Chapter 1
The cardboard sign read Help Me! Anything Will Do. God Bless U. The words looked as if they were written by a third grader who was just learning penmanship. The man behind the handmade sign had dirty blond hair, beautiful aquamarine-colored eyes with onyx black pupils. I guessed he stood at five-eleven, somewhat emaciated with lanky arms and legs. He had a post-summertime tan and dirt at the corners of his mouth and chin. Thick, grimy-looking scruff covered his cheeks; not really a beard, but close to it. I placed him at thirty-five, no younger. He wore a tattered Army green jacket, ripped jeans covered in grime, and boots that looked as if they had been to Afghanistan and back. Of course, I took him as a veteran, having returned from some distant and dusty land somewhere in the Middle East. One who witnessed suicide bombings, the horrifying deaths of his soldier buddies as they bled-out, and other graphic natures of war that could easily make a civilian like me weep, facing disturbing, graphic, and past events.
I’d seen the man a few times before on the same corners of Lincoln and Dise. Another homeless person in Channing, Pennsylvania. Frequently, I had given him cash, simple hellos, and usually a statement like, “Hang in there, buddy. You take care of yourself.”
He always said the same thing to me, “God bless you,” and gratefully took whatever I had to offer.
His same reply always made me think: ifthere really is a God, why is he homeless and starving?
October rain splashed against the Jeep Wrangler’s windshield as I pressed the brake, came to a slow stop on Lincoln Street, next to the homeless man, and lowered the driver’s side window.
“Lots of rain, isn’t it?” I said to the guy, thumbing through my wallet for a five-dollar bill.
“I love the rain. You have to love everything, in and out, every day in life,” the guy said, keeping his eyes on me, absorbed, thinking things that I couldn’t begin to understand.
I passed him a crisp five through the open window. “What’s your name, anyway?” Thought I’d ask. Why not? Neither of us had anything to lose by being friendly, right?
He took the five from me and stuffed it away in his war jacket. “Kevin.”
Was he telling the truth or not? I didn’t really care either way. “I’m Hatchford Lye. My friends call me Hatch. Nice to meet you, Kevin.”
He raised a hand for a shake: grimy and covered in filth. “Good to meet you.”
I wasn’t above shaking any man’s hand and pushed my right one through the open window.
The handshake lasted a few seconds.
He smiled.
I smiled.
Some asshole behind me in a Lexus beeped for me to go through the intersection and continue my travels. A Botox-injected woman with big hair and too much makeup sat behind her expensive steering wheel. She had pearls around her throat and shiny diamonds in her ears. Probably was running late for her tennis lesson or afternoon affair with her college-aged pool boy who had a handsome face and young muscles in all the rightplaces.
“Gotta run. You take care, Kevin. See you around.”
He said exactly what I suspected he would: “God bless you, Hatch.”
Our handshake ended.
Off I went.
Maybe we would meet again.
Maybe not.
Whatever.
* * * *
Couldn’t get Kevin out my head. Tried to. Just couldn’t. I attempted to get some work done in my home office (a modern kitchen with all the proper ins and outs of a professional chef) for Ravenous, which involved testing recipes. Padington Cookbooks subcontracted Ravenous to test all of the three-hundred and twenty-six recipes created by author/chef Milo Dickerson. Passing recipes would end up in Dickerson’s new cookbook titled Milo’s Kitchen Tales
I currently tested recipe twenty-nine, a rose water tea cookie formula. Most people considered my job easy, but I always disagreed with those verbal rats and haters. I paused at the counter, baffled in silence, inactive and thinking of the homeless man on Lincoln and Dise.
Kevin. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his life’s story? Everyone had a personal story, right? Right. What did his entail?
Curiosity burned within me. Did his days regularly consist of drug use, thievery, and starvation like some homeless? Where did he sleep at night, and with whom? How did the guy survive day in and day out among Channing’s streets and chilly weather? How long did he live among the rats, other homeless, and…
The landline in my kitchen rang; a vintage, fire hydrant red AT&T phone from 1978 in the shape of a box with a plastic wheel and numbers on its front. Surprisingly, the thing still worked. Vintage. So old. I loved it.