Clark’s face felt warm; he wasn’t sure whether it was from embarrassment or anger. After waiting in the cold for two hours, he’d had to answer humiliating questions in order to be admitted. The examiner had simply assumed that he used drugs and alcohol. He’d suggested that Clark was gay and had asked if he had a boyfriend he could stay the night with.
Although his parents hadn’t raised him to be prejudiced toward anyone, there had been something about the questioner’s attitude that had bothered Clark. He hadn’t said anything outright, but there was a certain feeling of condescension. He’d labeled Clark as something he wasn’t, and he looked down on him for it.
Clark was sure that if he were gay it would have bothered him even worse. If the man had known that Clark wasn’t even a human being…
Without any identification, the man had been reluctant to let him in. Clark had lied and said his had been stolen. He’d had to sign an agreement to a long list of rules, including no weapons, no sex, and maintaining minimum hygiene.
Finally, he’d been allowed in, even as dozens of men behind him were turned away. Clark felt guilty taking a bed from someone who wasn’t resistant to the cold, but a certain selfishness made him keep quiet. He was getting hungry and he needed a shower. Part of him wanted to collapse because he didn’t know what to do. Sleeping under a roof sounded so much better than out in a ditch again, this time without even a large dog to keep him company.
“When do we eat?” he asked one of the two large men who were helping to control the crowd. He hadn’t eaten since the night before, and even though he didn’t get hungry as fast as other teenagers, he hadn’t eaten in almost twenty hours.
“Not yet,” the man said. “You’ve got to feed your soul before you feed your body.”
They were in an open room with a large number of metal folding chairs. Almost a hundred men grumbled and settled into the chairs. Clark was sure that the smell would have bothered even a normal nose. To his nose, it was a terrible reek, that of dozens of unwashed bodies wearing rarely washed clothes. Some of them had a sickly smell about them. Others smelled of urine, or vomit.
Clark felt horribly out of place in the middle of a crowd of older men.
A man in an unfamiliar clerical outfit moved to the front of the room. He waited a moment until the crowd settled, the murmur of voices faded, and all that was left was the sounds of uncomfortable rustling bodies fidgeting in the silence.
“A man reaps what he sows,” the preacher began. “The path to eternal life is narrow and difficult. Some of you may have known Big Jim; he died last night. We all know that Jim strayed from the path on a daily basis. Hear this as a warning. You do NOT want to join Jim in the depths of hell. I’m telling you here and right now that you have to confess your sinfulness and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior! It is the only way to escape the fires of hell, before it is everlastingly too late.”
The men around him were silent, and Clark felt like sinking down in his chair. This wasn’t the loving church his parents had taken him to, or even some of the more quiet churches he’d been to in a few of his foster homes.
For the next hour, Clark listened as he was told repeatedly that he was a sinner and that he was destined to hell.
After what he’d done, Clark already knew that.
****************
Showering in front of one hundred other men was humiliating, but Clark had been forced to do the same in gym class, and it didn’t bother him so much. They were only allowed five minutes to shower, when he would have preferred to have longer to enjoy the feeling of hot water washing the grime of several days away.
The water was warm even for him, and he could hear several men screaming; the water was apparently scalding hot in places, even though it didn’t really bother Clark.
At least he felt cleaner and the smell wasn’t as bad. He had clean clothing in his backpack and for the first time in two or three days, he felt cleaner and relaxed.
Dinner was greasy chicken, bread, and green salad, with milk or juice. When he’d been living with his parents he’d have looked down on the food. The quality wasn’t that good, and the food was only lukewarm. Clark couldn’t help but resentfully think that it had been hot during the sermon.
His years in the foster system, however had gotten him used to mediocre food. As hungry as he was, it didn’t seem all that bad, although he’d have preferred it warmer. With the other men sitting so close to him, he didn’t dare use his vision to heat his food, so he ate it as it was.
The men around him were hunched, their arms protectively around their plates as though they were waiting for someone to take the food from them. Clark had been in foster homes with some children who ate the same way, usually those who had been in juvenile detention.
