Dream Smashers (9 page)

“You must be psychic.” His face glows.

“Nah, I saw you pull up. You ready to meet
Grams?” I tug his arm into the house. “She’s waiting in the
kitchen. Hope the smoke doesn’t bother you. I totally told her not
to smoke in the house, but I think she did a little bit ago.”
Thanks once again Grams for stinking up the house.

“Oh, it’s alright. We aren’t staying long,
right?” He hesitates.

I laugh. “It’ll just take a sec. She wants to
say hi.”

Grams steps into the hall before we make it
to the kitchen. Her face scrunches into a smile, making it pucker
up more than normal. With her raspy voice, she says, “Hello Evan.”
And gives him a hug.

Flippin’ double embarrassing.

Then he hugs her back, so maybe not so
embarrassing. “It’s so nice to meet you,” he says. “May I call you
Grams?”

A laugh thick with phlegm escapes her.
Complete mortification runs over me. Times like this, more than
any, I wish she would quit smoking. “Of course, dear.” She holds
him away from her and pats his shoulder—like they’ve known each
other forever.

“Are you two for real? You make me want to
gag.” I crinkle my nose.

Evan looks at me. “Why?”

“Uh, you two are being all mushy and stuff
and you just met. Enough with the niceties. Can we go?”

Evan blushes and then smiles.

Grams touches his arm this time. “Don’t you
listen to her, dear. Grandmas like hugs once in a while.” She
sticks her tongue out at me.

“Whatever. Get your fill now then ‘cause you
know you’re not getting any hugging from me.”

“This is true. So what do you say, Evan? Give
this old lady another hug?”

“No problem.” And he does.

“Okay freaks. Break it up! Evan, let’s go.” I
pull the two apart—which is very weird and creepy.

“Where are you going?” Grams asks.

“Evan volunteers at the Share Home. I said I
would help.”

“You did?” She steps toward me and puts her
hand on my forehead for the second time today. “Are you sure that
you aren’t an imposter? Autumn doesn’t help when she doesn’t have
to.”

Sigh. I grab my jacket off the chair. “Bye
Grams. Have a nice evening.”

“It was nice to meet you Grams,” Evan says
all heartfelt.

“It was a pleasure. Come back anytime.” She
waves.

We walk out the door. “I’m sorry about that,”
I say.

“About what?”

“Never mind.” I climb through the passenger
side door of his car.

“Have you ever been to the Share Home?” he
says about halfway down the road.

“No. Oh! I was totally going to ask you, what
exactly is it? I know it’s a place for bums and stuff, but what do
they do there?”

Evan’s chest rises like an inflating balloon,
and he clenches the steering wheel. Then the balloon deflates and
he relaxes his grip. “I guess some think it’s a place for bums. A
bum, in my mind, is a person who lives off of others because he
doesn’t want to work. I’m sure the Share Home gets a few bums every
so often, but for the most part, they house people who are
misplaced or are in a difficult part of their lives. Homeless
people.” He stops the car at a stop sign. All clear. He continues
down the road. “Some of the people have worked hard their entire
lives, yet, just had some bad luck, got laid-off, fired, in an
accident, or whatever—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like
that. Truly, I thought that bum meant homeless person.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Sometimes I get a little
defensive.” He glances over at me for a moment, letting me know it
really is okay.

“So, what will we be doing there?”

We turn down C Street, which connects to
Broadway. “Today, we’re helping with dinner.” He parks the car on
the street and turns off the ignition. “Ready?”

“Is it hard?”

“Which part?” He turns his body to face me.
“Yes and no. No in that it’s not hard work. Besides, the head
coordinator will tell us what to do: filling food trays, opening
cans, chopping vegetables. Those sorts of things.”

“So what’s the hard part?”

“It’s not easy to see people in such dire
need. To see the sorrow on their faces is sometimes the most
difficult.” He pulls the keys out of the ignition. “But know that
things will get better for people if they want it to. God has a
plan and it is a wonderful plan.” His face lights up. “It’s a great
feeling to be able to help people. It feels even better when you
can make them smile. Don’t be afraid to talk to them and be
positive. They may grumble back, but eventually they will come
around. And if they don’t, so what. At least you tried.”

