It’s not like you’ve been digging much lately anyway,” Cornelius said.
Charlie scowled. “Betty doesn’t want me doing any more dumpster diving. Says it’s a nasty habit and dangerous.”
The other men chuckled.
“The woman’s the devil! No more donuts or bacon or fried anything…I’ve lost thirty pounds in the last six months and Rufus here is nothing but skin and bones. Why I let Clark talk me into going to live with her I’ll never know.”
Rufus looked more than healthy to Lois as he snatched the last biscuit from Charlie’s hand.
“Your sister is just looking out for you,” Clark said. “It was good of her to give you a roof, three meals and keep paying for your medicine.”
Charlie let Rufus lick his fingers, and Lois reminded herself to wash her hands before she left. “I smell like a flower shop! She won’t buy anything that’s not scented.”
“You were the one who told me that the winters were getting colder as you were getting older.”
“I suppose now that I’ve let her starve all the protective fat off me, I’m stuck with her,” Charlie grumbled.
“You’re getting soft, old man,” Cornelius chuckled.
“I hear Clark’s been talking to Mabel,” Charlie said. He leaned forward, “Your turn will come up.”
A panicked look appeared on Cornelius’s face for a moment before it smoothed out. “In order to educate some of the less…well-read members of our little group, Clark has been reading La Miserable after these dinners for the last couple of months.”
Lois looked at Clark, who’d moved to the side of the table and crouched down next to Rufus. He shrugged.
“It’s not like we have television,” Charlie said. “Well, I do, but unlike some people I don’t like rubbing it in some people’s faces.”
“She makes you watch soap operas all the time,” Cornelius said. “I’d as soon do without.”
“Anyway,” Charlie said. “Any entertainment is welcomed. That’s why we’ve got the cards, and why Brother Wayman lets us play even though this is technically God’s house.”
Lois could see the preacher across the room, leaning over a different group of men.
“He’d make a good Bishop Myriel, wouldn’t he?” Clark said.
The men around him all nodded.
Bishop Myriel…in the novel he’d been the priest who had taken in a desperate Jean Valjean and accepted him, fed him, and gave him a bed. After Valjean had stolen from him, he’d given him more, but only with the promise of becoming a better person.
Clark saw himself as Valjean, Lois realized. He’d committed a crime, run from the police and yet somehow he’d found a haven here. No wonder he felt comfortable here, and no wonder he identified so much with Les Miserables and its themes of redemption.
“Speaking of cards,” Clark said. “We’re keeping the guys from playing, and we’ve got our own work to do. I’ll go grab my stuff and I’ll be right back.”
He rose to his feet and a moment later he was gone.
Lois should have felt uncomfortable in the middle of a group of homeless men (and Charlie, who was apparently no longer homeless contrary to all appearances.) Yet somehow, Clark’s trust in them helped her relax.
“You know who else would make a good Valjean?” Cornelius asked. “Clark.”
The men around her nodded.
“He found me in the snow and carried me to the hospital on foot,” Charlie said. “And this was back in my fat days. It had to have been a mile from where I collapsed, but somehow he got me there.”
The men around him nodded; apparently this was a story they’d heard more than once.
“He saved me from a group of young muggers,” Cornelius said. “He faced five of them like he wasn’t afraid of anything.”
No one looked surprised. Clark’s skills at fighting were obviously well known; now that Lois thought about it, the men who’d bothered her and her mother the week before had obviously known Clark at least by reputation.
“He gave me his shoes.”
The voice from the corner of the table was low and quiet, and Lois almost missed what had been said.
“What?” Lois asked.
The man who spoke was somehow shabbier than the others, and his shoulders were more slumped. He was staring at the table as he spoke, as though everyone would yell at him for even speaking up.
“He gave me his shoes.” The man was quiet for a moment; there was something odd about his accent that Lois couldn’t identify. “In the winter. Somebody took them….a man can lose his feet without his shoes.”
“He gave me his jacket,” the man next to the shabby man said. “Right off his back, on the coldest day of the year.”
The shabby man spoke again. “Why’d he do that? A man can lose his feet…”
Cornelius sighed. “You’ll have to forgive Cyrus here, he’s new. Clark talked him into coming here, and apparently he’s still a little jumpy.”
The man mumbled to himself, and Lois wondered if there were medications he needed to be taking.
“He pulled me out of a trash truck,” the last man at their table said. “It was one of the coldest days in winter and the shelters were all full. I crawled into a trash bin filled with newspapers. I fell asleep and the next thing I knew I was upside down and falling into the back of the truck.”
The others in the group visibly shuddered.
“The guy who was supposed to be watching heard me screaming, but by the time he stopped the crusher, I was unconscious. Clark crawled into the back of the truck, pulled what had to be hundreds of pounds of trash off me and performed CPR.”
“He learned that from Brother Wayman,” Charlie said proudly.
“I’d be dead now if it wasn’t for him,” the man said quietly. “He’s a hero as far as I’m concerned.”
“I wouldn’t have any feet,” Cyrus said glumly.
Clark came back through a set of doors at the back of the room with his backpack in his hand. He stopped as he approached them and frowned, then continued toward them.
“Are you all right?” he asked Lois.
Lois nodded. The racing heartbeat was back, and it was hard not to stare at him. She forced herself to look down and smile. For some reason her eyes burned.
It wasn’t just what they had to say about Clark, although that loomed heavily in her mind. Their stories hinted at a world that was alien to Lois’s experience. She’d never even thought about a world where nights were so cold you had to sleep in the trash, where a single pair of shoes or a jacket might mean the difference between life and death.
“The guys were just talking about clothes,” Lois said. “I had no idea they knew so much about fashion.”
Clark frowned suspiciously. “The guys like to kid around. I wouldn’t believe a thing they say.”
“They seem pretty honest to me,” Lois said.
The men smiled broadly at her, some showing teeth which obviously needed dental work. Yet somehow there was something beautiful in their ability to smile in the middle of lives which sounded like a nightmare.
“Let’s go,” Clark said, holding his hand out for Lois.