Clark ate as quickly as the men around him did; he was hungry. Dinner didn’t take long, and the utensils were soon dispensed with. Clark helped fold the long white tables and place them in stacks inside a closet.
The two large men began handing out pads and blankets; apparently most of the men were going to sleep on the floor although there were a few cots. The men had a list and called out names; those lucky few got access to the cots, while Clark had to make due with a blanket.
His blanket was clean, but Clark could see movement on one of the cots. A closer look with his special vision showed a familiar insect.
Lice!
“Um,” Clark said. He gestured to one of the orderlies, who scowled. “Do you see that?”
“What?”
“If those spread they’ll get over everything,” Clark said. “You might even take them home with you.”
The orderly stared, and then cursed. He returned with gloves and a large plastic bag. He removed the cot, and the man who had been designated the cot glared at Clark.
Clark shrugged. At least lice didn’t jump. An unfortunate experience in one foster home had taught him more than he wanted to about lice. Although they couldn’t penetrate his skin, he’d been able to feel them. He still shuddered every time he thought about it.
Clark found a spot on the floor even as the other men staked out their own areas. Shortly afterwards most of the men stepped outside to smoke; Clark remained inside.
A television was wheeled out on a cart that reminded Clark of those that had been used at his school. By consensus, they watched Jeopardy until lights out at 9:00 PM.
************
It was three hours before Clark was able to fall asleep. The sound of a hundred men snoring and rustling in their sleep was punctuated with the occasional sounds of explosive flatulence. Some of the men talked in their sleep and one man stared at Clark suspiciously. Clark felt the man’s eyes on him and he turned over, facing the wall, his head on his backpack as a pillow.
If it hadn’t been for the food and the shower, Clark would have been more comfortable out in the open. The cold didn’t bother him much and he would have slept better without all the noise.
In the distance he could hear one man retching. Earlier he’d seen one man coughing into a tissue and he’d thought he’d seen blood.
Clark had never been sick in his life and as far as he knew, he couldn’t get sick with any kind of human disease. Still, having this many people this close together for an extended time seemed like a recipe for disaster.
***************
They were awakened at five twenty in the morning by a new set of staff members. The others had apparently left sometime in the night.
Coffee was passed around, but for some reason the showers weren’t ready until six thirty. The men gathered their bedding and placed them in large gray thirty gallon trashcans, presumably to be washed.
Some of the men slipped bourbon from a hidden flask into the coffee; Clark refused. He did accept coffee, scowling at the bitter taste. He’d never really learned to like coffee, and it had never really affected him, but it was a warm drink and better than nothing.
*************
It was good to feel clean again. Clark saw that his backpack was still in its place and he pulled out another set of clothes. He’d have to find a Laundromat somewhere and clean them. It wasn’t as though he could afford to keep buying new clothes whenever the old ones got dirty.
He slipped on a pair of jeans that were only mildly dirty and a clean shirt. It was only as he slipped on his socks that he realized that his shoes were gone.
The men around him were filing out of the building quickly. According to the signs, the building would be closed and locked in five minutes.
Clark looked around, assuming that someone had simply kicked his shoes out of place as they were walking by.
No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find any sign of them. By the time he thought to look and see if someone had stolen them, the men were already out of the building.
**********
If it hadn’t been for his abilities, being without shoes in the cold would be deadly. As it was, it was going to draw attention. Clark wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
He stepped outside, looking quickly at the rapidly dispersing group of men, hoping that he could find the person who had taken his shoes.
Hope faded as the crowd continued to disperse and he heard the door lock behind him. He doubted that the staff had even noticed his problem.
“Hey Kid!”
The voice that called out was familiar and welcome.
The crowd parted and Clark saw Charlie King and Rufus standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.
Charlie was holding a scuffed pair of hiking boots in one hand even as he grinned.
“I told you it wasn’t a good place,” Charlie said. He held up the boots. “You look like a size eleven.”
For the first time in days Clark felt a sense of relief.