I nod that I understand him, but am now
freaked out of my mind that he totally just talked out loud to me
about God. Nobody but Grams has ever done that. I’m also freaked
out about seeing so many homeless people.

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.
The anxiety is building already and I’m not even out of the car
yet. What do I say to people like this? Are they going to stink?
Will they have their teeth? Will they be tweakers like my mom?
Grumpy people might make me angry or maybe even cry, if they’re
real mean. Will I be able to hold it in and be nice?

Side by side, we walk up the alley to the
back of the three story building. To anyone who doesn’t know any
better, it looks like a regular apartment building. Made of wood,
painted beige, windows evenly placed every few feet across the
front and side, and a giant outdoor courtyard makes it blend in
with the surrounding buildings. But, the long line stretching out
the front door of people wearing layers of clothing makes it stand
out as a homeless shelter.

A delicious aroma of cooking meat and spices
hits me when we enter the building. Evan leads me down a narrow
hallway to a small room with lockers, a table and chairs. “We can
leave our things in this locker.” He puts his jacket in the locker
at the end of the row. I do the same.

“You haven’t said a word since the car. Are
you feeling okay?” he asks.

“Just nervous I guess.”

“You’ll be just fine. The fact that you care
about how you’ll do means a lot. That’s all that matters.”

“Really? Because I can probably screw things
up.”

“Ha! I’ll tell you some stories later. I’m
sure you can’t screw things up as much as some people have in the
past. We’re just serving food, not performing brain surgery or
anything.” He grabs my arm. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Alice.
She knows everything.”

Alice, a stout woman with rosy cheeks, shakes
my hand. “If you’re nervous about meeting new people,” she tells
me, “I’ll put you back here in the kitchen. You can help me wash
dishes. How’s that sound?”

Fun, just what I want to do—wash dishes. It’s
better than talking to people, though. So much for Rule Number Six.
At least I can follow Rules One, Two and Three. “Sure. I can wash
dishes.”

Alice’s bursting laughter makes me think I
just told her the funniest joke ever. “Follow me then.”

We walk into a large wash room in the back of
the kitchen.

“Now, I don’t expect you to get all these
done in this shift. So don’t worry your little heart out about it.
Dishes are a never ending battle around here. We serve over a
thousand meals every day.”

“Wow.” Stacks and stacks of serving trays,
large steel mixing bowls, baking sheets, and weird metal
contraptions that must have some important purpose litter the
counter spaces surrounding the water basins.

Alice takes several minutes to go over the
procedures of how to wash a dish. The homeless people eat off
cleaner dishes than I do. That’s saying something because Grams
loves a clean dish.

“Any questions?” she asks after bombarding me
with enough dish cleaning tips to fill a basin.

“Nope. I don’t think so.”

“I’ll be right out front.” She points to the
front of the kitchen and walks away, leaving me alone in dirty dish
land.

Right. I brush the bangs off my forehead and
exhale. This is more than I’m up to, but there’s nothing I can do
about it now. It’s not like I can just walk out. I may not be
following my rules like I should be, but I can at least pretend to
be nice. They don’t have tons of employees to do all these dishes.
Someone has to do them eventually.

Not even a dent is made from the twenty-ish
minutes of hard work I’ve put forth. Hot, way hot, moisture clings
to me. I finish loading the tray with clean dishes to be
sterilized, peel off the dish gloves, revealing soggy finger tips,
and wipe the sweat off my face with a paper towel. Every time I get
through one stack, two more are brought back by a scrawny boy who
could use a bottle of shampoo and acne cream. At least the trays
for the sterilizer thing are filled, giving me a break to go find
Alice.

Voices from the dining room echo down the
hallway, sounding like a packed house at a concert or an assembly
in the gym at school. I zig and zag down the hall so not to disturb
any of the busybodies running back and forth with hands full of
stuff—food, dishes, napkins.

Alice hunches over the front of the counter.
Volunteers stand at a buffet style table serving food onto plates
held out by the hungry. The line still reaches out the door. The
entire dining room is packed. Food items are spilled on the counter
top, steam rises from trays being pulled out of the giant ovens,
lettuce and bread are being chopped.

