I watched him take a seat in the reception area and remove a paperback book from a backpack propped against his chair. He crossed his legs and started reading.
Who is that guy? I asked my receptionist, Jay.
I don’t know, he said. I’ve seen him around but don’t know him.
How long?
A while, I think, Jay said.
The phone rings and Jay answers it.
It’s a volunteer in the kitchen, Tom, Jay said. The coffee machine is broken.
Ask this Michael guy what the hell he knows about coffee machines.
The Hurley Hotel smacks up against a dilapidated convenience store. Old men, older than their years, lounge by the open door of the store, sitting on plastic milk crates and hustling crack to anyone walking by. Shriveled, even older-looking men, most of them longtime dope fiends and drunks, wander inside the store to get cash from the store owner. He receives their disability checks and serves as their payee. He takes a percentage. They buy his wine and cigarettes. They’re usually broke within two weeks and he loans them money. When the next month’s check arrives, he takes his percentage plus what they owe him plus interest and hands out what little remains. Naturally it doesn’t carry them through the month so he loans them more money and the cycle repeats itself. They can’t win. Not a bad racket. I wonder if that’s what John and Mike were ultimately thinking. Use the mail drop as a way to becoming payees.
I go inside the Hurley’s darkened lobby. I ask a man behind a barred window for John’s room. He points upstairs.
Room 302.
Thanks.
I approach the stairs, inhale the stale air of mildewed carpet and gag. It’s the kind of rank odors I’ve smelled in old people’s homes: decay and rot and a languid, sour mugginess that suspends itself among the cobwebs replacing the air. I was used to it at one time but not now. I run up three flights with a hand over my nose, stick my head out of a hall window and suck in a deep breath. Then I knock on John’s door.
Yo, John!
The door opens a hair then widens when John sees me.
Hey, Tom, he says. What are you doing here?
I haven’t seen him since I left Fresh Start, but he looks the same. Short, with a gut, and the two bottom buttons of his shirt open revealing his undershirt. Gray hair brushed back off his forehead. Glasses one size too large balanced loosely on his nose.
I heard about Michael.
John lets me into a small room with two desks. Metal filing cabinets stand behind the desks. I go over to one of the desks and see a tray filled with business cards.
Michael Keys, administrator
Homeless Mail Depot Inc.
I notice small, framed photos of girls John brought into the drop-in center beside a stack of business cards with John’s name and title, CEO. Little notes are scrawled across the photos. Thank you, John, I love you, John, You’re the best, John. He even has one of Vernetta. He sees me looking at it.
I wasn’t part of what Michael was doing, Tom.
Everyone knows you got your freak on with young girls. How young did you go?
Not that young.
Don’t lie to me, John, how young did you go?
Why do you care? You’re not the director anymore.
I stepped toward him. I’ve never kicked anyone’s ass, but I’m willing to learn how on John.
How fucking young did you go, John?
I wasn’t part of it, Tom!
How could you not know?
How could you not?
That stopped me like a red traffic light. I leaned against a desk and kind of slumped in defeat. He had me. I’ve been asking myself the same question. How could I not?
So what happened?
All’s I know is what Jay told me, John says. Michael was at work. The police asked about him. Jay told Michael. He split. Called me from the Greyhound bus station. Said he was out of here. Gone, bing, just like that.
John slides down his chair, takes a box of business cards and throws them across the room.
So much for these, John says.
Michael fixed the coffee machine and kept the copier humming. He had other skills too. He organized the front desk, the place where everyone coming into Fresh Start had to stop and sign in. Threw away spoiled food that had been left in drawers, refilled the pen holders, and put the tokens in a plastic container. When my office assistant fell off the wagon, crack pipe in hand, I hired Michael to replace her.
I leave John’s place and try to put the pieces together. What had I missed about Michael? I remember him telling me he was an army brat. Called his father “sir” long before he joined the military himself. He serviced planes. He married in his twenties. His wife got lonely living on base. North Carolina, he said it was. Fort Bragg? Anyway, she killed herself, I know he told me that. Her death sent him over the edge. He drank. He received a dishonorable discharge. He kept drinking. He hoboed around, eventually landing in San Francisco and Fresh Start.
I didn’t do a background check on Michael or any of my other staff. I didn’t have the budget or the time. Too busy begging for money to keep my doors open to even think about doing something like that. His value to me was all I needed to know. If Michael had a record, so what? Damn near every homeless person I knew had a record. Part of the profile.