I make my way to the front, trying not to
slip on the slick floors or walk in front of anyone that might be
in a hurry. But they are all in a hurry.

“Alice?” I tap her on the shoulder.

She doesn’t hear me, slops a big spoonful of
mashed potatoes onto a tray and says, “Hey there George. How ya
doin today?”

The man holding the tray grunts and wipes his
mouth hidden beneath a yellow beard, his long fingernails caked
black. “I’ve had better days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. There’s always
tomorrow, ya know.”

George nods his head and continues down the
buffet.

I tap Alice on the shoulder again. She
doesn’t notice me before slapping another gob of potatoes onto a
tray.

“Hi Alice,” a little girl holding the tray
says. “Look. Today I lost this tooth.” Her grin widens to expose a
gaping hole in the front of her teeth.

“Woah! Tamara, that’s great news, darlin. I
didn’t even know you had a loose tooth. You know what that means
don’t ya?”

Tamara nods her head so that her two
pig-tails bounce back and forth. She puts her tray on the table and
jumps up and down. “Yes! It means the tooth fairy is coming!”

“We’ll see.” A woman with dark circles under
her eyes standing next to Tamara pushes the girl’s tray further
down the line. “Now move along, baby. There’s people waiting.” She
gives Alice a sorrowful glance.

When the girl is halfway down the line, Alice
pulls a dollar bill out of her pocket, reaches over the potatoes
and stuffs it into the woman’s hand.

“No. She doesn’t need the tooth fairy.
Really, it’s a childish thing.” The woman shakes her head, pushing
the dollar back.

“Tamara is a child. So, it’s a perfect
situation hon.” Alice serves the woman mashed potatoes.

“Thank you so much—” Her voice cracks. She
moves down the line.

I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. My eyes
feel thick, yet the ache in my cheeks tell me that there must be a
smile on my face. The tooth fairy never forgot a single tooth I
ever lost. It was the most exciting time to wake in the morning to
find a dollar next to my bed. Easiest money I ever made, too. To
think, this little girl may not have had that kind of excitement
for only one single dollar.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Evan
watching me, and probably laughing at me, too.

I swallow the knot in my throat and snap my
head in his direction, fully prepared with a smart-ass remark that
would come to me instantaneously if I were witty like that. He
isn’t laughing at all, but just watching me. A red glow flushes
over his face. He blinks, then turns back to the person waiting for
a dinner roll standing in front of him.

“Alice?” This time she hears me.

“Oh, yes, hon. Are you finished with all
those trays?”

I nod.

“Okay. I’ll show you how to turn that sucker
on.” She turns toward the scrawny kid standing a few feet away,
wiping down a counter. “Hey Jerod. Come slop the taters. I’ll be
right back.”

***

Sweaty face and hair. Not an attractive look
for me, but what I’m dealing with. The steam from the dishwasher
kills me. It’s so hot back here that I can hardly breathe. I need
to get some fresh air. Maybe Alice has a better job for me.

I step into the restroom to freshen up before
seeking her out. The reflection in the mirror isn’t as horrid as I
imagined. Nothing a bit of powder on the nose and a brush through
the hair can’t fix. Thank God.

I squeeze through the wall of odorific people
waiting in line for their dinner. “Hey Alice.” I approach her in
the dining room.

“Oh good. Here, help me with these, will ya?”
She hands me a dish bucket full of cups and dinner trays covered in
food particles.

“Sure. Uh, do you have any other jobs for me?
I mean, I can help out front now if you want.”

“Dishes are getting to ya, huh?”

I nod.

“Most people don’t last as long as you did.
Sure, hon, you can help Evan over there. He’s serving up food.” She
wipes off the table with a damp cloth reeking of bleach. “Just give
that bucket to Jerod, would ya?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“No, thank you. We really do appreciate your
help, darlin’.”

The greasy-hair kid takes the bucket from me
when I walk behind the food buffet.

“Thanks, Jerod.”

“Yup.” That’s the most I’ve heard the kid say
all day. At the end of the buffet, Evan carves a big hunk of ham
under the heat lamps.